Learning and Leading - September/October 2012

Simulations engage students who are typically disengaged in mathematics classrooms, encourage collaboration, allow for differentiation of instruction, and stimulate authentic learning.

problems to access the next character helped focus more attention on the content, technology and management concerns shifted the focus away from the mathematics learning. Content must remain the focus for any AR learning simulation. We suggest developing easier content tasks for students to work with initially to allow teachers and students to get comfortable with the simulation before delving into more complex content.

Despite the inevitable difficulties,
we believe that AR is well worth the
trouble. We have found that these
simulations engage students who are
typically disengaged in mathematics
classrooms, encourage collaboration,
allow for differentiation of instruction,
and stimulate authentic learning. The
teachers we worked with also appreci-
ated that students were learning to col-
laborate and use evidence to support
their thinking and were able to trans-
fer their proportional reasoning skills
to standardized testing contexts. Given
that the simulations are easy to create
and that advancements in technology
are making it even easier as time goes
by, it seems that AR is an educational
approach whose time has come.

—Rebecca Mitchell is an assis- tant professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College in Massachusetts, USA. Her work focuses on helping teachers acquire knowledge and use tools to teach mathematics with high instructional quality.

—Dennis DeBay is a doctoral student in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. His research interests are re- lated to technological learning environments as a mediating factor between teaching and learning mathematics.