ICMI-EARCOME8

Taipei, Taiwan, May 7-11, 2018

Proceedings
EARCOME8
TAIWAN / 2018
of the 8th ICMI-East Asia Regional
Conference on Mathematics Education

Editor: Feng-Jui Hsieh

Volume 2

Organizers

Taiwan Association for

Mathematics Education

Department of Mathematics
National Taiwan Normal
University

Shi-da Institute for

Mathematics Education
 Flexibility in Mathematics Education
Taipei, Taiwan May 7-11, 2018

Cite as:
Hsieh, F.-J. (Ed.), (2018). Proceedings of the 8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference
on Mathematics Education, Vol 2, Taipei, Taiwan: EARCOME.

Website: http://earcome8.math.ntnu.edu.tw

The proceedings are also available online

Copyrights© 2018 left to the authors

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-986-05-5784-8

Cover design: Chia-Hsin Lin

PREFACE

EARCOME is an ICMI regional conference with an aim to help the growth of research
communities in mathematics education for countries in and nearby the East Asian region.
EARCOME 8 convenes in Taipei, Taiwan from May 7 to May 11 in 2018. This conference
welcomes participants not only from the East Asian region but also from around the globe,
especially scholars who have interests in finding collaborative partners or special works to
share with East Asian scholars. On behalf of the conference Local Organizing Committee I
am very excited to welcome you to Taipei. More than 350 people will attend the conference,
representing about 40 countries.
EARCOME 8 is a collaborative effort of teams from the Department of Mathematics of
National Taiwan Normal University, the Taiwan Association for Mathematics Education,
and the Shi-Da Institute for Mathematics Education. The conference is possible only with
the time and energy put in by three committees: the International Program Committee (IPC),
the Advisory Committee (AC), and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). I acknowledge
the enormous efforts of these committees. I especially address my thanks to the conference
secretary, Ms. Shiau-Huei Li. Without of her, EARCOME 8 will not be possible. She has
devoted all her time to bringing the conference to practice. I especially want to give my
special thanks to each of you. Thank you for contributing to the conference and making
your journey to EARCOME8 in Taipei.
“Flexibility in Mathematics Education” has been chosen as the theme of the conference. The
completion of the EARCOME 8 conference proceedings shows a best example of flexibility
in mathematics education. Reviewers, and many authors, from various countries who
worked on flexibility reviewed one another’s papers with a mind of flexibility. The decision
group implemented a sense of flexibility to accept not only research papers, but also those
embodied descriptive, analytic, or persuasive natures, if they contained significant
educational viewpoints. Authors whose papers were accepted to publish in the conference
proceedings were allowed to select either to publish the abstracts only or the full papers as
you might see in the conference proceedings.
Papers in the EARCOME 8 proceedings deliberate their points relating to flexibilities in
mathematics education, explicitly or implicitly from different dimensions in various
contexts. Some attempted to conceptualize flexibility in mathematics education and to
clarify the attributes, connotation, and denotation of it. Others address it by the types, phases,
degrees, and ranges. Flexibility in mathematics education has also been allied to
epistemology, philology, psychology, science, and technology. There are terms often
associated with it such as creativity, multiplicity, variation, connection, thinking,
changeable, transferable, and adaptation in the conference proceedings.

I-II EARCOME 8—2018

Papers focused on the student’s and the teacher’s sides embrace the areas of learning
materials (such as using comics in textbooks), activities (in and out of the classroom),
problem solving (using alternative ways or in different formats), evaluation (measuring
flexible competences), modelling (integrating and switching among different domains), and
curriculum (reforming and transforming). Papers focused on the teacher education side
consider lesson plans, teaching competences, and professional development in many areas
such as in modelling or in ICT activities.
The conference proceedings includes some renowned educational trends, such as the STEM
and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) curriculums and
the Big Data concept; these enterprises inherit a requirement of flexibility in the design,
generation, or construction processes, and in the collaborative nature of these processes. The
proceedings also includes some initiative educational trends, such as the MGA
(mathematics grounding activities) which implements investigation, creation, and
gamification in the levels of learners, teachers and teacher educators at the outside and
inside of school settings.
The Local Organizing Committee of ICMI-EARCOME 8 brought the concept of flexibility
in mathematics education to front by choosing it as the theme of the conference. The
reasons for the choice are posted in the conference website: “Flexibility is highly related to
creativity, multiplicity, and adaptation. In the current era, rapid changes in economy,
environment and society have been facilitated by the rapid development of technology and
engineering. Flexibility in mathematical thinking, problem solving, teaching methods,
evaluation, teacher education and mathematics education research is a key to empowering
learners, teachers, educators and researchers to tackle the complexity and uncertainty, and to
giving them the capacity and motive to change in the innovative era.” The conference ended
up with a fruitful production about flexibility in mathematics education that you can find by
reading through the two volumes of this conference proceedings.
I thank all our colleagues and friends who chose to present their work and send their papers
for the proceedings to materialize. I commend the invited speakers for their enthusiasm in
sharing their ideas, even if it meant they took the extra time to write when they could have
easily declined the request to do so. I am also grateful to the TSG presenters who eagerly
sent their full paper for review. Blind reviews were implemented; I thank all the reviewes,
without of them, the book will not be able to complete in this quality.
I hope you take the chance to read each and every paper. I assure you that they are worth
your time.

