Thinking Inside the Post: Investigating the Didactical Use of Mathematical Internet Memes

We venture in the almost unexplored field of mathematical Internet memes, with the aims of investigating their didactical features in a teaching and learning setting. The work is framed within the research field studying the links between emotions and mathematical thinking and takes off with a schematization of the meanings carried by a meme, formulated through an a-priori analysis of spontaneous web productions and results of an exploratory experiment. The analysis is then compared to the data collected in a teaching experiment conducted at high school level. Results sustain the conjectured meanings structure and elicit evidence of students’ emotions and of their role in the learning process initiated by the interaction with memes.