ERIC Number: ED521031
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Jul
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Three Primary School Students' Cognition about 3D Rotation in a Virtual Reality Learning Environment
Yeh, Andy
Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Jul 3-7, 2010)
This paper reports on three primary school students' explorations of 3D rotation in a virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) named VRMath. When asked to investigate if you would face the same direction when you turn right 45 degrees first then roll up 45 degrees, or when you roll up 45 degrees first then turn right 45 degrees, the students found that the different order of the two turns ended up with different directions in the VRLE. This was contrary to the students' prior predictions based on using pen, paper and body movements. The findings of this study showed the difficulty young children have in perceiving and understanding the non-commutative nature of 3D rotation and the power of the computational VRLE in giving students experiences that they rarely have in real life with 3D manipulations and 3D mental movements. (Contains 6 figures.) [For the complete proceedings, "Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Australia, July 3-7, 2010)," see ED520764.]
Descriptors: Mathematics Education, Computer Simulation, Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students, Elementary School Mathematics, Mathematical Concepts, Geometric Concepts, Motion, Educational Technology, Computer Uses in Education, Concept Formation
Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia. GPO Box 2747, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia. Tel: +61-8-8363-0288; Fax: +61-8-8362-9288; e-mail: sales@merga.net.au; Web site: http://www.merga.net.au/
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A