ICMI-EARCOME 8 Conference Chair

EARCOME 8—2018 I-III

 Table of Contents
Volume 2
PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................... II

TOPIC STUDY GROUPS

MATHEMATICS LEARNING STRATEGIES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ....................... 1

Bishnu Khanal
SOLVING WORD PROBLEMS OF DIVISION WITH DECIMAL FRACTIONS: FOCUS ON
RELATIONSHIP OF PROPORTIONAL REASONING.............................................................................. 8
Tadayuki Kishimoto
DEDUCTIVE REASONING ABILITY OF PROSPECTIVE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN
BASIC MATHEMATICS AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS COURSES...........................................18
Yaya S. Kusumah
MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH ARTS, TECHNOLOGY AND ROBOTICS: MULTI-
AND TRANSDISCPILINARY STEAM APPROACHES ..........................................................................28
Zsolt Lavicza, Kristof Fenyvesi, Diego Lieban, Hogul Park, Markus Hohenwarter, Jose Diego
Mantecon, Theodosia Prodromou
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD STATISTICS IN SOUTH KOREA ...........30
Bongju Lee, Xiaohui Wang, Hyung Won Kim
DESIGNING PRACTICE EXAMPLES TO SUPPORT MATHEMATICS REASONING ................38
Leong Yew Hoong, Cheng Lu Pien, Toh Wei Yeng Karen
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING SKILLS OF SECONDARY STUDENTS ......................................46
Kwan Eu Leong
CLASSICAL GEOMETRIC CONSTRUCTION MEETS 3D PRINTING.............................................47
Hua-lun Li
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND CONNECTED MATHEMATICS IDEAS FOR
PRE-SERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS ............................................................................................57
Su Liang
STUDY ON THE DESIGN AND PROPERTIES OF AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ITEMS:
FOCUSING ON POLYNOMIAL FACTORIZATION.................................................................................63
Hyeongjun Lim, Yun Joo Yoo
MODIFIED RECIPROCAL TEACHING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY IN
MATHEMATICS ..................................................................................................................................................70
Rachel Dorcas A. Lim, Ma. Nympha Beltran - Joaquin
THE NORMS OF ARGUMENTATION IN A PRIMARY CLASSROOM .............................................83
Pi-Jen Lin
ARE DRAWINGS BETTER THAN QUESTIONNAIRES? COMPARING TWO METHODS OF
STUDYING MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ BELIEFS .............................................................................93
Yung-Chi Lin

