Participatory Design Approach to Teaching and Learning of School Mathematics

Abstract: The thesis explores the possibilites of involving users – students and teachers – into the design process for an interactive textbook for assisting the teaching and learning of mathematics at a secondary school level. Involvement of students and teachers is executed with participatory design methodology for the purpose of infrastructuring between different actors – developers, designers, students and teachers, in order to suggest and emphasize novel, in terms of the market, ways for ideating, creating and evaluating concepts in the field of digital learning. The design process is executed with the aim of producing a re-design proposal for an existing interactive textbook – namely Exponent 1b by Gleerups Utbildning AB - a renowned Swedish publisher of learning materials. The proposal is part of the ideation phase of Gleerups’ project and the design process is adressed accordingly.The initial sections introduce a theoretical framework for looking at interactive learning environments and present examples of such environments and their functionalities. Significant focus is dedicated to the preliminary analysis of the current state of Exponent 1b and the follow-up participatory analysis and re-design process. The author’s proposals for improvements in the core functionalities and the interactions are based on the initial research of the theoretical framework, presented examples of integrated learning environments examples and services, and predominantly on the outcomes from the participatory analysis and design process. At the end of the thesis the author summarizes the outcomes concerning involvement of students, teachers, designers and developers, and inclusion of digital tools to facilitate learning and variety in teaching.