Use of digital avatars in mathematics classrooms
Description
Technology offers significant opportunities, particularly for students who struggle with mathematics, dislike the subject, are disinterested, have learning difficulties, make frequent mistakes, have misconceptions, or lack self-confidence. Digital avatars can encourage critical thinking by providing students with correct or incorrect solutions, increase metacognitive awareness, support self-assessment, and help them recognize their own mistakes. Prospective teachers should gain experience with such tools because they play a crucial role in shaping and designing their future classrooms. This study aims to examine how middle school students, guided by prospective teachers, respond to incorrect mathematical solutions presented by digital avatars. Prospective teachers mentored 15 middle school students at a Turkish middle school and implemented an avatar-supported group-based activity. The teacher candidates comprised two males and four females, aged between 20 and 22. These teacher candidates, all second-year undergraduate students in the elementary mathematics education department, served as mentors to the middle school students. The students, consisting of seven boys and eight girls aged 11 to 12, were all enrolled in the 5th grade at a public middle school. Students collaboratively created avatars and programmed these avatars to knowingly solve fraction problems incorrectly. The students then compared their own solutions with the avatars' incorrect solutions. Data collection tools included interviews conducted by prospective teachers with students, interviews conducted by researchers with prospective teachers, and participant observation.