I-IV EARCOME 8—2018

CLUSTERING ASSESSMENT ON STATISTICAL LITERACY PERFORMANCE OF
PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ................................................................................................................101
Yuan-Horng Lin, Sz-Pei Wu
ANALYSIS OF PROBLEM POSING PERFORMANCE OF A GIFTED STUDENT IN THE
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ...............................................................................................................................103
Shiang-Tung Liu, Chi-Jen Huang, Ming-Chung Chen
WHAT ARE IMPORTANT FOR BEING A COMPETENT OR EXPERT MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS IN MAINLAND CHINA: PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATORS ................112
Xiaoli Lu, Jiansheng Bao
A MID-CAREER TEACHER’S LEARNING FROM STUDENTS’ THINKING AND
ACTIONS: A LESSON STUDY.....................................................................................................................114
Tomohiko Makino, Keiko Hino
VIETNAMESE PROSPECTIVE MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’ MATHEMATICAL
KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING THE DERIVATIVE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS .................................................................................................124
Tran Kiem Minh, Le Thi Bach Lien
STRENGTHS OF “LESSON DESIGNING MAP”: FROM AN ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTIONS
WRITTEN BY PRESERVICE TEACHERS WHO LEARNED HOW TO DRAW THE MAP .......134
Tadashi Misono, Yuki Watanabe
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM: THE CASE OF THE
TRIANGLE SUM THEOREM .......................................................................................................................140
Shogo Murata
THE EFFECT OF DAILY-TIME PRESSURED TEST ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT
AND FLUID INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................148
Wenie L. Nahial, Laila S. Lomibao, Charita A. Luna
A CROSS-TOOLS PIRIE-KIEREN MODEL FOR VISUALIZING THE PROCESS OF
MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING .....................................................................................................154
Go Nakamura, Masataka Koyama
USING THE CO-CONSTRUCTION APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF
MATHEMATICS LEARNING THROUGH PLAY IN JAPANESE PRESCHOOLS: A CASE
STUDY .................................................................................................................................................................166
Nagisa Nakawa
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ COVARIATIONAL REASONING IN INTERPRETING
DYNAMIC SITUATIONS ...............................................................................................................................174
Duyen Thi Nguyen, Nhung Thi Dang, An Thi Tan Nguyen, Nhu Thi Quynh Nguyen, Dung
Tran
ENJOYABLE LESSONS .................................................................................................................................182
Tdashi Nomachi, Hisakazu Katou
THE CASE METHOD ON PROSPECTIVE ARITHMETIC TEACHER'S VIEW OF
ASSESSMENT IN ACTION ...........................................................................................................................196
Yutaka Ohara

EARCOME 8—2018 I-V

THE INVESTIGATION OF THAI SECONDARY STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF
INFINITY ............................................................................................................................................................204
Cherdsak Pakdeeviroch, Artorn Nokkaew, Wararat Wongkia
INTERVIEWS REVEAL YEAR 8 STUDENTS’ STRUGGLE TO GENERALISE SOLUTIONS
TO REVERSE FRACTION TASKS ..............................................................................................................215
Catherine Pearn, Max Stephens, Robyn Pierce
ERROR ANALYSIS WITH ACTION-PROCESS-OBJECT-SCHEMA (APOS) THEORY AND
LEARNING STYLE: THEIR EFFECTS ON STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICS
PERFORMANCE ..............................................................................................................................................227
Rejohn M. Peligro, Laila S. Lomibao, Charita A. Luna
WORD PROBLEM DIFFICULTY AND ITS TREATMENT USING ETHNOMATHEMATICS
APPROACH ........................................................................................................................................................228
Nur Robiah Nofikusumawati Peni
RELATING FLEXIBILITY IN CONCEPT IMAGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF
LIMITS AND DERIVATIVES ........................................................................................................................239
Robyn Reaburn, Greg Oates, Kumudini Dharmadasa, Michael Brideson
IMPACT OF EDUCATION REFORM INTO MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN
CAMBODIA SINCE 2014 ...............................................................................................................................248
Chan Roath
WHICH ASSESSMENT MATTERS? THE IMPACT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ON
STUDENTS’ SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT PERFORMANCE IN INTEGRAL CALCULUS ....249
Dennis B. Roble, Charita A. Luna
TAILORING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS TO STUDENTS’ CONTEXTS USING
CONTEXTUAL MATHEMATICS STORIES .............................................................................................256
Cherel Marrie A. Romulo, Catherine P. Vistro-Yu
LENGTH MEASUREMENT AND ESTIMATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL – A COMPARISON
OF THE CURRICULA OF TAIWAN AND GERMANY .........................................................................269
Silke Ruwisch, Hsin-Mei E. Huang
ONLINE HOMEWORK IN A FINANCE COURSE: INFLUENCE ON STUDENTS’
PERFORMANCE ..............................................................................................................................................281
Celina P. Sarmiento, Maricar S. Prudente, Minie Rose C. Lapinid
LOGARITHMS: TEACHING MATERIALS FOR THE FUTURE AND AN INTRODUCTION TO
POWER FUNCTIONS......................................................................................................................................283
Hajime Sato
TRACKING THE STUDENTS’ MOVEMENTS BETWEEN DECIMAL CODES: THE ISSUE OF
REGRESSION ....................................................................................................................................................296
Masitah Shahrill
IDENTIFYING A HYPOTHETICAL LEARNING TRAJECTORY FOR CARTESIAN
COORDINATE SYSTEM BASED ON A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CURRICULUM
STANDARDS .....................................................................................................................................................297
Ming-Yu Shao, Jia-Lu Wang

