The University of Montana
Department of Mathematical Sciences

Technical report #4/2013

Mathematical games in learning and teaching

Nicholas Mousoulides
University of Cyprus

Bharath Sriraman
The University of Montana

Abstract

Piaget, Bruner and Dienes suggest that games have a very important part to play in the learning of mathematics. In the last four decades, games have been proposed by a number of researchers as a potential learning tool in the mathematics classroom. Papert (1980) was among the first who suggested that students could learn mathematics effectively not only by playing (video) games, but also by designing their own computer games, using for instance authoring programming tools like Scratch and ToonTalk. In this article we discuss the findings in the literature on the use of mathematical games in learning and teaching.

Keywords: Games, videogames, computer games, engagement, motivation, programming

AMS Subject Classification: 97

Excerpt of article to appear in S. Lerman (Ed), The Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education, Springer Reference Works. Full article unavailable due to publisher embargo. Pdf (170 KB)