Zone Proxima Math Honored with Scholarship
Reese with her assembled Echidnahedron Puzzle. The Puzzle is Bob Hearn’s contribution to the G4G15 Gift Exchange. Meaningful experience supports sustained individual interest. Individual interest influences attention, knowledge growth, recall, persistence, effort, academic motivation, and enhanced levels of learning. Reese's upcoming Zone Proxima Math article will explore Reese’s journey through the opportunities presented by Hearn’s G4G15 icosahedron stellations models. They were available at the exhibit, the hands-on activities, and the Gift Bag Exchange. Photo credit: Steven Inglima
Date Posted: Saturday, March 16, 2024
The Cherokee Scout’s March 13, 2024, issue recognized Zone Proxima’s Gathering 4 Gardner 15 (G4G15) scholarship award.[i] The scholarship supported Zone Proxima leadership to present its math for early childhood initiative during the Gathering. G4G attendees seem a perfect community to appreciate, understand, support, and disseminate Zone Proxima’s theoretically grounded and sound approach to early childhood mathematics readiness. Zone Proxima Math teaches adults to guide young children’s discovery of foundational mathematics through concrete challenges that embody foundational mathematics.
The G4G15 experience reinforced Zone Proxima’s mission to provide professional development that increases the effectiveness of both informal and formal education. Zone Proxima CEO Debbie Denise Reese, PhD, conducted research about interest, learning, and instruction while she led NASA Education’s Inspiration Project.[ii] That work continued as she refined Metaphorics, first as a NASA investigation[iii] and then as an NSF-funded grant.[iv] These initiatives investigated instructional games. During the projects, Reese invented Metaphorics approach to instructional game design, development, assessment, evaluation, etc. This national research reinforced the basic tenant of instructional design: sound alignment between learning environments and activities and the instructional goals and content they support. Reese is developing a new feature article for the Zone Proxima website—an introspective study of interest, informal/recreational math, and instructional design.
The article will feature work by Bob Hearn.[v] Bob is a software entrepreneur (e.g., wrote ClarisWorks), marathon runner, and serves as the G4G program chair and board member.[vi] His G4G exhibit, Hands-on Activity,[vii] and Gift Exchange[vii] items modeled the regular icosahedron and its stellations. Reese’s article on interest will reflect her journey to date with icosahedra stellations and this activity with respect to meaningful learning.
iSee Grant for Zone math. (2024, March 13). The Cherokee Scout, 3A. See also https://www.cherokeescout.com/local/quick-reads-112 (headline picture—one of two that alternate, summary, and fee to access to full article)
iiReese, D. D. (2004). Renninger Interest Research Report: Presentation to the Board [PowerPoint Presentation Report] NASA Explorer Schools Evaluation. Wheeling, WV: Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University.
Reese, D. D. (2006). Inspiration Brief 3: Enhancing perceived challenge/skill and achievement (DiSC 2005). (COTF/B3/Mar-2006). Wheeling, WV: Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University. Retrieved from http://www.cet.edu/img/titles/InspirationBrief3.pdf
Reese, D. D., Kim, B., Palak, D., Smith, J., & Howard, B. (2005). Inspiration Brief 1: Defining Inspiration, the Inspiration Challenge, and the Informal Event (concept paper). (COTF/IB1/6-2005). Wheeling, WV: Wheeling Jesuit University Retrieved from http://www.cet.edu/research/techreports.html
Reese, D. D., & McFarland, L. (2006). Inspiration Brief 2: The DiSC and RoboKids tools and labs (design and testing). (COTF/B2/Jan-2006). Wheeling, WV: Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University Retrieved from http://www3.cet.edu/nasahq/Brief%202pw.pdf
iiiReese, D. D. (2006a). Foundations of serious games design and assessment. (COTF/LVP/Sep-2006). Wheeling, WV: Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University
Reese, D. D. (2007). First steps and beyond: Serious games as preparation for future learning. Journal of Educational Media and Hypermedia, 16(3), 283-300. http://www.editlib.org/p/24377
ivReese, D. D. (2009). Structure mapping theory as a formalism for instructional game design and assessment. In B. Kokinov, K. Holyoak, & D. Gentner (Eds.), New frontiers in analogy research: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Analogy (Analogy '09) (pp. 394-403). New Bulgarian University Press. http://www.nbu.bg/cogs/analogy09/proceedings/42-T2.pdf
Reese, D. D. (2010). Introducing Flowometer: A CyGaMEs assessment suite tool. In R. V. Eck (Ed.), Gaming & cognition: Theories and perspectives from the learning sciences (pp. 227-254). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61520-717-6.ch011
Reese, D. D. (2015a). CyGaMEs Selene player log dataset: Gameplay assessment, flow dimensions, and non-gameplay assessments. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(5), 1005-1014. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12322
Reese, D. D. (2015b). Dashboard effects challenge flow-learning assumption in digital instructional games. In S. Tettegah & W. D. Huang (Eds.), Emotions, Technology, and Games (pp. 231-287). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-801738-8.00011-7
vhttps://www.instructables.com/The-Magnetic-59-Icosahedra/
vihttps://www.gathering4gardner.org/board-of-directors/
viiG4G participants share an afternoon of self-selected exploration, construction, and interactions with interactive activities. See https://www.gathering4gardner.org/g4g15-info/
viiiG4G attendees may elect to participate in the G4G Gift Exchange. G4G Exchange participants “swap puzzles, magic tricks, artwork, papers, novelty items, books, etc.” See https://www.gathering4gardner.org/g4g15-info/