When Counting Cubes Is Not Enough: Exploring Volume Measurement Dynamically

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

In this poster presentation, I describe my efforts for designing tasks for DYME-V and present data from a design experiment (Cobb, Confrey, DiSessa, Lehrer & Schauble, 2003) with one pair of fifth grade students. For the task design, I use the dynamic feature of extrusion and tracing of Geogebra to enable students to generate a three-dimensional object by extruding a two-dimensional surface and coordinate the measurements involved. My results suggest that the approach of dynamic measurement has the potential to engage students in dynamic tasks that foster the development of volume as a continuous construct. Students’ understanding of volume developed from perceiving volume as an object describing its size, to volume as a generation, to ultimately reasoning about volume as base times height. Moving forward I plan to conduct more design experiments for exploring students’ reasoning of DYME-V, especially the progression of their reasoning as they interact with the tasks, and examine patterns and difference between different pairs of students.

Author

• Nicole Panorkou, Montclair State University