부산대학교 도서관

Much like one's experiences with the wonders of the world, concrete and multiperspective representations of mathematical concepts are key to understanding. Ideally, "learning environments should give students the opportunity to get to know different representations of a mathematical object in order for them to develop an appropriate multifaceted concept image" (Dreher and Kuntze 2015, p. 92). Too often, students see only the classic textbook examples and lack opportunities to work with rich and various visual representations. When speaking of geometric shapes, Cox and Lo (2012) explored the need for students to have experience with not only simple figures but also complex figures. They defined complex figures as a group that "excludes all shapes commonly found in a textbook" (Cox and Lo 2012, p. 32). They further stated that "working only with simple shapes does not give students sufficient experience" (p. 32). Educators can greatly enhance students' experiences with mathematical concepts by providing not only the usual visual examples found in textbooks but also enriched and atypical examples taken from both academic (textbooks, curriculum, etc.) and real-world (nature, daily life, professional workload, etc.) settings. The aim of this article is to provide a case for why secondary mathematics students need additional and various visual representations and to demonstrate how educators can collect and incorporate these representations into weekly instruction.