Utilising 3D Printing Technology Tools and Learning-as-Making Activities with In-service Teachers to Explore and Impact Teaching Identities Towards Mathematics and Mathematising

Meangru, Matthew Rudy (2024) Utilising 3D Printing Technology Tools and Learning-as-Making Activities with In-service Teachers to Explore and Impact Teaching Identities Towards Mathematics and Mathematising. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the teaching identities towards mathematics and mathematising of in-service teachers through their engagement with 3D printing technology tools (3D printing pens, Tinkercad and a Makerbot 3D printer) in learning-as-making activities. The six in-service teachers’ subject specialties span Key Stages 1-3 and the early years framework of the English national curriculum and include design and technology, cooking and nutrition, computing, and early years. To understand in-service teachers’ teaching identities towards mathematics, I examine their creative acts when interacting with 3D printing technology tools and their conversations about mathematics during learning-as-making activities. Mathematising starts when the in-service teachers make shapes with the movements of their hands while holding a 3D printing pen to construct a 3D skeleton cube. In this research, mathematising is a physical manifestation and a conscious act. The learning-as-making activities engaged participants in using 3D printing pens to construct 2D (i.e., circle, square, rectangle) and 3D (i.e., triangular prism, cube) skeleton shapes on a silicone mat or flat surface, manipulating 3D models with an easy-to-use modelling software called Tinkercad, and discussing how a 3D printer could be employed in their classrooms and with the mathematical content of the English national curriculum.

Communities of practice (CoP) is the overarching theoretical framework applied in this study. In addition, I draw on shape perception theory (Pizlo, 2008) to give insight into 2D and 3D representation and inclusive materialism (De Freitas and Sinclair, 2014) to understand the role of materials in mathematical activities. I also apply diffraction (Barad, 2007) and narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2006; Clandinin, 2022) as methodological approaches to understanding how bodies, materials, and conversation produce meaningful interactions in mathematics. Data for this study include raw transcripts of participants’utterances during the learning-as-making activities, video and audio recordings of participants’ engagement in the activity, and field notes. To analyse the data, I draw upon diffractive analysis (Mengis and Nicolini, 2021; Mazze, 2014), such as using clips of the video recordings to observe participant engagement with the 3D printing technology tools, and thematic analysis (Riessman, 2008) to discern the participants’mathematical meaning through their conversations during the activities.

Findings suggest that in-service teachers’ engagement with 3D printing technology tools enables them to mathematise the mathematics used in their respective disciplines to construct meaningful mathematical models. Their creative acts in learning-as-making activities provide insight into their teaching identities (dialogues that consist of talking about mathematics), maker identities (construction of 2D and 3D shapes), and performative identities (hand movements and gestures using the 3D printing technology tools). The combination of employing the theoretical framework of CoP, shape perception theory, and inclusive materialism enables this thesis to contribute to the scholarship addressing the use of materials and 3D printing technology in the practice of early years and primary education. This contribution could allow us to envision how the different technology tools can be employed in learning-as-making activities in the early years and primary sectors to make mathematics more transparent to in-service teachers and students.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	13 Feb 2025 11:07
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2025 11:07
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98459
DOI:

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