Online Submission, 2006

Meaningful educational activities and cognitive tools might improve students' active involvements in the teaching-learning process and encourage their reflections on the concepts and relations to be investigated. It is claimed that usage of manipulatives not only increase students' ...

2014

This paper was published in the Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Mathematical Education: Intellectual and attitudinal challenges, held in Seoul. Korea from 8 – 15 Jul 2012

The Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 2009

How the embodied mind brings mathematics into being. New York: Basic Books.

Educational Psychology Review, 2014

The papers in this special issue focus on instructional strategies with manipulatives. Often described as "hands-on learning", these strategies emphasize the use of physical and, more recently, virtual objects to represent target information and concepts. These strategies are frequently suggested as effective techniques for teaching across many domains of learning. This special issue presents contemporary theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence, regarding instructional manipulatives with a focus on application in classroom contexts. In this introduction, we present the primary topics of interest to the special issue and provide broad overviews of the contributors' papers.

Journal of Education, 2013

The study reported here examined virtual manipulatives as an instructional treatment in 17 third- and fourth-grade classrooms. Students were randomly assigned to two treatment groups: texts and physical manipulatives (PM), and virtual manipulatives (VM). Results revealed no significant differences in achievement between the treatments. Additional results showed that objective ability predicted fraction achievement; virtual manipulative use can be modulated by test question type (e.g., symbolic vs. pictorial); percentage of class time using representations differed between VM and PM classrooms; and percentage of class time spent using representation types differed, potentially providing differential opportunities to learn.

Multiple kinds of manipulatives, such as traditional, virtual, or technology-enhanced tangible objects, can be used in primary education to support the acquisition of mathematical concepts. They enable playful experiences and help children understand abstract concepts, but their connection with cognitive development is not totally clear. It is also not clear how virtual and physical materials influence the development of different strategies for solving instructional tasks. To shed light on these issues, we conducted a 13-day intervention with 64 children from first grade, divided into three groups: Virtual Interaction (VI), Tangible Interaction (TI), and Control Group (CO). The VI group played a fully digital version of a mathematics video game and the manipulation of the blocks took place on the tablet screen. The TI group played the same video game with digitally augmented tangible manipulatives. Finally, the CO group continued with their classroom curricular activities while we conducted the training, and only participated in the Pre and Post-Test evaluations. Our results highlighted that the use of tangible manipulatives led to a positive impact in children's mathematical abilities. Of most interest, we recorded children's actions during all the training activities, which allowed us to achieve a refined analysis of participants' operations while solving a number composition task. We explored the differences between the use of virtual and tangible manipulatives and the strategies employed. We observed that the TI group opted for a greater number of blocks in the number composition task, whereas the VI group favored solutions requiring fewer blocks. Interestingly, those children whose improvement in mathematics were greater were the ones employing a greater number of blocks. Our results suggest that tangible interactive material increases action possibilities and may also contribute to a deeper understanding of core mathematical concepts.

Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 2020

Although teachers are expected to teach with technology, they often are not prepared or supported to do so (Albion, Tondeur, Forkosh-Baruch, & Peeraer, 2015), a critical issue in mathematics education (Wilson, 2008). The study described in this article investigated why and how secondary mathematics teachers implemented virtual manipulative (VM) tasks during and after participating in a professional development (PD) opportunity aimed at teaching with VMs. Findings indicate that teachers used VM tasks due to instructional benefits, for example, supporting students’ developing understanding and differentiation. Additionally, they used VMs and tasks due to the support they received from tools introduced during the PD. In this study, teachers primarily used VM tasks to support students’ developing understanding, to provide in-themoment feedback, and as a reteaching tool. Mediating factors, such as student needs, curriculum, time, tool limitations, and so forth, influenced why and how teachers chose to use a particular VM.

Contemporary Issues in …, 2008

This study examined teachers' uses of virtual manipulatives across grades K-8 after participating in a professional development institute in which manipulatives and technology were the major resources used throughout all of the activities. Researchers analyzed 95 lesson ...

Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 2010

Article téléaccesible à l’adresse : http://www.sciencelib.fr/Comparing-Concrete-to-Virtual.