I-VI EARCOME 8—2018

COMPARISON OF STUDENTS’ VALUES AND MATHEMATICAL MODELS IN THE
PROCESS OF SOLVING A SOCIALLY OPEN- ENDED PROBLEM: FOCUSING ON A
COMPARISON BETWEEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS ......................................................................................................................................298
Isao Shimada ,Takuya Baba
STUDENTS’ EXPLANATIONS ABOUT THE AREA PROBLEM IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:
ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................................306
Taketo Shimomura, Yutaka Kondo
REVIEWING THE EFFECTS IN THE PRACTICE OF LESSON STUDY: OPPORTUNITIES
FOR TEACHING DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................313
Sommay Shingphachanh
AN INNOVATIVE TRAINING MODEL FOR SUPPORTING IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’
UNDERSTANDING ON PROBLEM-SOLVING KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING ......................321
Tatag Yuli Eko Siswono, Ahmad Wachidul Kohar, Sugi Hartono, Abdul Haris Rosyidi
GRADE FIVE PUPILS’ READINESS TO WORK WITH UNKNOWN..............................................333
Piriya Somasundram, Sharifah Norul Akmar Bt Syed Zamri,Leong Kwan Eu
FLEXIBILITY IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: AN ENACTIVISTIC AND METAPHORIC
PERSPECTIVE. .................................................................................................................................................341
Jorge Soto-Andrade, May Garces-Ocares, Alexandra Yañez-Aburto
DEVELOPING ALGORITHMIC THINKING IN THE PRIMARY AND JUNIOR
SECONDARY YEARS .....................................................................................................................................350
Max Stephens
MEASURING THE MATHEMATICAL CREATIVITY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS IN
SHANGHAI BY OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS ..........................................................................................363
Sun Siyu
GEOMETRICAL REASONING WITH DYNAMIC MATHEMATICAL SOFTWARE: METHOD
BY GEROLAMO CARDANO WITH GEOGEBRA AND ITS EXPLANATIONS WITH
CODES .................................................................................................................................................................370
Taiki Suzuki, Akio Matsuzaki
AIRPLANES AND MATHEMATICS ...........................................................................................................379
Masahiro Takizawa
TEACHING MATHEMATICS WITH QUESTION-CHAIN IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ...........381
Hengjun Tang, Bifen Chen, Weizhong Zhang, Hazel Tan, Wee Tiong Seah
FACTORS AFFECTING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICAL REASONING
ABILITIES ..........................................................................................................................................................391
Kiew Nee Tee, Kwan Eu Leong, Suzieleez Syrene Abdul Rahim
ILLUSTRATING A MODEL OF TASK-BASED LEARNING FOR INSTRUCTOR
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................392
JenqJong Tsay, Shandy Hauk, Billy Jackson
OF LANGUAGE AND MATHEMATICS: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE USE
OF PUTONGHUA AND MINNANHUA IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS .....................................405
Jacqueline Villamora, Ryan Li Fong,Cassandra Lim, Aileen Sy, Lester Hao, Dory Poa

EARCOME 8—2018 I-VII

A STUDY OF GRADE 10 INDONESIAN MATHEMATICS TEXTBOOKS .....................................413
Teresa Oktaviani Wijaya, Berinderjeet Kaur
DEVELOPING IN-SERVICE MATHEMATICS TEACHER PRACTICE THROUGH A
COLLABORATIVE AND REFLECTIVE APPROACH ..........................................................................425
Wong Lai Fong, Berinderjeet Kaur
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT ADAPTIVE METHODS ON MATH ACHIEVEMENT, COGNITIVE
LOAD AND TIME ALLOCATION IN AN EXAMPLE-BASED LEARNING SYSTEM ...............436
Huei-min Wu, Hui-chuan Huang, Chi-Jen Lin, Yu-Kai Chu
WHETHER HIGH SCHOOL MATH CURRICULUM HELP UNDERSTAND COLLEGE MATH
FOCUSING ON MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND REASONING COMPETENCIES ............445
Pei-Chen Wu, Feng-Jui Hsieh
REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR COMPLETELY FLIPPED CLASSROOM ...............................446
Ching-Ching Yang, Yuh-Yih Chen, Tzu-Chun Lin
THE TENSION BETWEEN VISION AND CONTEXT IN PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITIES ................................................................................................................................................447
Romina Ann Yap
UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ TYPOLOGY OF MATH ANXIETY AND ITS ERRORS IN
SIMPLIFYING POLYNOMIAL EXPRESSIONS......................................................................................454
Dennis Lee Jarvis B. Ybañez, Angela Fatima H. Guzon, Maria Alva Q. Aberin
AIDS AND OBSTACLES IN THE USE OF ICT - TWO SURVEYS AMONGST MCM USERS .463
Iwan Gurjanow, Matthias Ludwig, Joerg Zender
ENHANCING STUDENTS’ STRATEGY FLEXIBILITY IN LEARNING MATHEMATICS
THROUGH SCHOOL-BASED PICTURE BOOKS .................................................................................472
Zhang Qiaoping, Yeung Wing Ying, Cheung Shuk Ping
MEASURING PRIMARY MATHEMATICS TEACHER’S PROFESSIONAL
COMPETENCIES IN MAINLAND OF CHINA .......................................................................................484
Qinqiong Zhang, Xiaoying Chen
GENDER EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING: THE CASE OF SHANGHAI ....................486
Yan Zhu, Jiansheng Bao

