The use and effectiveness of colorful, contextualized, student-made material for elementary mathematics instruction

Clicks: 142
ID: 277346
2020
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #20 of 22 articles by views in international journal of stem education

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract Background There is anecdotal evidence that many elementary teachers integrate mathematics lessons and art activities by having students first make colorful, rich material that is subsequently used in an instructional activity. However, it is unclear whether such activities effectively promote learning and transfer of mathematical concepts. The goal of the present research was to examine the use and effectiveness of such “math-and-art” activities on children’s ability to acquire basic fraction knowledge. We report the results of a survey of practicing elementary school teachers in the United States, their use of activities involving physical material, and the resources they use for ideas to supplement the standard curriculum. Two experiments examined first-grade students’ learning, transfer, and recognition of fraction knowledge from rich, contextualized material versus simple, generic material. Results The survey results confirm that many U.S. teachers use math-and-art activities and are often inspired by informal sources, such as Pinterest and YouTube. Experiment 1 examined the effectiveness of colorful, contextualized student-constructed material (paper pizzas) versus simple, pre-made material (monochromatic paper circles) in an instructional activity on fractions. Students who used the pre-made circles scored higher than those who used the student-made pizzas on pre-instruction tests of basic fraction knowledge, immediate tests of learning, and delayed tests of transfer. Experiment 2 tested students’ ability to spontaneously write fractions to describe proportions of pizzas and circles. Students who answered generic circle questions first were markedly more accurate than those who answered pizza questions first. Conclusions These findings suggest that rich, contextualized representations, including those made by the student, can hinder students’ learning and transfer of mathematical concepts. We are not suggesting that teachers never integrate mathematics and colorful, contextualized material, and activities. We do suggest that elementary students’ mathematics learning can benefit when initial instruction involves simple, generic, pre-made material and opportunities for students to make and use colorful, contextualized representations come later.
Reference Key
kaminski2020theinternational Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Kaminski, Jennifer A.;Sloutsky, Vladimir M.;
Journal international journal of stem education
Year 2020
DOI
DOI not found
URL
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-019-0199-7
Keywords
Education Medicine Chemical technology Agriculture (General) general works business economics as a science nutrition. foods and food supply education (general) finance special aspects of education hospitality industry. hotels, clubs, restaurants, etc. food service theory and practice of education marketing. distribution of products slavic languages. baltic languages. albanian languages

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.