Abstract
This chapter reviews the development and deployment of two editions of a course on the mathematics of motion. The course was based on the premise that everyone involved—students, teachers and researchers—should develop a flexible competence with a general, programmable computational medium, Boxer. We illustrate the many ways that Boxer was used in the course, from microworlds and flexible tools to tutorials, from a compact and precise notation in which to define and use fundamental concepts, to providing the basis for extended and thoroughly personalized independent projects. A computational medium has many attractive qualities that help foster a gradual but effective shift in classroom practices to new ones that support more effective and more enjoyable learning of important mathematical and scientific ideas.
This paper is based on an earlier version presentedat the sixthinternational conference on Technologyin MathematicsTeaching,Birmingham, England, September, 1993. The work described was supported, in part, by the National ScienceFoundation, grant numbers NSFMDR 88-50363 and NSF-RED-92-52725. The opinionsexpressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the NSF.
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References
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diSessa, A.A. (1995). The Many Faces of a Computational Medium: Teaching the Mathematics of Motion. In: diSessa, A.A., Hoyles, C., Noss, R., Edwards, L.D. (eds) Computers and Exploratory Learning. NATO ASI Series, vol 146. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57799-4_19
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