Children have problems in understanding and becoming proficient in abstract representational systems that convey concepts, such as algebra. We focus here on using diagrams to help them learn to translate arithmetic word problems into calculator expressions. The problem here is learning how to find a mapping between features of the word problems and actions performed on a calculator, and how to represent and handle intermediate results, especially when more than one operation is involved [2, 5], We approach it by looking for representations in which the relevant information is easy to read; which are easy to edit as required; and which encourage reflective abstraction, the means by which students construct abstract structures by reflecting on their own activities and the arguments used in pupil-teacher or pupil-pupil discourse [3].
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