From mathematical play to playful math

IF 1 Q3 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Journal of Mathematical Behavior Pub Date : 2025-01-13 DOI:10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101235

Amy B. Ellis , Dru Horne , Anna Bloodworth , Robert Ely

{"title":"From mathematical play to playful math","authors":"Amy B. Ellis , Dru Horne , Anna Bloodworth , Robert Ely","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101235","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mathematical play can support student agency and engagement, offer learning benefits, and foster productive mathematical dispositions. However, the bulk of research on mathematical play investigates the mathematics that emerges in young children’s natural play or in students’ play in informal spaces such as video games. We introduce the term “playful math” to describe the activities and features of an instructional environment that can facilitate mathematical play, and we investigate the efficacy of incorporating playful task design elements into algebra activities. Drawing on two small-group teaching experiments with middle-school students, the first with two participants and the second with three participants, we identified 13 phenomena characterizing students’ mathematical play activity: Competitive Fun, Feeling Proud, Enjoyment, Wonderment, Taking on Authority, Perturbation, Investment, Immersion, Agency, Perseverance, Creative/Unusual, Harder Math, and Laughter. We found that all phenomena except Wonderment and Perturbation occurred more during playful math tasks. We describe two vignettes exemplifying the mathematical play phenomena and discuss implications for task design and instruction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101235"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732312324001123","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Mathematical play can support student agency and engagement, offer learning benefits, and foster productive mathematical dispositions. However, the bulk of research on mathematical play investigates the mathematics that emerges in young children’s natural play or in students’ play in informal spaces such as video games. We introduce the term “playful math” to describe the activities and features of an instructional environment that can facilitate mathematical play, and we investigate the efficacy of incorporating playful task design elements into algebra activities. Drawing on two small-group teaching experiments with middle-school students, the first with two participants and the second with three participants, we identified 13 phenomena characterizing students’ mathematical play activity: Competitive Fun, Feeling Proud, Enjoyment, Wonderment, Taking on Authority, Perturbation, Investment, Immersion, Agency, Perseverance, Creative/Unusual, Harder Math, and Laughter. We found that all phenomena except Wonderment and Perturbation occurred more during playful math tasks. We describe two vignettes exemplifying the mathematical play phenomena and discuss implications for task design and instruction.

查看原文本刊更多论文

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Journal of Mathematical Behavior EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

17.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Mathematical Behavior solicits original research on the learning and teaching of mathematics. We are interested especially in basic research, research that aims to clarify, in detail and depth, how mathematical ideas develop in learners. Over three decades, our experience confirms a founding premise of this journal: that mathematical thinking, hence mathematics learning as a social enterprise, is special. It is special because mathematics is special, both logically and psychologically. Logically, through the way that mathematical ideas and methods have been built, refined and organized for centuries across a range of cultures; and psychologically, through the variety of ways people today, in many walks of life, make sense of mathematics, develop it, make it their own.