Author(s)

Philippe R. Richard, Michel Gagnon, Josep Maria Fortuny, Nicolas Leduc, Michèle Tessier-Baillargeon

Departament de Didàctica de les Matemàtiques i de les Ciències Experimentals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.
Département de didactique, Université de Montréal, Canada.
Département de génie informatique et génie logiciel, école Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada.

Our paper presents a project that involves two research questions: does the choice of a related problem by the tutorial system allow the problem solving process which is blocked for the student to be restarted? What information about learning do related problems returned by the system provide us? We answer the first question according to the didactic engineering, whose mode of validation is internal and based on the confrontation between an a priori analysis and an a posteriori analysis that relies on data from experiments in schools. We consider the student as a subject whose adaptation processes are conditioned by the problem and the possible interactions with the computer environment, and also by his knowledge, usually implicit, of the institutional norms that condition his relationship with geometry. Choosing a set of good problems within the system is therefore an essential element of the learning model. Since the source of a problem depends on the student’s actions with the computer tool, it is necessary to wait and see what are the related to problems that are returned to him before being able to identify patterns and assess the learning. With the simultaneity of collecting and analysing interactions in each class, we answer the second question according to a grounded theory analysis. By approaching the problems posed by the system and the designs in play at learning blockages, our analysis links the characteristics of problems to the design components in order to theorize on the decisional, epistemological, representational, didactic and instrumental aspects of the subject-milieu system in interaction.

Didactics of Mathematics; Competencies; Geometric Thinking; Tutorial System; Related Problems; Dynamic Geometry; Instrumented Behavior; Cognitive Interactions; Conceptions; Mathematical Work Space; Means of Choice; Didactic Contract

P. R. Richard, M. Gagnon, J. Maria Fortuny, N. Leduc and M. Tessier-Baillargeon, "Means of Choice for Interactive Management of Dynamic Geometry Problems Based on Instrumented Behaviour," American Journal of Computational Mathematics, Vol. 3 No. 3B, 2013, pp. 41-51. doi: 10.4236/ajcm.2013.33B008.