Visualization as an epistemological learning tool: an introduction

[...]as conveyed in the twelve papers that comprise this special issue, mediated experiences play a central role in linking the visual construction of the mathematical form and its significant other, the mathematical construction of the visual form. How do learners of varying levels of ability (i.e., abled students and students with mathematical difficulties) employ visualization in learning mathematics? The authors’ collective experiences drawn from their empirical work with a variety of learners provide compelling empirical evidence of the power of visualization in supporting sensemaking skills and growth in mathematical knowledge and understanding through patterns or structures that learners infer and produce when “the senses (sight, hearing and proprioception), the hands, imagination, systematic and critical reasoning and … institutions” (p. 43) come together to “show more than the eye could ever see” (Gooding, 2006, p. 54).