Mathematical activities in a social learning framework: How multimodality works in a community of practice

In this paper, we explore an approach to understanding how multimodality works in a community of practice. Using a social learning framework, we show how a community of practice, involving a pair of high school students, engaged in perceptual, bodily, and imaginary experiences while discussing about calculus concepts in a dynamic geometry environment. Our findings suggest that learners’ multimodal experiences emerge in both visible and invisible uses of the artefact and are situated in the mathematical activities. This study enriches our understanding about how students participate in the mathematical activities with dynamic geometry environments.