When Conceptualization Gets Moving: Exploring How Directed Actions Complement Gestural Insights for Generating Geometric Reasoning

• In Event: AERA Virtual Poster Session 8
  In Poster Session: Motivation and Cognitive Processes

Abstract

We document the phenomenon of gestural insights, which reveal ways nonverbal expressions exhibit students’ mathematical reasoning. Thoughts conveyed through spontaneous gestures often differ from thoughts conveyed solely through speech. Undergraduate students performed directed actions, conceptually relevant body movements designed to foster conceptual understanding, before evaluating a geometric conjecture. Subsequently, students expressed gestural insights (physical expressions of correct conceptual understanding) with their bodies even when they were unable to verbalize their mathematical insights. These gesture-speech mismatches are the focus of two case studies that demonstrate how students recruit body-based resources to support conceptual thinking. We invite educators to consider the benefits of curating curricula and assessments that allow students to express knowledge and conceptual understandings through nonverbal and verbal means.

Authors

• Fangli Xia, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Kelsey E. Schenck, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Michael I. Swart, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Mitchell J. Nathan, University of Wisconsin - Madison