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13th International Congress on Mathematical Education
Hamburg, 24-31 July 2016
SEEING: AN INTUITIVE AND CREATIVE WAY TO SOLVE A PROBLEM
Isabel Vale, Teresa Pimentel & Ana Barbosa
School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo
Research shows that tasks greatly influence what students learn, mainly if they lead to the
understanding of mathematical structure. We present a study, still ongoing, in pre-service teacher
training, where we aim to highlight the potential of a complementary strategy in problem solving,
which we call seeing, in students’ creative thinking. For this purpose some tasks were used aiming
to engage students and promote mathematical creativity. We present a preliminary discussion,
based on the future teachers’ productions, where we identify some tasks that, being multiple
solutions and inducing visual strategies, promote some dimensions of creativity.

INTRODUCTION
Problem solving is an essential theme in the teaching and learning of mathematics given the
existence of unanimity about its importance in the curriculum. However, students' abilities in
solving problems still require a substantial improvement, especially given the nature and rapid
evolution of today's world. That is, the impetus for this change results from the growing demand for
future professionals with higher order skills. This change agrees with the objective that all students
have access to an education that emphasizes creativity, innovation and problem solving (Silver,
1997). This paper aims to value the potential of visual resolutions of problems, especially because
of the simplicity and creativity that these proposals may present. In this sense we begin by
presenting an overview of some aspects associated with creativity, problem solving and
visualization. Subsequently, we present some preliminary results of an ongoing study with pre-
service teachers aiming the identification of tasks that can improve some creativity characteristics.
We highlight the importance and power of the complementary strategy seeing, and its links with
problem solving and creativity.

VISUALIZATION AND INTUITION

The learning of mathematics should include more than routine tasks, it should be enriched with
problem solving. We argue that problem solving should follow in parallel the curriculum and the
classroom practice, alongside with other more procedural tasks; this option provides developing an
understanding of concepts and mathematical structure, and leads students to progressively acquire a
set of strategies which may be useful and productive in other approaches. Mathematical education
must provide students with a wide range of strategies and non-routine problems in which these
strategies can be applied. Our experience in approaching problem solving, both in terms of teaching
and teacher training, supports our belief that teaching strategies has potential (e.g. Schoenfeld,
1985). Facing its appropriation by the students, we support, not a prescriptive teaching of strategies,
but their analysis in a natural way in the classroom, and when appropriate, either by the teacher or
by sharing strategies used by colleagues.
There is a set of problems, usually of visual nature or context, which have great potential for visual
solutions. We propose for these problems the use of a complementary and specific strategy that we
call seeing. This strategy involves an activity that may be associated with the more traditional range
of strategies (e.g. draw a picture, look for a pattern). And, in this field, we must recognize that on
math classes visual strategies are seldom used (Barbosa & Vale, 2014; Stein & Lane, 1996).
According to Zimmerman and Cunningham (1991) visualization is the process of forming images
(mentally, with paper and pencil or with the support of technology) and use these images effectively
in discovery and mathematical understanding. Presmeg (2014) has the same perspective, when she
defends the use of visual means in problem solving, including not only records in the form of

