For scientists, the sandbox serves as an analog for faulting in Earth's crust. Here, the large, slow processes within the crust can be scaled to the size of a table, and time scales are directly observable. This makes it a useful tool for demonstrating the role of inquiry in science. For this reason, the sandbox is also helpful for learning…

The purpose of this study was to systematically replicate and extend previous studies of the TOUCHMATH program, a multi-sensory mathematics program (Bullock, Pierce, & McClellan, 1989). Three middle school students with moderate and multiple disabilities (e.g., autism and moderate intellectual disabilities) participated. Students were taught how…

More than forty years ago, Jerome Bruner developed a theory about the use of physical models or manipulatives when teaching math. He argued that students would learn mathematics better if they fist encountered concepts and procedures by actively modeling them with manipulatives. In this article, the author describes: (1) some of the unexpected…

Recent research suggests that children could be engaged in probability tasks at an early age and task characteristics seem to play an important role in the way children perceive an activity. To this direction in the present article we investigate the role of some basic characteristics of probabilistic tasks in their design and implementation. In…

This paper highlights the Indonesian's road transportation contexts, namely, angkot, that used in learning and teaching of addition and subtraction in first grade and second grade MIN-2 Palembang. PMRI approach that adopt from RME [Realistic Mathematics Education] was used in this design research. From teaching experiment was founded that the…

Although the use of physical manipulatives, which have been emphasized to use in preschool education program and primary and secondary mathematics curriculum, in classroom environments is old, it is very new to use virtual manipulatives in classroom environments. The selection, preparation, and the integration to learning environments of both…

This study identified variations in the learning trajectories of Tier II students when learning equivalent fraction concepts using physical and virtual manipulatives. The study compared three interventions: physical manipulatives, virtual manipulatives, and a combination of physical and virtual manipulatives. The research used a sequential…

The ability of interlocking polygonal tiles, like those in the "Polydron Frameworks kit," to flex can give rise to polyhedra whose faces don't quite fit. In this article, the author discusses what happens with polyhedra whose faces don't quite fit. (Contains 2 notes.)

Toys in the classroom was the result of a National Science Foundation grant that brought two engineering graduate students to a middle school math class. The graduate students and teachers collaborated in an effort to enhance students' mathematical learning. An engineering context was theorized as a way to further develop students' understanding…

A review of the literature from 1965 to 2008 on tactile maps and models in orientation and mobility yielded four pre-experimental and three experimental articles. The articles were analyzed via best-evidence synthesis--a combined narrative and statistical approach--allowing for recommendations for the most effective use of tactile maps and models.…

A child's demonstration of his conceptual understanding of number bodes well for his future success in school mathematics. As youngsters' thinking becomes more logical, they apply one-to-one correspondence relationships to quantification. Yet, reliable assessment of young children's mathematical ability is difficult because of social and emotional…

Our research aims to identify children's communicative strategies when faced with the task of solving a geometric puzzle in CSCL contexts. We investigated how to identify and trace "distributed cognition" in problem-solving interactions based on discursive cohesion to objects, participants, and prior discursive content, and geometric and…

The reported exploratory study consisted primarily of classroom visits, videotaped sessions, and post-treatment interviews whereby second graders (n = 12) worked on problems in planar geometry, individually and in triads, using physical and virtual manipulatives. The goal of the study was to: 1) characterize the nature of geometric thinking found…

Speakers routinely adjust their behavior upon assessing the information they share in common with their conversational partners, but there remains controversy over when and how these adjustments happen. In this dissertation I address two debates regarding partner-specific adjustments: (a) whether they recruit the language processing system in a…

This article describes how to use clay as a potential material for young children to explore. As teachers, the authors find that their dialogue about the potential of clay as a learning medium raises many questions: (1) What makes clay so enticing? (2) Why are teachers noticing different play and conversation around the clay table as compared to…