Re: Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices

The research article that has sparked the debate about whether we
should scrap using manipulatives or using real world math problems in
elementary grades  is online at
cogdev.cog.ohio-state.edu/PBR-2005-published.pdf
It was published originally in 2004  in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
and Ohio State has it on their site.
The Science Journal wants $10.00 for the article that they have just
published. Once you download it from Ohio State I suggest you hold on
to it although the research was sup****ted by a grant from the National
Science Foundation  http://www.nsf.gov/

Read it yourself before you decide if these journalists actually read
the research themselves or just assumed that the authors summary is
logical, based on research done with psych college students who were
getting credit for doing so.
How the researchers justified jumping from their study to using
manipulatives and concrete problems with younger children is hogwash
IMHO.

We do ourselves and the students we teach a horrible injustice when we
let others dictate how we are going to teach based on "conclusions"
from research based re****ts without further scrutiny.

If anyone paid $10 for the Science Journal article or knows the
actually research study and it is different than the one from Ohio
State please let us know.

Now, if they had worked with elementary age students and had some
conclusions it might be believable. Is there research that suggests
college age students and elementary age students learn the same way?
What about all the studies on cognitive and behavioral development?
Again, I think we need to know a lot more before some administrators
come in and take away all "the toys" in the "name of research".