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Teaching math using real world examples may not facilitate learning

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Teaching math to students using real world examples may be counter productive. Wow, that goes against everything that I was taught and believe about teaching math.

Dr. Jennifer Kaminski, a research scientist at the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State, evaluated the efficay of teaching math using real world examples by subjecting the practice to scientific scrutiny. After conducting randomized, controlled experiments Dr. Kaminski and her colleagues, Valdamir Sloutsky and Andrew Heckler, concluded that the findings did not support the belief.

Surprisingly, at least to me, their research concluded that real-world examples “obscured the underlying math, and students were not able to transfer their knowledge to new problems”. This study which included 11 year old students as well as college students will be published in the May 2, 2008 issue of the Science Journal.

Dr. Kaminski even questions the efficacy of using concrete materials like blocks and other manipulatives to help preschool and kindergarten students better understand number concepts. She notes that there is no rigorous scientific research to support this practice. Dr. Kaminski and her team have begun to look into that now.

What do other experts in the field think about all this? Douglas Clements, a professor of learning and mathematics at the University of Buffalo allows that there’s no denying what the research has shown, but he cautions that we shouldn’t over generalize because “one size can’t fit all”.

That makes some sense to me given that different people have different learning style preferences. One style works well for some, but doesn’t for others. it all depends on the individual. Dr. Clements suggests that using manipulatives is a good idea for kids when they are beginning to learn the basics, just as a starting point.

My own experience as a teacher supports the use of manipulatives to facilitate learning. Besides, students know when using manipulatives is appropriate for them. They’re quick to tell me that they don’t need them any more or quick to ask for the them to help make sense of things. I don’t know. I didn’t do the research, so maybe the most I can say is that I believe that using manipulatives facilitates learning.

I’ve just had a thought here. Maybe the actual manipulatives don’t facilitate learning. Maybe it’s the students’ belief that using manipulatives facilitates learning. Maybe there’s a placebo effect happening here- they believe it, so it does.Now that’s an interesting thought.

It would be interesting to hear what other math teachers have to say on the matter. What’s your experience using manipulatives? Does the use of manipulatives facilitate learning in your classroom? How can you tell?

Comments

6 Responses to “Teaching math using real world examples may not facilitate learning”

  1. pinksandblues on May 2nd, 2008 11:32 am

    Provocative post. So much so that we have listed you on our Smart Mama feature on our site - http://www.pinksandblues.com

    - Sharon

  2. Leila on May 11th, 2008 8:52 am

    I have to agree that manipulatives do work. The only problem is that my students become dependent on them and don’t want to do work without them. Do you have any suggestions on how to wean them off of the manipulatives?

  3. Michael on May 14th, 2008 8:43 am

    While I don’t have a comment about the use of manipulatives, I have noticed that students - even at the 2nd year university level - have a tough time calculating percents without using the percent function of their calculators.

    This topic was discussed on a CBC Radio show a couple of months ago. Unfortunately I cannot find the exact show on their site. The math teacher they interviewed from the maritimes said that he believed the students didn’t have a firm grasp of the fundamentals and noticed that students weren’t able to connect the solutions from one real life example to another. So he closes his door and doesn’t teach much from the new curriculum. But I could be remembering it wrong. If I can track down the show, I’ll post it for you.

  4. Elona Hartjes on May 14th, 2008 3:55 pm

    Michael,
    Thank you for taking the time to post your observations. It’s actually quite ironic given that today I was so frustrated by my math class’ lack of fundamentals.

    I have a new theory about the lack of fundamentals that I think I’ll explain in my next blog post.

    Oh, and thanks for the heads up about the CBC program. I missed that one. I’ll see if I can find it too.

  5. Daniel on June 16th, 2008 2:26 pm

    I read similar article also named ing math using real world examples may not facilitate learning : Teachers At Risk, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me

  6. Elona Hartjes on June 17th, 2008 8:32 pm

    Leila,
    I don’t know that I’d want to wean them off of the manipulatives. I think when the kids are ready, they stop using them.

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