Investigating the Affordances and Constraints of SimReal for Mathematical Learning : A Case Study in Teacher Education

Abstract

Visualizations tools are one of the most innovative technologies that emerged the last few years in educational settings. They provide new potentialities for mathematical learning by means of dynamic animations and representations, interactive simulations, and live streaming of lessons. Moreover, visualization tools have the potential to foster a visual, dynamic, distributed, and embodied mathematics rather than individual achievements and static representations. This paper uses the visualization tool SimReal in teacher education to explore the affordances of the tool for learning mathematics. It proposes a framework that captures the affordances of SimReal at a technological, pedagogical, and socio-cultural level. The aim of the article is to investigate the extent to which SimReal afford students’ mathematical learning in teacher education. Based on the results, recommendations for future work are proposed.