47th Congress of the Learning Disabilities Institute

23 au 25 mars 2022

Teaching with Manipulatives: A Tool for Pedagogical Differentiation in Mathematics Class

Manipulative materials are often seen as a way to support student learning. However, the materials alone are not sufficient. In some cases, it can even be argued that the learning that takes place when a material is introduced is not the intended learning. Several didactic variables appear to play a significant role in students’ learning using manipulative materials. Becoming aware of these variables leads to making choices that allow for the effective use of manipulative materials in differentiated teaching. Drawing on the research results of the MathRéaliser project, this workshop proposes to explore two specific tasks to reflect on the following questions:

1. How do different didactic choices modify the initial pedagogical intention of the task?
2. How do different didactic choices influence the mathematical reasoning deployed by students?
3. How do these choices take into account inherent differences in the mathematics class?
4. What role can the teacher play in guiding student activity during this use?

The two explored tasks focus on learning fractions and were experimented with in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.