Students learn math and science better when taught with abstract rather than “visually engaging” 3-D objects that “moved dynamically on a computer screen,” reports Science Daily.
The students were also more successful in applying what they learned to new situations when they were taught with abstract symbols rather than concrete objects, said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State University.. . . “Many teachers believe that concrete materials make learning more fun for students, and that will increase their motivation and help them understand the concepts,” (Sloutsky) said. “While this may be true, in many cases, the concrete materials also interfere with what they are trying to learn.”
Dancing, talking, humanized letters and numbers may confuse young children, Sloutsky said. Children see humanized letters and numbers as individuals, not as “symbols that can be used in many different ways.”
There are many reasons why concrete may not be better for learning, according to Sloutsky. For one, concrete objects have more “perceptual richness,” meaning there is more for students to look at and process. That means there is more to distract students from what is important.Also, concrete symbols are less “portable.” For example, a child can use a stick – a relatively abstract item – and imagine it is a car, or a space ship or a flower. However, it is more difficult for a child to take a toy train and pretend that it is a flower.
A large majority of teachers believe children have trouble with abstraction and learn better when everything is as concrete as possible. I wonder if the study will change any minds.
Each time a Sesame Street episode ended with a sponsorship announcement (”…brought to you by the letter ‘H’ “), I used to wonder how letters could make money. Would I have to pay to use them in a certain way?
Seriously, though, this study was conducted on undergraduate college students. Do college courses use talking letters these days, or are the authors using results for college students to support theories about small children?
Could you put that another way?
(With song and dance?)
I agree from personal experience that anthropomorphized letters and numbers can cause confusion.
Still, this study was performed on adults, not young children. It introduced a new “math” and “science” concept never encountered elsewhere, unlike letters and numbers which students will see frequently in many contexts. The conclusions reached in the linked article seem be a bit of a stretch.
The study itself is online at the first link on this page: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~heckler/Selected%20Publications.htm
with both of my children, took time to teach them to count in four languages from a very early age, mostly to cement idea of numbers as concepts rather than names.
datapoint of 2, but result was both boy and girl engaged and loved math. I recognize that the sample size is small enough to leave unanswered the question of nature/nurture/other influences; ie, it is parent’s aptitude, this approach in particular, other exercises of math … or some combination of all three, which triggered the outcome.
they also showed an interest in different languages.
Limit the lessons to concrete “real-world” applications, and you limit the students’ processing capabilities to those same applications. If you happen to throw enough different applications at the students, some might happen to construct the basic principle on their own. It’s quicker, and more assured to just start witht he basics and then get to the applications.
‘Students learn math and science better when taught with abstract rather than “visually engaging” 3-D objects that “moved dynamically on a computer screen,” reports Science Daily. ‘
But abstract items don’t sell nearly as well.
“It’s quicker, and more assured to just start witht the basics and then get to the applications.”
I mostly agree with this statement, but quicker is not always better. There are many people who are grounded in reality and starting out with too much abstract can leave some alienated. Growing up, I struggled with math classes, yet I had no trouble with math within my science classes. I am one of the few people who actually preferred word problems. Since I majored in science, the way I dealt with the problem was to approach math from both directions of abstact and real, and it worked for me. I have also helped my smart, but math-challenged friends by providing a variety of real life examples for a math equation because abstact was well, too far out there for them.