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Annotated Bibligraphy C225: Task 1 The research topic that I have chosen is how the use of manipulatives benefit third graders in math. I chose this topic because in my own personal classroom I have seen how kinesthetic and visual learners grasp difficult concepts through the use of manipulatives and I’m interested to research the matter more thoroughly. B1. Search Phrases
- Mathematics Teaching Strategies
- Mathematic Manipulatives
- Using Manipulatives in Math
- Efficacy of Manipulatives
- Tangible Math
- Math in the Real World
- Conceptual Math B2. Additional Search Phrases
- Teaching Conceptual Math
- Strategies for Math Conceptual Understanding B3. Explanation of Search Phrases When searching for ‘mathematics teaching strategies’ there was an extremely wide variety of sources because there are so many different types of instructional strategies to use
when teaching math. As I began to look through different resources, I came to realize that the resources I read through weren’t really related to math manipulatives. Due to this, I had to narrow down my research by seeing if I could find research material on using manipulatives as teaching tools in math. There were several matches on the use of manipulatives, but they did not produce many results. Then I began thinking that I may need to change my wording around to see more thorough results. When I searched ‘tangible math’, ‘math in the real world’, and ‘conceptual math’ I found more results related to my research topic. To narrow my research down even further I chose ‘teaching conceptual math’ and ‘strategies for math conceptual understanding’ and these provided even more results that were relevant to students using math manipulatives to generate a conceptual understanding of math topics. Therefore, narrowing down my research by changing my wording provided me with resources on how math manipulatives help students manipulate objects to see different relationships and how they can transfer to different areas of math. C. Annotated Bibliography Akiyama, J., & Ruiz, M.P. (2008). A day’s adventure in math wonderland. Singapore: World Scientific Pub. Not only is this eBook engaging for students, but it is based off of articles, journals, books, etc. that the authors have studied in the form of empirical research. The book talks about three middle schoolers who go and explore the interactive Math Wonderland Museum. This museum is designed to give students fun and interactive ways to view math concepts. One benefit of this book is that the story is based off of real-world mathematical concepts and it
Barrett, D. (2013). Preservice Elementary Teachers ‘Attitudes Improve and Math Anxiety Decreases with Focus upon Manipulatives Use. National Teacher Education Journal, 6(2), 5-10. This journal article used a mixed methods study to provide research results. They conducted a study on preservice teacher attitudes on math and on using manipulatives in the classroom. They concluded that the anxiety that the preservice teacher had towards math decreased with the use of manipulatives. Also, the preservice teacher’s thoughts on using manipulatives in the classroom drastically improved. The whole purpose of the study was to see if preservice teachers would have a more positive attitude on using math manipulatives with future students. They also wanted to decrease the amount of anxiety that comes naturally with teaching math. The researchers noticed several common aspects during this study on preservice teachers. For example, bad experiences with previous math teachers and the struggles that they had in math when they were students. After noticing a common theme, the researchers did an analysis of variance and narrowed their findings into three subcategories: importance, productivity, and comfort. The results confirmed that the teacher’s attitudes toward math drastically improved and decreased the amount of anxiety the teachers had after using manipulatives. One strength to this study is seeing the outcomes of teachers who use manipulatives in their classroom and gives insight as to where the teachers were before they implemented manipulatives. One weakness in this study is that it doesn’t follow up with the students’ experiences and thoughts on using manipulatives in math. I think it would be beneficial to see if the students and the teachers outlooks on math would be similar when not using manipulatives and using them in the classroom.
Furman, C.E. (2017). Making Sense with Manipulatives: Developing Mathematical Experiences for Early Childhood Teachers. Education & Culture, 33(2), 67. The academic journal article explains the arguments of elementary teachers using math manipulatives for instruction but failing to ensure that the students have a full understanding of the instructional concepts that the manipulatives are used for. This study uses two approaches; one being a mixed method approach because both qualitative data and quantitative data are being used. The other approach could be an action research approach because the researcher does the study on her own classroom. The quantitative data was collected and interpreted on a scale to measure students with a formal and informal assessment that was used before and after the students used manipulatives. To demonstrate accuracy and reliability in the results the researcher taught the lessons four separate times. The results showed that a key indicator of student understanding was based on how the manipulatives were used. A benefit from this study would be that you could easily repeat the process within your own classroom. A part of the study that would be a weakness would be that the study seemed a bit subjective which could lead to varying data and results. Rivera, F.D. (2014). Teaching to the Math Common Core State Standards: Focus on Kindergarten to Grade 5. Brill Sense.