SPECIAL SHARING GROUPS

WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH

JOURNALS (I) ...................................................................................................................................................489
Merrilyn Goos, Luis Radford
WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION RESEARCH
JOURNALS (II) ..................................................................................................................................................490
Merrilyn Goos, Luis Radford
PRACTICE AND RESEARCH ON ENGLAND-SHANGHAI MATHEMATICS TEACHER
EXCHANGE PROGRAMME .........................................................................................................................491
Huang Xingfeng, Lin Xumai, Zhang Rongxi, Zhu Youqin

I-VIII EARCOME 8—2018

DESIGNING AND EVALUATING TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WORKSHOPS: THE CASE OF JUST-DO-MATH PROGRAM .............................................................492
Yuan-Shun Lee, Ying-Hao Cheng, Jian-Cheng Chen
DOING MATH MODELLING OUTDOORS – A SPECIAL CLASSROOM ACTIVITY
DESIGNED WITH MATHCITYMAP ...........................................................................................................494
Matthias Ludwig, Iwan Gurjanow, Joerg Zender
MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF MATHEMATICAL PLAYING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
MATHEMATICS EDUCATION.....................................................................................................................496
Nagisa Nakawa, Masato Kosaka
FACILITATE MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH DEEPENING
UNDERSTANDING OF THE CORE IDEAS OF CONCEPTS..............................................................498
Haw-Yaw Shy, Ting-Ying Wang, Yan-Ting Chen
DESIGNING AND EVALUATING MATH-GROUNDING ACTIVITY TO DEVELOP
STUDENTS’ REASONING COMPETENCE: THE JUST-DO-MATH PROJECT ............................500
Kai-Lin Yang, Hui-Yu Hsu

WORKING GROUPS

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON USING VIDEO IN PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT ..............................................................................................................................................504
Kim Beswick, Greg Oates, Tracey Muir, Tanya Evans, Mary Beisiegel
LEADING MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ...............................................................................................506
Peter Grootenboer, Catherine Attard
FACILITATE TEACHER LEARNING THROUGH DESIGN-BASED MATHEMATICS
TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES ............................................................507
Dong-Won Kim, Ting-Ying Wang
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON LESSON STUDY ..............................................................................509
Tatsuya Mizoguchi, Maitree Inprasitha
BIG DATA IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS ..............................................................................................511
Theodosia Prodromou, Zsolt Lavicza

EARCOME 8—2018 I-IX

 Soto-Andrade, Garces-Ocares, Yañez-Aburto 341

FLEXIBILITY IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: AN

ENACTIVISTIC AND METAPHORIC PERSPECTIVE.
Jorge Soto-Andrade, University of Chile, Chile
May Garces-Ocares, University of Chile, Chile
Alexandra Yañez-Aburto, University of Chile, Chile

