PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Graphical forms: The adaptation of Sherin’s symbolic forms for the analysis of graphical reasoning across disciplines
Page: 1173
This work involves a methodological presentation of an analytic framework for characterizing mathematical reasoning, introducing the construct of “graphical forms”. Graphical forms build on Sherin’s (2001) symbolic forms (i.e., intuitive ideas about equations) by focusing on ideas associated with a pattern in a graph. In addition to providing an overview of the symbolic forms identified in the literature, we describe how we expand the symbolic forms framework to encompass graphical reasoning. Analysis involving the graphical forms framework is illustrated by providing examples of interpretations of graphs across disciplines, using introductory biology, calculus, chemistry, and physics textbooks. Our work suggests the broad applicability of the framework for analyzing graphical reasoning across different contexts.