Can You Build It? is an engaging Improve It! task that asks children to construct 3D shapes based on 2D depictions. Students' initial 3D creations often need revision, and as they build and re-build, they develop spatial relationships. This task was implemented in a first-grade class, connected to composing 3D geometric shapes to address the…

This article presents the analysis and discussion of solving geometry tasks by Portuguese Basic Education students, using material from the Poly-UNiverse in Teacher Training Education (PUNTE) project. The teaching experience developed was aimed at testing and disseminating new resources, and innovative and transdisciplinary methodologies in the…

In this paper, I share an activity that reinforces students' understanding of translations, reflections, and rotations via body movement. As a result of this activity, students gain a different perspective compared to previous explorations on paper, communicate mathematics, and visualize transformations as rigid motions on the plane. Furthermore,…

To fulfill the Standards for Mathematical Practice (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers [NGA Center & CCSSO], 2010), it is important for teachers to empower students to critique, revise, and expand their ideas as they solve problems. However, students often face challenges such…

Advancement of self-regulation during complex problem solving and the development of strategical reasoning are among the central educational goals linked to 21st century skills. In this paper we introduce the notion of "Stepped Tasks", which are specially designed in Top-Down structure to achieve these goals in mathematics instruction.…

The authors who are mathematics teacher educators, have found that classifying, composing, and transforming shapes (in particular, rotations and reflections) are areas of difficulty for adults as well as for children. However, these are also some of the most important geometric ideas. They are fundamental topics in the K-8 Geometry and Measurement…

Open-ended mathematical tasks provide great opportunities for students to engage in authentic mathematical practices, such as conjecturing, generalizing, and justifying. Supporting students in open-ended tasks can be challenging. Appropriate scaffolding of a task has been linked to more opportunities for student learning and better student…

Making sense of mathematical concepts and solving mathematical problems may demand different forms of reasoning. These could be either domain-based, such as algebraic, geometric or statistical reasoning, while others are more general such as inductive/deductive reasoning. This article aims at giving visibility to a particular form of reasoning…

With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), many teachers are changing their classroom structure from teacher-directed to student-centered. When the author began designing and using problem-based tasks she saw a drastic improvement in student engagement and problem-solving skills. The author describes the Cake…

The advent of dynamic geometry software has changed the way students draw, construct, and measure by using virtual tools instead of or along with physical tools. Use of technology in general and of dynamic geometry in particular has gained traction in mathematics education, as evidenced in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSI…

How can geometry teachers design great tasks that allow students to make connections among interrelated concepts and expand their geometric reasoning skills? Many curricular materials provide problems for students to apply a single geometric concept. However, these problems do not always promote reasoning opportunities for students, because…

Reorientation tasks, in which disoriented participants attempt to relocate objects using different visual cues, have previously been understood to depend on representing aspects of the global organisation of the space, for example its major axis for judgements based on geometry. Careful analysis of the visual information available for these tasks…

In this paper, difficulties of students in the case of computer-mediated teaching of geometry in a traditional classroom are considered within the framework of "transactional distance", a concept well known in distance education. The main interest of this paper is to record and describe in detail the different forms of…

This paper discusses some of the results of a study carried out with two classes of grade 7 students (11-12 years old); the aim of the project was to design, develop, and test interactive geometry tasks for use in future research into how (or whether) interactive applets help students learn mathematics. The study tasks were developed around the…