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images, but also more abstract spatial representations, involving graphics and patterns. According to
Fujita and Jones (2002) it is essential to have geometrical eye - the power of seeing geometric
properties detach themselves from a figure - an essential tool for the construction of geometric
intuition. This power is developed with practical tasks such as designing and making measurements
of geometric figures. On the other hand, the geometric or spatial intuition is not only powerful in
geometric topics but in other issues that are not geometrical. This view can lead to the development
of intuition as the ability to see new relationships, thus producing the cut in mental fixations that
enables creative thinking (Haylock, 1987). In the field of mathematics, it has been argued that the
use of visual images is an important support for all sorts of problems, including problems in which
the visual component is not evident (e.g. Rivera, 2010; Zimmerman & Cunningham, 1991). The
literature states that the activity of “seeing" is not a clear and innate process, but something you can
create, develop, learn and teach (e.g. Whiteley, 2004).
Two types of thinking can be considered, in accordance with Krutetski (1976): logical-verbal and
visual-pictorial, and the balance between these two ways of thinking determines how mathematical
ideas operate in an individual. Facing the solution of a problem there are three types of students:
analytical students, that prefer to use logical-verbal ways of thinking, even with problems that are
relatively simpler to solve through a visual approach; geometric students, that prefer to use visual-
pictorial schemes even when problems are better solved by analytical means. Presmeg (2014) calls
visual to the students who have this preference, i.e. who use visual methods to solve a mathematical
problem that can be solved either by visual methods or non-visual; and finally harmonic students,
those who have no specific preference either by logical-verbal thinking or by visual-pictorial. These
are the ones that Borromeo (2012) considers having an integrated thinking style because they
combine analytical and visual reasoning.
Some authors (e.g. Freiman & Sriraman, 2008; Presmeg, 2014) argue that, during the creative
process, the solution to a problem may come as sudden “aha” or “eureka” idea or moment that
might be seen as effortless mental processes very similar to the examples from the writings of some
mathematicians. It is the period of incubation, according to the four-stage creative process of
preparation-incubation-illumination-verification, that eventually leads to an insight on the problem,
to the “eureka” or the “aha!” moment that gives a sense of certainty that the way to a solution is
clear; the moment of illumination in which a new insight into the problem is gained, which leeds to
successfully construct a solution. This phenomenon is related to intuition.
Intuition is certainly a highly controversial concept, still further because many other terms are used
in the same category of phenomenon, and so it is very hard to find a common definition. Intuition
can be considered as a sort of mental strategy which is able to reach the essence of phenomena. The
term intuition, according to Fischbein (2002), is “a special type of cognition characterized by self-
evidence and immediacy” (p. 200). This author argues that intuitions are generated by experience,
i.e. by practical situations in which the individual is systematically involved. Also according to this
author, visualization is a factor that automatically contributes to the effect of immediacy, because a
visual image delivers simultaneously most of the information related to a situation. At the same
time a solution may be accepted as certain not because it objectively fits formal requirements but
because it is easily accessible.
This implies that it is important that teachers encourage students to engage in suitably challenging
problems over a prolonged period of time, thereby creating the opportunities for the discovery of an
insight. This means that the more different are the situations we propose to students to solve the
bigger repertoire they will get to grasp intuition in direction to the solution.

FROM THE STRATEGY SEEING TO CREATIVITY

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Research has shown that problem solving and posing are closely related to creativity (e.g. Leikin,
2009; Silver, 1997). In order to promote the dimensions associated with mathematical creativity the
tasks should have multiple solutions, assuming the form of problem-solving and problem posing,
mathematical explorations and investigations.
The main dimensions of creativity are fluency, flexibility and originality. Fluency is the ability to
produce a large number of different solutions for the same task. This ability can be acquired trying
to achieve the greatest possible number of different ideas. Ideas come sometimes associated and the
more a person works a topic, the more fluent she becomes. Silver (1997) states that the use of open,
ill-structured tasks, during the teaching process, can encourage students to generate various
solutions contributing to the development of fluency. Flexibility is the ability to think in different
ways to produce a variety of different views on the same issue, and is thus an important factor in
solving problems. Within mathematics education, Krutetskii (1976) considers the reversibility, the
ability to reverse a mental operation, as an aspect of the flexibility of thinking. It is associated with
a change in the understanding and interpretation of tasks, a change of ideas and strategies when you
are solving a problem to find other solutions or to choose the optimal solution. Silver (1997) argues
that the flexibility in problem solving and posing is identified by the number of different ways the
student uses to solve, express or explain a problem. Originality is the ability to think in an unusual
way, producing new and unique ideas (e.g. Leikin, 2009; Silver, 1997), thinking outside the obvious
or having a rare idea. According to Silver (1997), the originality in the classroom can be evident
when a student, faced with a problem, looks at various solutions, methods and answers and can
create another that is valid but different.
Visualization can produce the development of intuition and the ability to see new relationships and
connections, thus enabling creative thinking. And here we stand at the confluence of two orders of
ideas: the seeing strategy and the development of creativity. We can say that visual thinking is
associated with intuition, the ability to invent and divergent thinking, all essential issues to creative
thinking (Vale, Pimentel & Barbosa, 2015).
At this stage, we must conclude that research on problem solving has generally found that the use of
visual representations have great potencial for learning and can facilitate and support the phases of
problem solving. Yet, this doesn’t always happen (Stylianou & Silver, 2004). This is mainly due,
according to these authors, to difficulties to interpret, construct or use a great amount of information
carried by visual representations.

