William Cope
Abylai Aidarov
Lavine LimaMultimodal Literacies MOOC’s Updates
Math pedagogical practice for spatial, tactile, and gestural meanings - Optional Peer Reviewed Update # 5
Make an update of 300 words or more: Describe and analyze a pedagogical practice that locates linguistic meanings in the context of spatial, tactile, or gestural meanings.
Being a math teacher, I would like to present this content from math pedagogical practice perspective. While teaching area and volume, I have to tell students that area is on the surface and volume is what is inside the box. I have to use prepositions to ascertain this. I have to refer to the location of the concepts (area, volume) that are being taught by me. The person doing the math problem to compute area or volume is the one who is in relationship with the objects. The area could be the area of a rectangular paddy field in my village or volume of the water tank in the school. It has a context and the purpose is to measure the area or volume so that we can cultivate crops or store water for the school.
In math, while reaching numbers many a times we use multisensory approach as shown in the figure here. When we touch there is a reference to something, a relationship is established and there is will be situation for example (ratio of what is to what in a situation and context). The intend is to learn that particular math topic.
Braille math and low vision related math curriculum:
Gestural refers to a name, place or thing (noun). As a teacher, I can use gestures with my hands wide open to show the area or use my pointed finger showing volume of a box by putting my finger inside the box.. Some gestures may not have meaning while speaking but many do strengthen the content of the speech. Gestures have their situations, context and intend too. Through gestures we strongly underline the relationship occurring at the moment - Dialogue. ASL – American Sign Language has a website that has signs for all possible math terminology. For example, if you search “Square root” (Texas sign language for math) you will get the video of a person doing the sign language for square root. It must be learnt both by impaired as well normal students. It must be learnt by all teachers and special education teachers.
