What is virtual manipulative for mathematics:

Virtual manipulativesare  a new technology that are modeled after existing manipulatives such as base ten blocks, tangrams, spinners, rulers, fraction bars, algebra tiles, geoboards, geometric plane, and solids figures. Virtual manipulatives are usually in the form of Java or Flash applets. Virtual manipulatives are new tools for teachers to provide concrete models of abstract mathematical concepts for learners of mathematics. Research suggests that students may also develop more connected understandings of mathematical concepts when they use virtual manipulatives (Moyer, Niezgoda, & Stanley, 2005).

Example of virtual manipulative for mathematics:

How does it help?

To understand how virtual manipulatives help our students, let’s look at the study of Dr. Shannon Melideo from Marymount University. In this study she examined the effectiveness of using virtual manipulatives to increase the cognitive understanding of fractions of students in fourth grade. In today’s education virtual manipulatives provides another opportunity for engaging students in the world of technology. 

According to this study, the comprehension of mathematical knowledge occur on three levels: 

1. Concrete level: Includes the use of physical models, such as hands on manipulatives and any everyday life object, to comprehend a specific content.
2. Semi-concrete level: Pictorial images like drawings, pictures, photographs, charts, and graphs.
3. Abstract level: Incorporates numbers, symbols, and mental math.

Virtual manipulatives are essentially replicas of physical manipulatives places on World Wide Web in the form of Java applets (Moyer, Bolyard, and Spikell, 2002). 

The research was conducted for a two week period during the fourth quarter of the school year. Three assessments including pre-test, post-test, and one quiz were administered. They made two groups, one group use virtual manipulatives and the other group don’t. The experimental group worked on applets located on the National Library of Virtual Manipulative website (http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html). In these practices student work on fraction bars, fraction pieces, fraction adding and subtracting with like and unlike denominators, parts of a whole, equivalents, and naming fractions. 

After doing the pre-test, quiz, and the post-test, the test gains ranged from 5 to 14 points on the quiz and from 4 to 11 points for the post-test. The group who use virtual manipulatives have a greater test gains and the group who don’t use virtual manipulatives have a less test gains. 

These results indicated that there was a noticeable increase by the experimental group in conceptual knowledge. On both the quiz and post-test, student improvement within the experimental group was impressive with an increase of approximately one-half of a letter grade. This happen because student have opportunity to practice with dynamic visual representations whey they viewed the virtual manipulatives and this opportunity does not exist with textbook pages and worksheets. 

Do you like to try it yourself?

Click on this link to solve an equation using algebra tiles: http://my.hrw.com/math06_07/nsmedia/tools/Algebra_Tiles/Algebra_Tiles.html  

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Article on Virtual Manipulatives  

This link below is an interesting article on developing fraction sense using virtual manipulatives. Click and enjoy it.

http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/3.4.2.pdf

Interactive Tutorials, includes Math and other K-12 programs: Jefferson County Schools: http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interactive.htm

References

Base Ten Blocks Intro. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSgG994vqI

Interactive Math Websites. (2011). Retrieved from http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interact-math.htm

Melideo, Shannon. (2009). Directly from Pedagogy to Practice: Incorporating Virtual Manipulatives in the

     Elementary Mathematics Classroom. Retrieved

     from  http://www.ateva.org/The%20Teacher%20Educators%27%20Journal%20-%20Spring%202009.pdf

Moyer, Patricia S., Bolyard, Johnna J., Spikell, Mark A. (2002). What Are Virtual Manipulatives? Teaching

     Children Mathematics. Retrieved from http://edtechleaders.org/documents/algebra/1whatarevms.pdf

Moyer, Patricia S., Bolyard, Johnna J., Spikell, Mark A. (2002). Virtual Manipulatives In The K-12 Classroom.

     Retrieved from http://dipmat.math.unipa.it/~grim/AMoyer.PDF

Moyer, Patricia S., Niezgoda, D., Stanley, J. (2005). Young children’s use of manipulatives and other form of

     mathematical representations. Retrieved from http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=151#ref

Moyer, Patricia S., Suh, Jennifer., Heo, Hae-Ja. (2005). Examining Technology Uses in the Classroom:

     Developing Fraction Sense Using Virtual Manipulative Concept Tutorials. Retrieved

      from  http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/3.4.2.pdf

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) Web site. (2011). Retrieved April 25, 2011

     from: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. (2010).  Retrieved from

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDnM6BzRZ2U&feature=youtube_gdata_player