Abstract
For a few decades now, scholars have tried to make mathematics education more meaningful and motivating by using narratives. However, there still remains a gap between the theory of narratives and classroom practice. In this paper we provide two design heuristics for teachers by which to bridge this gap. We discuss Dietiker’s mathematical story framework, based on narratology, and present a design heuristic based on this framework by which to design mathematical stories. We extend this heuristic on the basis of the work of the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp, who analyzed Russian folktales. He found that 31 irreducible narrative elements, called functions or narratemes, can be distinguished. We exemplify our heuristics by means of two mathematical stories, one of which concerns Kepler’s conjecture. The value of this approach is that it provides mathematics teachers with a heuristic story framework that is suitable for designing or redesigning mathematical stories.
Highlights
For a few decades scholars have been trying to make mathematics and science education more meaningful and more engaging, by using narratives
We discuss Dietiker’s mathematical story framework, based on narratology, and present a design heuristic based on this framework by which to design mathematical stories
We extend this heuristic on the basis of the work of the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp, who analyzed Russian folktales
Summary
For a few decades scholars have been trying to make mathematics and science education more meaningful and more engaging, by using narratives. According to Boström (2006) narratives can contribute to education from three different perspectives: the teaching perspective, the inquiring perspective, and the epistemological perspective. When narratives are used as a methodology in educational research, for example, when a mathematical textbook is analyzed (Dietiker, 2012, 2015a, 2015b; Soto y Koelemeijer, 2008), we speak of the inquiring perspective. When narratives are used as a way of observing the world, we speak of the epistemological perspective (Boström, 2006; Kaasila, 2006; Burton, 2001; Gade, 2010; Drake, 2006; Healy & Sinclair, 2007)
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