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Virginia Tech

Functions Fun: An iPad Educational Game for Teaching Mathematical Functions and Graphs

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Teaching and learning mathematical functions and graphs pose significant challenges for teachers and students. Students often have difficulty in understanding a functional relationship between two quantities such as distance and time, temperature and precipitation, and gas price and number of gallons. Teaching students to have quantitative thinking about functions can help them understand the rate of change for complicated functions and later succeed in learning Calculus. Traditional educational methods such as static graph images and some learning tools usually have some limitations. Teaching students the dynamic changes of quantities within the static picture has serious difficulties. Compared to the learning tools, the game-based learning increases interest when students are learning complicated functions. This thesis presents a game-based learning application called Functions Fun, which runs on iPad tablet computers. The game is created to teach / learn the following functions: Linear, Quadratic, Exponential, Logarithmic, Trigonometric, and Polynomial with degrees over four. Each function is covered under a game level. The game setting is a jungle environment. Each game level has its own scene, challenging the player to take an action while teaching a function and its graphical representation. Functions Fun enables students to play and learn functions and graphs in a more effective and entertaining manner.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science and Applications
Department dc:contributor.department
Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2019

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Liu, Xuan
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Balci, Osman
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Norton, Anderson H. III
  • Tilevich, Eli

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:20315
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/90289

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Liu, Xuan. Functions Fun: An iPad Educational Game for Teaching Mathematical Functions and Graphs. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/90289