Exploring teaching and learning methods of the graph unit of middle schools using sensors of the robot

Abstract

The graph visually represents a variety of mathematical information and the data literacy interprets this visual information is highlighted as an important diversion for students to have in the 21st century. The 2015 revised mathematics curriculum requires students to deal with graphs in their first year of middle schools before learning functions so that they can draw and interpret graphs in real-life contexts without being tied to algebra. However, the analysis of graph tasks in the textbook shows that although various context-based tasks are presented, the task of selecting variables in relation to graph composition is insufficient, the ratio of graph-composition tasks is low compared to graph-interpretation tasks, and the proportion of graph inference tasks is very low. In addition, a problem situation of each task tended to be presented piece by piece without being linked. In this study, by reinterpreting the graph tasks presented in the textbook and reflecting the implications from the analysis results, we presented and suggested the method of learning the graph unit teaching using the robot sensors so that students can perform meaningful graph composition, interpretation, and reasoning activities. Meanwhile, since the data logging activities using sensors of the robot proposed in this study are also practicable through VRT(Virtual Robotics Toolkits), they are expected to be applicable to the recently active non-face-to-face classes.