LSRI: Tangible technologies for early number development – the role of physical manipulation in solving number problems

Andrew Manches
University of Nottingham

In this talk I would like to share my PhD work which evaluated the potential of tangible (hand held) technologies to support early numerical development. To evaluate the importance of physically manipulating representations, the research focused on how young children used physical cubes to solve a particular numerical problem – identify ways a single digit number (e.g., 9) can be broken down into pairs (e.g., 2 & 7) - and compared their problem solving using other representations such as paper squares and virtual representations manipulated with a mouse.

The talk will focus on four of the seven studies carried out that highlight the progression of the thesis – from examining the effect of physical manipulation on children’s numerical strategies to then testing whether strategies can be significantly influenced by changing the representation’s manipulative properties (manipulating virtual squares using a mouse) and perceptual properties (objects that change colour when put into different numerical groups). The talk hopes to elicit the audience’s thoughts surrounding the importance of ‘hands on learning’ and how technology might be used to develop novel forms of abstract representations to support early learning.

This seminar will take place in Room 35a, Flexible Learning Room, LSRI, The Exchange, Jubilee Campus