The good side of manipulatives

Update: read also Mama Squirrel's excellent blogpost on the issue; basically there is probably a balance in this, as in everything.



If you haven't, go pay a visit to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.

Lots of good stuff there!

So, why would I suddenly turn around and praise manipulatives, if I have just mentioned how they're not the "ultimate thing" in math education?

It's just one of those things that can be good, if used right, in its rightful place.

Manipulatives do help students to understand concepts, initially, on a concrete level. But they shouldn't stop there. Children need to learn to make generalizations. That is where the power of mathematics is.

For example, maybe you might use The Base Blocks Addition to illustrate the concept of carrying to tens and hundreds (or regrouping) in addition. Once the student understands that, they should be able to translate their knowledge into bigger and smaller place values (including decimal addition).

So it's the age-old truth: there is balance in everything. There is NO need to go overboard with manipulatives.

Comments

Mama Squirrel said…
Thank you for the link!
8:43 AM, May 06, 2007
Unknown said…
Has anyone tried using Digi-Block? Someone once told me that they're really great for teaching place value. Would love to hear is anyone has any experience using them.
11:31 AM, May 09, 2007
Maria Miller said…
I'm sorry I've not heard of them. Try ask your question also at Living Math Yahoo Group.
12:08 PM, May 09, 2007
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