This article presents a reflection on a teaching experience involving the use of the Brügner tangram, an interesting but little-known manipulative material. It details an activity conducted as part of an undergraduate mathematics education course for prospective primary school teachers. The main objective of this paper is to present the…

Undergraduate mathematics instructors are called by many current standards to promote prospective teachers' learning of geometry from a transformation perspective, marking a change from previous standards. The novelty of this situation means it is unclear what is involved in undergraduate learning and teaching of geometry from a transformation…

We introduce a ruler and compass activity designed around Islamic Geometry and provide a detailed description of the various components of the activity along with ideas for students exhibitions in both digital and print form. In our experience, this activity helps students to "buy into" actively doing mathematics, making it an ideal…

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,…

As three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is fast becoming more affordable and accessible, calculus instructors can now consider using 3D printing and 3D printed models to actively engage students in core concepts relating to objects in R[superscript 3]. This article describes three lessons for a multivariable calculus class in which students…

This article presents four inquiry-based learning activities developed for a liberal arts math course. The activities cover four topics: the Pythagorean theorem, interest theory, optimization, and the Monty Hall problem. Each activity consists of a dialogue, with a theme and characters related to the topic, and a manipulative, that allow students…

This article presents a fun activity of generating a double-minded fractal image for a linear algebra class once the idea of rotation and scaling matrices are introduced. In particular the fractal flip-flops between two words, depending on the level at which the image is viewed. (Contains 5 figures.)

In this article we describe a hands-on activity for a liberal arts mathematics course that focuses on the beauty and unity of mathematics. The purpose of the activity is to tie together several topics in the context of a "real-world" situation. These topics include: fractals, non-Euclidean geometry, symmetry, and Platonic solids. This activity…