And Tan Wee Chuen

A meaningful learning of mathematics commonly involves mental activities such as exploring, constructing, applying relationships in logical sequences and forming intuitive understanding about particular concepts. Many mathematics educators suggest that the success of these kinds of activities depends on how one engages himself/herself with two important types of mathematical thinking namely, Visualization (referred as V) and Analysis (referred as A). It is commonly said that effective combination, or correlation rather, of V and A will lead to effective and meaningful learning of mathematical concepts as well as other higher order thinking skills. The role of V and A is more imperative in the learning of mathematics topics that require more spatial configuration and analytical understanding. This paper describes an attempt of making use the advantages of computer technology to assist learners to promote and engage themselves with these two types of mathematical thinking. A VA-oriented computer-based learning software called VATrans was designed and developed to act as a learning tool for students to learn a lower secondary level of Geometry of Transformations. The software was tested to a group of eight secondary students and a series of analyses of effectiveness was then performed accordingly. The analyses suggested that VATrans has shown its promising potential in helping learners promoting and engaging themselves with the VA thinking in that particular topic