Visual stimuli that prompt young children to notice their mathematical thinking: Two researchers' experiences

As described in the symposium overview, this paper is built on two researchers' interests and research concerning mathematics learning and teaching at the time of children's transition to primary school, including prior-to-school and the first years of school. Our previous research has shown that young children are aware of their own mathematical thinking and the experiences during which mathematics learning has occurred; however, for young children it is often easier to talk about something tangible rather than something abstract. In our attempts to elicit the mathematical thinking of four to seven year-olds we have found that the use of visual stimuli prompts children to not only notice their own learning, but also share this learning with others. In this paper we describe two forms of visual prompting we have found to be very useful as research methodologies for assisting children to notice their mathematical thinking: children's drawings and video-stimulus recall.