METHODOLOGY
This study was developed with 24 pre-service teachers, in a Didactics of Mathematics
course. Our aim is to identify/construct good tasks for mathematics classrooms, based
on the strategies used by the students, towards the development of mathematics
creativity using visual thinking. We adopted a qualitative approach collecting data
mainly through observations and students written work in the several tasks used.
Considering that a visual solution is not always the easiest, more direct and more
understandable method, since it may even be very complex (Presmeg, 2014), we analysed
the solutions of the tasks through the dimensions of creativity as following: fluency,
measured by the number of correct responses, solutions, obtained by the student to
the same task; flexibility, measured by the number of different categories of solutions
that the student can produce, since there is a variety of different ideas about the same
situation; and originality, measured as the statistical infrequency of responses in
relation to peer group responses (Conway, 1999; Silver,1997; Vale, Pimentel,

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Cabrita, Barbosa & Fonseca, 2012) and for the thinking students used through their
solutions: analytic, visual and integrated.
We present three examples of the tasks used and some of the solutions obtained. The former two
tasks intend to illustrate a visual context, as referred above, where we might expect to obtain some
visual, less routine, thereby more creative solutions; the last one exhibits a rational numbers
context, allowing to evaluate the adequacy and potential of visual solutions even in non visual
contexts.
Task 1 - The Vasarely Rhombus
What is the area of the rhombus, if M1,
M2, M3, M4 are middle points of each side of the square and the
square as 1 unit of area?
Find out more than one process of getting the solution.
Figure 1: Task 1
In figure 2 we can observe some solutions of this task. This problem has multiple solutions that can
be grouped into 4 categories, in accordance with the written productions presented by the students.

Decomposition Framing Pithagorean Theorem Decomposition-composition

– dinamic solution
Al = 4+3+1+3+1=12 A= 36 – 2x(4+8)=12

Aq=36 \ R = 12/36=1/3 1/3

R = 12/36=1/3

Figure 2: Some solutions of Task 1

The students were fluent, as they presented more than two solutions, although not always in
different categories, and some of them showed flexibility as well, by using different strategies. We
can say that generally they used what they learned. Yet, only one was unique because she was able
to break with the expected solution for this type of task - the last one presented in the previous
figure. It is clearly a visual student, who has not a great mathematical knowledge, and perhaps for
this reason she always looks for different methods. Anyway this solution is faster since merely by
observation of the figure we conclude that the area of the rhombus is 1/3 of the area of the square.
Task 2 - The cup
The figure shows a unitary side square. The curved lines are
circumference arcs. What is the area of the shaded region? Find out
more than one process of getting the solution.
Figure 3: Task 2

Students who attempted a method using formulas applied to different parts of the figure may
consider that this is a difficult problem, especially if the square is not shown, although they can
show fluency and flexibility through more conventional solutions.

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One of the most common numerical solutions was:

Figure 4: A numerical solution of Task 2

This solution is «blind», that is, there is no attemptive to see any relationship between the upper
parts and the downer parts of the figure. There are only calculations.
Yet, there are many solutions that we called mixed, because, although they are numerical, the
students can see beyond the given figure, even adding some geometric construction. About half of
the class obtained the solution shown in Figure 5, which illustrates this point of view:

Figure 5: A mixed solution of Task 2

One of the students solved the problem in the same way described above, but used an interesting
iconic notation, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: A different mixed solution of Task 2

However, if the students have more visual abilities they can discover a dynamic visual process. We
can mentally slide the two parts that make up the "foot" of the "cup" to the top, forming a rectangle.
It follows the trivial conclusion that the "cup" has an area equal to half of the square, i.e., 1/2 unit
area (Figure 6). Other dynamic solutions could be the last two shown in Figure 6, in which, after
drawing the diagonals of the square, we easily see that the area of the "cup" corresponds to 2/4 of
the square area.

