Differences Between Concrete and Virtual Manipulatives in Preparing Thesis - 1

Differences Between Concrete and Virtual Manipulatives in Preparing 10th Grade Math Students for Standardized Tests - Thesis Example Presentation and Interpretation of Data Qualitative Analysis 1. Advantages of using Concrete Manipulative in Teaching Data was collected to ascertain the advantages that the use of concrete manipulative have on the learning of mathematics at the 10th grade. To do this, respondents were made to undertake various tests that involved the use of concrete or physical manipulative. It must be emphasized that, for a comparative study like this, it was necessary to get a yardstick to measure the performance of the students with. This is to say that it was necessary to create a platform that would make it possible to measure the impact of the concrete manipulative on learning separately. To this end, students were first made to undertake a class lesson on various mathematical topics including number sense, geometry, algebra, and probability and statistics. The first lesson did not involve the use of any concrete manipulative or any other form of learning manipulative. The lesson was therefore done in abstraction. After this, a second lesson was undertaken. This lesson on the other hand involved the use of concrete manipulative. As the leader of the class in the lesson, some major advantages of the concrete manipulative that were recorded include the fact that: i. ... 2. Limitations to the use of concrete manipulative The same group of lessons that were taught in the class as a means of ascertaining the impact of the use of concrete manipulative in teaching also brought out a number of weaknesses or limitations that are associated with the use of concrete manipulative in teaching. After the first lesson (pre-test), which did not involve the use of concrete manipulative was completed and the second lesson (post-test), which involved the use of concrete manipulative was underway, the researcher observed that it took more time to finish teaching the same topic when no concrete manipulative was used. That is, the use of concrete manipulative is time consuming. Again, it was noticed that class control became a little difficult when the teacher introduce the concrete manipulative to the class. Even more, there was clear indication and evidence that the continuous use of concrete manipulative for teaching was going to come with some extra expenditure to the class. Finally, it was observed that the use of concrete manipulative demands so much skill and experience. 3. Advantages of using virtual manipulative Great amount of data were also collected to ascertain the importance or advantages of using virtual manipulative in teaching mathematics at the 10th grade. Most of these data were secondary data from the literature review that was conducted. According to some of the major researchers whose works were reviewed, it was established that using the virtual manipulative in teaching and learning mathematics offers almost the same relevance and importance as the use of concrete manipulative (quote). This is because the academic idea of using virtual manipulative is to give a digital