Abstract/Description:
We describe a framework for characterizing students’ graphical reasoning, focusing on providing an empirically-based list of students’ graphical resources. The graphical forms framework builds on the knowledge-in-pieces perspective of cognitive structure to describe the intuitive ideas, called “graphical forms”, that are activated and used to interpret and construct graphs. As part of the framing for this work, we provide theoretical clarity for what constitutes a graphical form. Based on data involving pairs of students interpreting and constructing graphs we present a list of empirically documented graphical forms, and organize them according to similarity. We end with implications regarding graphical forms’ utility in understanding how students construct graphical meanings and how instructors can support students in graphical reasoning.
Presenters:
Jon-Marc Rodriquez, University of Iowa and Steven Jones, Brigham Young University