Introduction
Flexibility, in the cognitive realm, is in fact a metaphor, since flexibility is literally a
kinaesthetic notion. This metaphoric use of flexibility in cognition is indeed ubiquitous in
the last decades (Gray and Tall, 1994; Ma, 1999; Mason, 2014; Sriraman, Haavold and Lee,
2007; Wong, 2008). Flexibility is then understood as: adaptability, the ability to be easily
modified, openness (open-endedness, openness to change), fluidity, versatility, amenability,
even tolerance (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). Flexibility may also be described as “the quality
of bendin easily ithout brea in ” li e the reed. Recall Confucius’ sayin : “The reen
reed which bends in the ind is stron er than the mi hty oa hich brea s in a storm.”
Particularly, in mathematics education, Ma (1999) points out that mathematics is not rigid,
but flexible and refers to “Multiple Approaches to a Computational Procedure: Flexibility
Rooted in Conce tual Understandin ” recallin that “ “To sol e a roblem in multi le
ays” is also an attitude of Chinese teachers.” loc. cit. . . This is echoed by
Rittle-Johnson and Star, J.R. (2007), cited by Wong (2008). Flexibility is also strongly
associated to creati ity as in Mason’s claim: “Students whose teacher challenges them
appropriately but significantly are likely to develop flexibility and creativity in their
thin in ” Mason : . and also in Sriraman, Haavold and Lee (2014).
For us flexibility means being able to react fluently to the unexpected in the classroom,
welcoming cognitive diversity, listening to the whole emerging spectrum of learners’
questions, being open to their unexpected idiosyncratic metaphorising, and letting them
explore various possible approaches among those they suggest, which often correspond to
different metaphorisations of the problem they are tackling. Comparing and discussing their
relative advantages and drawbacks frequently stirs a lively classroom dynamics See
Rittle-Johnson and Star (2007), cited by Wong (2008) for a closely related approach.
Flexibility entails metaphorising learning as lying down a path in (random) walking. So,
eventually changing your planning, if you had any, on the way and consenting to go to deep
waters or uncomfortable places with students, be able to notice important findings, to come
back to the surface and breath.
Flexibility also means translating among different approaches to an adidactical situation
(Brousseau 1997) or problem and moving seamlessly among varied metaphors, not remaining
rigidly frozen in just one.
Flexibility entails a demanding task for the teacher, drawing on her “resources of being” and
noticing (Mason, 2012). Metaphorically, the teacher needs to consent to “jump into the void”
or at least play the role of a “ti htro e al er” in the classroom.

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

7-11 May 2018, Taipei, Taiwan
342 Flexibility in Mathematics Education: an Enactivistic and Metaphoric Perspective

Notice a itfall to a oid: to rescribe in a ri id ay that “ ou must be flexible ”. See

Cha lin’s The Circus commented by Brousseau .
We present and discuss below some illustrative examples of teaching experiences, inspired by
enactivistic and metaphoric approaches in mathematics education (Diaz-Rojas &
Soto-Andrade, 2015; Reid & Mgombelo, 2015; Soto-Andrade, 2014, 2017), where flexibility
plays a key role.
Research questions
A first research question of interest to us is to contrast and compare our approach to
flexibility with the Japanese Lesson Study methodology (Isoda, 2002; Isoda & Katagiri,
2012), which claims that nothing happening in the classroom should surprise an expert
teacher.
A second research question is motivated by the fact that physiologically flexibility is the
ability of a joint or series of joints to move through an unrestricted, pain free range of
motion. Metaphorising to the cognitive realm, we realize that very often we do not pay
enough attention, as teachers, to the discomfort students may experience in a
flexibility-provoking activity. This cognitive pain deserves indeed especial attention and
care.
Further questions are:
Is there a correlation between physical flexibility and cognitive flexibility?
What is flexible problem solving?

Theoretical background on metaphorising and enacting

Metaphorising in mathematics education
In cognitive science there is widespread agreement nowadays in that our ordinary
conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical
in nature (Gibbs, 2008; Johnson & Lakoff, 2003). In mathematics education proper it has
progressively acknowledged during the last decades (English, 1997; Lakoff & Núñez, 2000;
Sfard, 2009; Soto-Andrade, 2007, and many others) that metaphors are not just rhetorical
devices, but powerful cognitive tools, which enable us to build new concepts, besides
grasping new ideas, connecting seemingly unrelated domains and solving problems in an
efficient and friendly way. See Soto-Andrade (2014) for a recent survey. Indeed, in
mathematics we often metaphorise to fathom something unknown or to construct a concept.
For instance, we construct the concept of probability when, while trying to figure out a
symmetric random walk on the integers (e. g. a frog jumping fairly on a row of stones in a
pond), we see the walker splitting into 2 equal halves instead of going equally likely right or
left (Soto-Andrade, 2007, 2015). Notice that this meta horic slei ht of hand’ turns a
random process into a deterministic one: the probability of finding the walker at a given
location after n jumps becomes the portion of the walker landing there after n splittings.
(Diaz-Rojas, D., & Reyes-Santander, P. (2017). Especially relevant are idiosyncratic
metaphors, that may emerge as a survival or defensive flexible mechanism in learners

