How Students Communicate Mathematical Ideas: An Examination of Multimodal Writing Using Digital Technologies

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a study designed to examine the influence of multimodal writing on the communication of mathematical ideas. Elementary school students (ages 8-13) were required to write mathematics notes using two digital writing technologies, a personal digital notepad and a social mathematics blog, in the context of a formal intervention. Fortytwo students participated, across three schools. The study showed that when students wrote notes that could be assessed for correctness, their answers were predominately right, indicating that mathematical sense-making was taking place. It also showed that the digital notepad and blog were used differently and that the type of technology influences the writing content. Moreover, students' mathematical writing were understandable by their peers and students collaboratively explored solutions. Younger students were more likely to draw pictures to represent their ideas than older students. These findings show that writing can help students acquire mathematical understanding, and suggest that multimodal writing may help them surmount difficulties often associated with learning math. Although this research demonstrated that writing can help teachers gain an awareness of their students' mathematical understanding, it also revealed that writing environments need to be monitored and students require close guidance to bring about systematic improvement.

Mathematical Communication Process of Junior High School Students in Solving Problems based on APOS Theory

“…It showed that the student coordinated in written form by mathematical expression. It is in line with Freeman, Higgins, & Horney (2016) that written mathematics communication could facilitate students with low level to improve their concepts.…”

Effect of Cooperative Learning Supported by Reflective Thinking Activities on Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

“…Previous studies have supported this conclusion. In the studies, it was stated that students explain their reasoning, correctness of solutions, thinking processes by writing and they made reflections about mathematics learning process in mathematics courses (Freeman et al, 2016;Inoue & Buczynski, 2011). Suhaimi et al (2016) stated that students who write journal in mathematics courses organize their thoughts, thus journal writing improves communication and critical thinking skills of the students.…”

“…One of the strategies used in the development of RT skills is "Writing". Writing is an effective tool for students to express, explore, organize, and reflect ideas about mathematical content and process (Freeman, Higgins & Horney, 2016;Inoue & Buczynski, 2011;Suhaimi, Shahrill, Tengah & Abbas, 2016). With "Journal writing", which is one of the writing activities, students can reflect on their experiences, points they are strong or weak, important points of an event, how they deal with a power situation, and their feelings (Farrah, 2012;Guce, 2017Guce, , 2018Mitchell & Coltrinari, 2001).…”

“…When the literature is examined, it is seen that there are studies in which different strategies are applied in order to improve RT skills of students in the field of mathematics education (Agustan et al, 2016;Freeman et al, 2016;Guce, 2017;Kramarski et al, 2013;McNaught, 2010;Suhaimi et al, 2016). However, in mathematics education in Turkey, there is a limited number of studies on improving the skills of RT (Kizilkaya, 2009).…”

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