Designing GeoGebra Applets to Maximize Student Engagement

Abstract

GeoGebra is a free tool that has the potential to change both how and what we teach in mathematics. Geo-Gebra allows teachers and students to explore various mathematical ideas either through the full applet (https://www.geogebra.org/graphing) or by sharing applets via GeoGebra's Materials site (https://www.geogebra.org/materials/). It has many capabilities, including allowing students to graph functions, draw and change various geometric shapes, solve equations, and complete other algebraic procedures. Although all of these features make Geo-Gebra a potent tool, the full applet can be overwhelming to a novice user and can create distractions for students.

Designing for mathematical play: failure and feedback

“…These designs allow novices to interact with mathematics in a way that is internally mathematically consistent, even when the novices do not yet know the rules that guide their interactions. This is a useful way to support novices in learning to see and engage with mathematics in an expert fashion, with the end goal of the novice discovering the patterns and limits of their engagement, and inferring the underpinning rules of the context (and thus the math) (Ellis et al, 2016;Fernández et al, 2018;Paoletti et al, 2017). The constraints of interaction with the simulation are the same as the constraints of interaction with the mathematics, such that the learners are unable to engage in a mathematically inaccurate fashion with the content.…”