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

7-11 May 2018, Taipei, Taiwan
 Soto-Andrade, Garces-Ocares, Yañez-Aburto 343

facing a challenging or threatening situation. This emergence is however often thwarted by

the prevailing didactical contract (Brousseau et al., 2014).
In what follows we will use metaphorical language as a meta-language to describe cognitive
or didactic theories, since, we claim, a theory is essentially the unfolding of a metaphor
(Soto-Andrade, 2014). We apply this to enaction below.
Enactivism in mathematics education
Varela 8 meta horised enaction as the “layin do n of a ath in al in ” hen he
introduced the enactive approach in cognitive science (Varela et al., 1991), citing Machado
(1988, p. 142): “Wanderer your footste s are the ath nothin else there is no ath you
lay do n a ath in al in ”. In his o n ords: “The orld is not somethin that is i en to
us but something we engage in by moving, touching, breathing, and eating. This is what I
call co nition as enaction since enaction connotes this brin in forth by concrete handlin ”
(Varela et al.; p. 63).
Less radical enaction in mathematics education may be traced back to Bruner (1966), who
characterised enactive, iconic and symbolic modes of representation. In his sense, enactive
means mainly manipulation and bodily involvement, as in Gallagher and Lindgren
(2015). Notice ho the “layin a ath in al in ” meta hor for co nition runs counter to
the traditional one, which sees learning as following a well-marked path rigidly given in
advance. The enactivistic programme in mathematics education has been further
developed by Brown (2015), Proulx and Maheux (2017), Reid and Mgombelo (2015)
See also Riegler and Vörös (2017).
Enactivism leads us to just propose an open a-didactical situation, in the sense of Brousseau
(1997), allowing learners to co-construct the questions and the problem to begin with, instead
of committing themselves to solve a pre determined given task.

Illustrative examples
We describe and comment below, by way of example, a couple of paradigmatic problems
we have worked out with a broad spectrum of learners in the last few years: first year
university humanistic students, prospective secondary mathematics teachers and in service
primary school teachers engaged in a 700 hour professional development programme
aiming at improving their command of elementary mathematics and its didactics, besides
plain citizens in open workshops.
Example 1. Finnish open ended problem: Dividing a square in 4 identical parts in four
different ways.
We have posed this famous problem to various kinds of learners, from 2011 to 2017.
Particularly to 16 to 19 year old juvenile offenders engaged in a re insertion programme at
the University of Chile in 2011, and to 37 students (aged 14 to 16, 9th and 10th grade) from
a Realschule in Germany (Soto-Andrade and Reyes-Santander, 2012). See Fig. 1 and 2
below for samples of their drawing activity. But also to common citizens in open

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344 Flexibility in Mathematics Education: an Enactivistic and Metaphoric Perspective

workshops in Patagonia (in the South of Chile, primary and secondary school children and
in service primary school teachers.

Figure 1: Samples of juvenile offenders drawings (Chile).

Figure 2. Samples of student drawings (Germany).

We notice more flexibility in the production of the juvenile offenders, including many
wrong solutions. Most remarkable is the weird concentric square solution (in the left red
circle), which also appeared in an open workshop on mathematics and art in Patagonia, 3
years later, drawn by a primary school teacher with Asperger syndrome. An unexpected
solution even for a Japanese teacher!

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 Soto-Andrade, Garces-Ocares, Yañez-Aburto 345

