Serious Games and Mathematical Fluency: A Study from the Gender Perspective in Primary Education

In recent years, serious games offer great opportunities for learning processes at schools. However, it is unclear whether this type of proposals can offer differentiated answers among the students according to their gender. In this context, the aim of this paper is to know the possible differences that occur in primary school classrooms according to gender, with serious games designed for the development of mathematical fluency, and to examine to what extent these games contribute to the overall school performance. We carried out a quasi-experimental study, including pretest and posttest, without control group and with several experimental groups, and the participation of 284 students from first to fourth grade. The results show that the software benefits boys and girls equally, compared to the previously followed methodology that benefited boys. A clear relation between the results achieved and the performance in the overall students’ grades has also been observed. The conclusions show the potential of serious games in school settings, and the opportunity to approach performance differences based on the gender.

Developing Students' Creative Constructs in Mathematics with Problem-Based (PB) and Problem Posing (PP) Tasks

The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the creative constructs of students enrolled in Differential Calculus at the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines. This study was composed of 132 engineering and mathematics education students enrolled in two different semesters. The experimental group was chosen randomly, exposed to the problem-based HALP model teaching approach and problem posing while the control group was taught using Polya’s problem-solving heuristics. Multiple Solution Tasks (MST) test in Calculus was administered to determine their creative constructs which can be measured in terms of their level of mathematical fluency, flexibility and novelty of solutions before and after the experiment. Results indicated that the experimental group exhibited a remarkable improvement of their mathematical fluency and flexibility but still in the developing level when they are required to posit novel solutions to problems as influenced by the problem-based HALP and problem posing activities. Hence, it is recommended that mathematics teachers may utilize these methods to successfully develop students’ mathematical creativity and future research may also be explored on integrating technology and how it can influence developing student’s mathematical creativeness as well as the mediating role of their affective domains and IQ (intelligent quotient).

Nurturing the next generation of mathematicians: the case for mathematical fluency

Twelve months ago, when I was listening to Mike Askew's Presidential Address, my emotions were divided between thoroughly enjoying his presentation and a growing sense of trepidation that it was my turn next! The time seems to have passed very quickly and I'm somewhat nervous, but incredibly honoured, to take the helm as we explore “the case for mathematical fluency”.