Multimodality and mathematical meaning-making: Blind students’ interactions with Symmetry
Keywords:
Mathematics Education, Visual Impairment, Embodied Cognition, Phenomenology, Symmetry, Geometrical TransformationsAbstract
In this paper, we examine the claim that mathematical cognition is embodied by exploring the co-ordinations of multimodal resources which characterise dialogues between researchers and blind mathematics students. We begin by considering approaches to understanding the relationship between perception and conception in different academic fields, notably philosophy and neuroscience. This leads us to adopt an embodied perspective on mathematical cognition, with roots in the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. We illustrate how the lived-in bodies of the two blind students interviewed impinged upon their mathematical activities as they worked on a series of task involving symmetrical figures and geometrical transformations – and how the practices of the student with no visual memories differed from those of the student who had more recently lost his sight.
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