Asee peer logo

Classroom Games and Activities that Motivate Exploration of Foundational Understandings of Mathematics Concepts while Inadvertently Scaffolding Computational Thinking and Engineered Design

Download Paper |

Conference

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

San Antonio, Texas

Publication Date

June 10, 2012

Start Date

June 10, 2012

End Date

June 13, 2012

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Curriculum Exchange II

Tagged Division

K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

Page Count

14

Page Numbers

25.315.1 - 25.315.14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--21073

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/21073

Download Count

694

Request a correction

Paper Authors

author page

Sharie Kranz Coronado High School

biography

Catherine Tabor El Paso ISD

visit author page

Catherine Tabor holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics, and a master's degree in physics education. She is a mathematics educator in El Paso, Texas.

visit author page

biography

Art Duval University of Texas, El Paso

visit author page

Art Duval is a professor of mathematical sciences at the University of Texas, El Paso.

visit author page

biography

Kien H. Lim University of Texas, El Paso

visit author page

Kien H. Lim is a mathematics educator at UTEP. His research interests are on students’ problem-solving disposition (impulsive versus analytic) and instructional strategies to advance their ways of thinking (the use of prediction items and classroom voting with clicker technology; the use of mathematical tasks to provoke students’ intellectual need for the concepts they are expected to learn). He is also involved in the iMPaCT-STEM project to investigate the use of programming activities to foster student learning of foundational algebraic concepts.

visit author page

author page

Amy Elizabeth Wagler University of Texas, El Paso

biography

Eric A. Freudenthal University of Texas, El Paso

visit author page

Eric Freudenthal is an Associate Professor of computer science at the University of Texas, El Paso.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

iMPaCT-STEM: games & activities that motivate exploration of foundational algebra concepts—while inadvertently scaffolding computational thinking and engineered designStudy of quantitative science and engineering requires a conceptual understanding of mathematics.iMPaCT-STEM consists of threaded sequences of games and project-based-learning activities beingdesigned for infusion within conventional high school and college mathematics courses. These activitiesare intended to build these understandings while simultaneously introducing them to programming andengineered design.iMPaCT-STEM is an approximate acronym for Media-Propelled Computational Thinking for STEMClassrooms, which fairly reflects our ambitions – that engagement with graphical programmingchallenges that focus student attention towards exploring mathematics principles and the modeling ofsimple kinematics will propel students towards exploration of science, computational thinking andengineered design.While iMPaCT-STEM is a work-in-progress, there is sufficient teaching material and evidence of itseffectiveness to motivate further efforts to replicate, extend, and more deeply examine its pedagogy. Apilot study during the 2010-2011 academic year indicated dramatic improvements in learning outcomesand student engagement. A remarkable outcome of this pilot study is that one quarter of high schoolstudents attending mathematics classes that included iMPaCT-STEM activities voluntarily elected toattend an elective programming class the next semester – with demographics and gender distributionsapproximating the school population.iMPaCT-STEM’s first substantial dissemination is to Algebra-1 classrooms in two El Paso high schoolsduring the 2011-2012 academic year and will affect the education of approximately one thousandstudents.This paper describes iMPaCT-STEM’s pedagogy project objectives, methods and underlying theory inthe context of an overview of iMPaCT-STEM activities for Algebra-1 classrooms. This paper alsodescribes the project’s evaluation strategy and early results from this dissemination.

Kranz, S., & Tabor, C., & Duval, A., & Lim, K. H., & Wagler, A. E., & Freudenthal, E. A. (2012, June), Classroom Games and Activities that Motivate Exploration of Foundational Understandings of Mathematics Concepts while Inadvertently Scaffolding Computational Thinking and Engineered Design Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21073

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015