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Jan Mokros
Project Director, Co-principal Investigator
As a girl, I was told I was good at math, but actually I was good at following procedures and taking tests. I was startled to find out that this isn't the essence of math! I want my own daughter and all of our daughters to understand that math means deep thinking, rigor, flexibility, and interaction with challenging problems as well as collaboration with other people. Because children spend 90% of their waking hours outside of school, it seems to me that much of this understanding of the nature of mathematics is going to develop in non-school contexts. And an increasingly visible, important context is software games. What can girls learn about mathematics as a discipline from playing these games? And what mathematical understanding can they develop? I don't like the directions most software designers are taking to attract more girls to their products. What I like most about working on this project is the opportunity to help software designers think about building their work on meaningful, engaging mathematics.
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last modified August 1999
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