Learning Progression Shifts: How Touch Screen Virtual Manipulative Mathematics App Design Promotes Children's Productive Struggle

• In Event: 68.062 - Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: 68.062-7 - Expanding the Scope of Learning With Innovative Technologies

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine shifts in young children’s learning progression levels while they interacted with virtual manipulative mathematics apps on touch-screen devices. Researchers developed learning progressions to analyze video data of the interviews. Our results showed that it is possible to document evidence of shifts in children’s learning progressions while they are interacting with mathematics apps and indicated patterns in the children’s interactions that were related to the shifts in their learning progression levels. Design features such as an open-ended number of tasks with a variety of representations and tasks at varying levels of difficulty led to children refining their understanding and shaping their concept image of mathematical ideas resulting in incremental shifts in learning.

Authors

• Christina Watts Lommatsch, Utah State University

• Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham, Utah State University

• Stephen I. Tucker, University of Louisville

• Emma P. Bullock, Sam Houston State University

• Jessica F. Shumway, Utah State University

• Arla Westenskow, Utah State University

• Jennifer Boyer-Thurgood

• Katie Anderson, Utah State University

• Salif Mahamane, Utah State University

• Kerry Jordan, Utah State University