Breakout Room #1

Steven Khan (Brock University)

After Plantations’ Precarities: Curating Math thematic Curriculum Plots in Initial Teacher Education for Multispecies’ Flourishing and a Freedom-yet-to-come

Plantations and plots co-exist. The latter is necessary for the continuance of the former. Plots are sites of cultural survival, resistances, and emergences but they are places of unfreedom. They contribute to the “Long Emancipation” of enslaved humans and other species and signal towards the many freedoms-yet-to-come. Our research shares findings from completed work with pre-service teachers in Winter 2020 during an optional ‘issues’ course framed as “Mathematics for Multispecies’ Flourishing.” Our goal is to learn ways to value the vulnerability of the multispecies world through passionate immersion and to use mathematics education towards ends of promoting its and our own (human) flourishing through taking on relationships of curatorial care.

Breakout Room #2

Canan Güneş (Simon Fraser University)

Merging the Meanings

This case study explored how a Turkish-speaking child made sense of multiplication through entangled interactions with colloquial language, a number fable, and an iPad application called TouchTimes whose elements are aligned with the colloquial uses of the term multiplication. Enactivism and the theory of semiotic mediation framed this study. The data was created through the video-recordings of two 2nd grade mathematics lessons. The findings show that the student’s interaction with TouchTimes transcended the present moment and merged with a previous lesson suggesting a spatial understanding of multiplication which is different than the colloquial meaning of the term would prompt.

Breakout Room #3

Lynn McGarvey (University of Alberta); Jennifer Thom (University of Victoria); Brynn Merkosky (University of Alberta); Nicole Lineham (University of Victoria)

Projective Geometry within a Drawing Task: Children’s Spatial Reasoning as Dimension Shifting

Drawing plays an important role in promoting geometric and spatial awareness. In this research report, we present the findings of a projective geometry task based on perspective drawing. Students were led through a task in which they compared the geometric properties of a 2D projection of a building with the properties of the building in ‘real life.’ As the children perceptually shifted back and forth between the 2D projection and real life object, they utilized many emergent spatial actions. This report is part of a larger study in which we ask, “What spatial reasoning processes do children utilize when they engage in projective geometry tasks?”