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Figure 7: Some visual solutions of Task 2

What makes such a solution creative, as Presmeg (2014) suggests, is the fact of being necessary to
break the mental set that suggests the use of formulas when the word "area" is displayed, About a
quarter of the solutions obtained followed that category, in order to search for a more fruitful and
simple method of visual thinking.
After the work, some students told the teacher they could see some geometrical relationships but it
seemed to them that the numerical solution was more rigorous, because they could «prove» with
calculations the geometrical intuition they had. This shows the more emphasis and value that is
usually given to the numerical resolutions relating to the visual ones in school mathematics.
Task 3 – Boxes and books
Box B contains twice as many books as box A. Box C contains 20 more books then box
A. Together, the three boxes contain 116 books.
How many books has each box?
This is not a geometric problem, which makes it different from previous ones. In spite of this, a
visual approach is adequate, mostly when students have not the necessary tools for an algebraic
solution. Actually, most students followed both modes, solving the problem either by an algebraic
method, solving a system of three equations (Figure 7), or drawing a visual scheme that supports
reasoning (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Usual algebraic solution of Task 3

A A
B A A
C A 20

116 A A A A 20 A=

A = 24
96

Figure 9: Usual visual solution of Task 3

PRELIMINARY CONCLUDING REMARKS

In these examples we can see the importance of having geometrical eye, as referred by Fujita and
Jones (2002), to achieve better solutions in problem solving. But they also show us that it is very
important to have good tasks to develop such a competence, when it is not present, if there is a final
discussion among the teacher and the students, trying to identify the better strategies to approach the
given tasks, and making it evident that some of them are clearly better. In fact, if the students are
alerted to the advantages of a different strategy based on seeing, it is more likely they use that
process in subsequent problems.
These tasks are not open or ill-structured, conditions posed by Silver (1997) to obtain many

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solutions and develop fluency. However, we bypassed this issue asking the students to find out
more than one process of getting the solution. By this mean we also could analyse flexibility, that is,
the change of ideas and strategies to find other solutions (Krutetskii, 1976).
We present throughout this paper our vision about the importance of teaching methods that provide
students with a wide range of strategies and non-routine problems in which these strategies can be
applied. On the other hand, we emphasize the importance of problem solving in the construction of
critical contexts for the development of creativity. We value in particular the seeing strategy, since
visualization can be a powerful alternative approach that increases the window of possibilities in
what regards problem solving, providing different, non-traditional solutions, so contributing to
divergent thinking.
Preliminary results show that these tasks are rich and appropriate for our goal because they
highlight the strength of the seeing strategy as being the one that provides more creative solutions
and in these cases much simpler. These problems have multiple solutions, involving various
contents and processes, which allows flexibility and fluency; but among the possible strategies there
are some clearly simpler ones involving seeing and aha! (e.g. Fischbein, 2002; Freiman &
Sriraman, 2008; Presmeg, 2014). The thinking style used by the students was mainly analytic and
integrated. There is still a long way to cross either towards creativity or the use of visual strategies.
Here the teacher's role is critical: when these strategies do not appear naturally, the teacher must
necessarily demonstrate that way of seeing, in order to develop the visual skills of students and to
increase the students’ strategies repertoire (Arcavi, 1999). In this sense we emphasize the
importance of the teacher mobilizing a wide range of tasks that he/she can use for this purpose.
These results are is accordance with Presmeg (2006, 2014), which show that students are not
reluctant to visualize, by the contrary, for some this is the only way to solve a problem. But we
realize that the problem is in the acceptance of this mode of thinking in the classroom that, for
sociocultural reasons, it not yet accepted as a valid process by some teachers, neither is it in line
with recent curricular orientations.
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