In the case of juvenile offenders, when they were producing many wrong solutions but not
succeeding in finding a fourth correct one, different from the most 3 obvious ones (in a red
ellipse above), the facilitator had the flexible idea of having the participants share their
(mostly wrong solutions). This triggered straight and curved solutions with central
symmetry in some learners whose attention was caught by the concentric square solution
seen as a framed aisle in ers ecti e ith a anishin oint called unto de fu a’ literally
“esca e oint”, in perspective drawing in Spanish)! Also clever right solutions appeared
as flexible deformation of more obvious ones, like the rotated cross (lower left red circle) or
the one where the straight lines are perturbed with a shiver (third right red circle).
Example 2. Random walks as a royal road to probability.
A typical example of our approach is provided, in the initial teaching of probability, by
presenting Brownian motion as a natural, albeit hard to fathom, example of randomness,
stimulating the learners to study baby versions of it (Soto-Andrade, Diaz-Rojas and
Reyes-Santander, 2017). Varied ideas arise, most of them striving to restrict somehow the
number of degrees of freedom of the Bro nian article’s motion e. Bro nie’s random
walk (Soto-Andrade and Diaz-Rojas, Reyes-Santander, 2017):
A puppy, called Brownie, escapes randomly from home, when she smells the shampoo her
master intends to i e her. At each street corner confused and stressed by the traffic’s noise and
smells, escaping barely from being overrun, she chooses equally likely any of the four cardinal
direction and runs nonstop a whole block until the next corner. Exhausted after, say, four blocks,
she collapses at some corner. Her master would like to know where to look for Brownie and
also to estimate how far she will end up from home.
Notice here the fundamental “im ossible” uestion: Where will Brownie be after a four
block run?
This question that needs a highly flexible approach, especially for learners that have not
constructed beforehand the concept of probability. They may realise that there are several
le els of ans ers startin ith le el : “Nobody no s ” then le el : a list of ossible
corners; level 2: a ranking of the possible corners; up to level 3: quantifying the likelihood
of each possible corner!
Several approaches to study this random walk emerge among the learners: Enactive,
statistical, iconic, combinatorial approaches. Enactive and statistical means simulating the
al or actin it out. Combinatorial usually means countin Bro nie’s ossible aths or
trajectories. Iconic means visualising the unfolding to the walk, taking advantage of
different metaphoric approaches.
Notably metaphoric approaches may lead to the construction of the notion of probability
through splitting, hydraulic or pedestrian metaphors (Diaz-Rojas & Soto-Andrade, 2015). A
splitting (or Solomonic) metaphor would see Brownie splitting into four pieces at each
corner and so on. A hydraulic metaphor would see a watering duct system with water
splitting evenly at each node instead of Brownie. A pedestrian metaphor would unleash a
pack of Brownies (conveniently 44 for a 4 block walk) from home, which would split
equally into fourths at each corner. A variant of this, that we call a Borgeian Metaphor (to

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346 Flexibility in Mathematics Education: an Enactivistic and Metaphoric Perspective

honour Jorge Luis Borges) sees simultaneously the four possible parallel universes where
Brownie runs north, south, east and west, so four Brownies in all, and so on. After a 4 block
run, we would have 44 parallel universes and we just count in how many of them Brownie
lies at each possible corner.
When carrying out this activity with first year humanistic university students coming, most
of them, straight from a very rigid secondary school, with stiff cognitive joints, we noticed
that the high demand of flexibility involved was a source of stress for roughly half of them.
This needed s ecial containment and “co niti e thera y” from our assistant the third
author), who is a psychologist. It was a rather slow process for the students, but
progressively they recovered the lost flexibility. This also impinged in other courses they
were taking, according to their testimonies and feedback (reported in a focus group).
If we were interested in primary mathematics education, we could think flexibly of even
simpler versions of BB motion, in 1D for example, like the symmetric random walk of a
frog jumping on a row or a regular polygon of stones in a pond (Soto-Andrade 2006).
Discussion
We have seen that flexibility is closely intertwined with metaphorising and enacting and
that students provide unexpected approaches and metaphors that demand openness and
flexibility from the teacher.
Meta horisin is harder the more stiff your “co niti e oints” are. In fact meta horisin
fosters cognitive flexibility and the latter enables you to metaphorise more easily and
spontaneously. The emergence of various ways of enacting among the learners also
requires flexibility in their stance. Usual mathematics teaching in school is relentlessly rigid.
A transformation of being, in the sense of Mason (1998) is needed to deal in a flexible way
with unexpected contributions and questioning from the students (Mason, 2014).
Com arati ely a anese teachers indeed react flexibly to “unex ected” e ents in the
classroom out of their deep classroom experience, constructed beforehand in a cooperative
and systematic way, aiming at predicting student reactions. Our approach leaves however
even more room for improvisation and randomness. The final outcomes may be surprisingly
similar though.
We noticed that student’s stiff co niti e oints may need to be handled by a “co niti e
thera y” to be able to stretch as needed. Transition from ri idity to flexibility so a ears
as a complex issue deserving further research.

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Funding from PIA-CONICYT Basal Funds for Centres of Excellence Project FB0003 and
FIDOP 2016-60PAB is gratefully acknowledged.

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 Soto-Andrade, Garces-Ocares, Yañez-Aburto 349

Jorge Soto-Andrade
University of Chile
Las Palmeras 3425, Santiago, Chile.
sotoandrade@uchile.cl

May Garces-Ocares
University of Chile
Las Palmeras 3425, Santiago, Chile.
maygarces16@gmail.com

Alexandra Yañez-Aburto
University of Chile
Las Palmeras 3425, Santiago, Chile.
alexandra.yanez@ug.uchile.cl

8th ICMI-East Asia Regional Conference on Mathematics Education

7-11 May 2018, Taipei, Taiwan