Geometry resources, gamification

As Alsina indicates in its definition of the pyramid of mathematics education, this tool presents the teaching resources that can be used in the classroom and the recommended frequency of use for them. That pyramid shows that the resources that should be used more are manipulative resources, play-based resources and relating mathematics to everyday situations (Alsina, 2010, as cited in Álvarez-Rey & Muñiz-Rodríguez, 2023). 

In this entry specifically, the focus will be on play-based resources, that is, on gamification. But what is that? According to Sánchez Rivas, Colomo Magaña and Ruiz Palmero (2020), this is a methodology that involves incorporating techniques and elements typical of games, which in the educational field means creating teaching and learning experiences with a motivating and playful approach. Its essential purpose is to encourage students’ participation

by making learning a more interactive and stimulating experience. 


This year, in the practicum, my tutor created a Monopoly game for the students with questions of Mathematics which helped them to practice the content learnt in an enjoyable and entertaining way to promote a motivating mathematics environment, which shows how students can learn with this type of activities. I took it as an example.


Once all of this has been said, we will move to explain some ideas and examples of games that can be implemented in the primary education classroom, specifically related to the subject geometry, whose centre of attention is to practice geometric shapes (two-dimensional and three-dimensional). 


To practice and differentiate geometric shapes, including shapes we encounter in our daily lives, to put into practice the content from previous blog posts, we have several examples of activities or games. One of them is to create a memory game. This can be done manually for students to play in groups, or digitally using applications like Wordwall. The memory game would consist of names of geometric shapes and images of things found in our environment that have those shapes. For example, one pair could be a card that says "rectangle" with another card showing an image of a blackboard.


Another possible activity based on that methodology would be bingo in which each student has a card with different geometric shapes. The teacher shows objects from the environment or says characteristics for example, “it has 5 sides” and the students must identify the correct shape, by colouring it, in this case the pupils must paint the pentagons that they have in their card. Another activity could be done in groups or in pairs, and it would consist of a student describing a geometric shape that his/her classmates have to guess. Those activities are very practical to review their elements such as sides or vertices, among others,...


References:


Sánchez Rivas, E., Colomo Magaña, E., & Ruiz Palmero, J. (2020) Tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en contextos educativos. Síntesis. 


Álvarez-Rey, I., & Muñiz-Rodríguez, L. (2023). Los recursos lúdicos para la mejora de la actitud del alumnado de Educación Primaria hacia el aprendizaje de la geometría. Educación matemática, 35(2), 268-292. https://doi.org/10.24844/EM3502.11

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