Professional Readings

 1. Using Concrete Manipulatives in Mathematical Instruction

Using manipulatives has been my main hunch as to why a lot of my students are 'stuck' at the Year 5-6 level. Manipulatives in the education scene is defined as "physical objects that are used as teaching tools to engage students in the hands-on learning of mathematics". We've all read about the different variations to an approach to teaching mathematics, this reading talks about the Concrete, Representational, Abstract (CRA instruction as a process for teaching and learning mathematical concepts. CRA instruction allows students to make associations from one stage of the process to the next. My takeaway from this reading was to re-affirm my hunch and that no matter what level my students were operating at, we still needed to take things back to the manipulatives levels when teaching any new mathematical concepts.

2. What do culturally diverse children in New Zealand value most for their mathematics learning?

I decided to take up this reading after being able to experience using the DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities) approach and how it was rolling out in our schools. With our school being predominantly Maori and Pasifika, I believed this to be good paper to help support my understandings for what would be most helpful for our learners. 

This reading focused on student values, and that when values are acknowledged in the mathematics classroom, there are significant benefits. It was also useful to read this as it was using a Year 7/8 class in NZ.