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Tools or crutches? Apparatus as a sense‐making aid in mathematics teaching with children with moderate learning difficulties
Author(s) -
MOSCARDINI LIO
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
support for learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.25
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1467-9604
pISSN - 0268-2141
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9604.2009.01395.x
Subject(s) - function (biology) , mathematics education , sequence (biology) , computer science , psychology , biology , genetics , evolutionary biology
This paper challenges a view of concrete materials as artifacts used within a rigid instructional sequence that particular children are perceived to require or not, as the case may be. Focussing on mathematics teaching, it contends that it is more useful to consider the function of these materials as tools , artefacts used flexibly and selectively by pupils to make sense of mathematics, rather than as crutches , devices which may support procedural competency in mathematics but with no guarantees of understanding.