Comparing Fractions—the Enactive Way: Supporting Students' Choice of Appropriate Strategies With iPad-Assisted Instruction

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Technology and Games in Mathematics Learning

Abstract

Comparing fractions is difficult for students. However, successful students use strategies that rely on specific features of the pair of fractions, making arithmetic operations obsolete. We investigated whether an interactive instructional approach on the iPad, offering specific options for manipulating objects, can support students to apply appropriate strategies. As part of a four-week intervention on fractions, 474 grade six students from public schools learned how to compare fractions in two treatment groups (iPad, paper-based) and one control group. In a posttest, students of both treatment groups mostly used feature-based strategies. This provides evidence that a flexible use of strategies for fraction comparison tasks can be encouraged with proper teaching material; yet the iPad seems to have no additional effect.

Authors

• Frank Reinhold, Technical University of Munich

• Kristina Maria Reiss, Technische Universitaet Munich

• Stefan Hoch, Technical University of Munich

• Bernhard Werner, Technical University of Munich

• Jürgen Richter-Gebert