the Artzt and Armour-Thomas’ cognitive-metacognitive framework. The research study indicated that children benefit from using electronic manipulatives with assistive technology and it helps promote a stronger education for students. A benefit to this study is that the researchers looked at a large variety of different manipulatives types such as blocks, games, and tangrams, which can all be implemented into classrooms. A weakness from this study is that there was only a small sample collected from a local organization and the results are not a representative of the whole. Clements, Douglas and McMillen, Sue. (1996). Rethinking “concrete” manipulatives. Teaching Children Mathematics, 2(5), 270-279. This empirical research article explains how using manipulatives in a classroom setting can be beneficial or not. The researchers found out that manipulatives can be extremely helpful to students if they have a true understanding of the content and what the manipulatives are representing. Students who understood and used the manipulatives benefited far more than students who did not use manipulatives. They also discovered that when students took a test who had previously used manipulatives it helped increase their retention and problem-solving skills. Therefore, they found that students need to have a thorough concrete understanding of the manipulatives that are being used for them to be effective. Clements and McMillen (1996) discuss the different terms for concrete as sensory concrete and integrated concrete. “Sensory concrete refers to knowledge that demands the support of concrete objects and children’s knowledge of manipulating these objects. Integrated-Concrete refers to concepts that are ‘concrete’ at a higher level because they are connected to other knowledge, both physical
knowledge that has been abstracted and thus distanced from concrete objects and abstract knowledge of a variety of types.” This article had benefits that explored both of the aspects of manipulatives on how they can be helpful and how they can turn into rote learning tool, which doesn’t account for true student learning. A weakness that I found within this study is that it doesn’t provide much information on keeping manipulatives from becoming rote learning tools and how to ensure they are used for students to truly understand the content material. Uribe-Florez, L., & Wilkins, J. (2017). Manipulative Use and Elementary School Students’ Mathematics Learning. International Journal of Science & Mathematics Education, 15(8), 1541-1557. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-016-9757- This journal article uses quantitative research. The researchers performed a cross sectional study by looking at student’s achievement in mathematics based on the use of manipulatives. The researchers were not able to find a correlation, but they found a positive relationship with students’ use of manipulatives and their understanding of mathematics when they repeated the study using a longitudinal study. A benefit that came out of this study was that the researchers were able to conduct a longitudinal study to show a positive correlation on how the use of manipulatives caused students to have a better understanding of mathematics and apply it to real world scenarios. A weakness that came out of this study was using secondary data that could have possibly provided mixed results because the data studied wasn’t the area they originally intended to research.
samples along with the misconceptions that they have and how manipulatives can help give them a virtual object to see their thinking. A weakness from this study would be the lack of information that is provided as to where the data or examples came from. Therefore, the reader is to assume that it came from the researchers own classroom and experiences. D. Research Problem Fractions are a large part of third grade math and my students tend to struggle visualizing how to model fractions. This can lead to confusion when it comes to finding equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. So, by researching the benefits of using manipulatives in the classroom I can determine if they help the students develop mathematical knowledge or cause more confusion.
- This problem relates to my field of interest because last year was my first-year teaching third grade math and I didn’t have much confidence in my ability to teach it. I was thankfully given a large variety of manipulatives to use in my classroom but became overwhelmed with choosing the right manipulative to teach each concept. A lot of times when I would work in small groups, I would pull manipulatives and hope they would get a visual picture of the concepts I was teaching. Sometimes students benefited from the manipulatives because they were visual or kinesthetic learners, and other times I think the manipulatives caused more confusion for them. Therefore, I am anxious to see in what ways manipulatives can be beneficial to the students learning mathematical concepts because I will be continuing to teach third grade math. I also, want to ensure my students
have success in math so exploring the use of manipulatives to promote student understanding will help with that.
- By searching the literature and developing an annotated bibliography, I can see how different aspects of the usage of manipulatives within the classroom are beneficial. Before I had researched the benefits of manipulatives, I never realized that the teacher’s understanding of how to appropriately use a manipulative could have so much impact on a student’s understanding of a concept. As I dove into the different aspects and different varieties of the manipulatives, I had a clearer understanding of the areas that I could explore further within my own research and came across possible issues that could occur from the broad topic of “manipulative use”. I would like to look further into what causes manipulatives to be a problem verses a success for students because there was some conflicting information and gaps in some of the research I found. References Akiyama, J., & Ruiz, M.P. (2008). A day’s adventure in math wonderland. Singapore: World Scientific Pub. Barrett, D. (2013). Preservice Elementary Teachers ‘Attitudes Improve and Math Anxiety Decreases with Focus upon Manipulatives Use. National Teacher Education Journal, 6(2), 5-10.
Uribe-Florez, L., & Wilkins, J. (2017). Manipulative Use and Elementary School Students’ Mathematics Learning. International Journal of Science & Mathematics Education, 15(8), 1541-1557. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-016-9757-
