“A small study, carried out by Michelle Riconscente, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, offers some promising results, even with the necessary caveat that it was funded by the Motion Math app with a grant from the Noyce Foundation,” Nicole Martinelli reports for Cult of Mac.
“Her findings? Kids who used the app for 20 minutes for five days improved on a fractions test by an average of 15 percent compared to the control group. Using Motion Math also improved the kids attitudes about fractions by 10 percent – no small improvement if you remember how tedious they can be,” Martinelli reports. “The kids who used the app said they would gladly play it again or recommend it to their friends.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn Weiler” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Computers are great learning tools period. They are not the crutch that some people make them out to be. Not just for math but for everything. Computers are a patient teachers assistant that is not judgmental and works at your own speed. The little squiggly red line when we type alone is a godsend for bad spellers of all ages.
I entirely agree. The maths rescources are brilliant. But more than that having access to all sorts of online factual data boosts general knowledge, thereby awakening new interests. Provided the equipment is used in that way of course.
All it requires is the right application. 🙂
It should be easy to use and conducive to learning.
To be more precise, it is not the computer, but rather the software.
An iPad without Motion Math is not nearly an effective teacher of fractions than an iPad with that software.
This has been the case since before the Apple ][, and will always be the case.
[rant on]
I’ve been using technology in my teaching for the past 25 years and really believe it improves student learning (when used properly), but simplistic studies like this one always bring up more questions than results. These studies do more damage by provided anti-technology activists with ammunition to use on school board members who were elected for political or religious reasons and have no expertise related to education.
“Kids who used the app for 20 minutes for five days improved on a fractions test by an average of 15 percent compared to the control group” — questions abound:
I read the final report (linked from the article). The experimental design used is valid, but much of the hypotheses are philosophically, not scientifically motivated. (Kids learn fractions better as a “continuous entity versus discrete ratios”. Where’s the cognitive-psychology proof of that statement? One source promoted by the PI is Prof Wu – a noted traditionalist research-mathematician who believes because he’s a successful researcher, he knows how and what children should be taught.)
The studies results come from two fractions tests – a paper one with 34 problems for the control group, and an electronic test with 26 questions for the treatment group – shorter test since some of the items weren’t “amenable” to their electronic testing software. The rest of the results come from “attitude surveys” given to the children.
There’s no real description of the control group’s treatment in the final report. Did the treatment group have 20 extra minutes of math activity per day, while the control group didn’t? That alone could explain the improvement. If I were a peer reviewer of the project, I would have rejected it on just that one missing item. There are others…
[rant off] (It’s been a long semester…)
8^þ, I’d probably reject you from any peer review committee for your sloppiness.
I read the study. It’s not perfect, (the measure of fractions only measures fractions usage on a numberline, for example), but it clearly states about the control group that, “At both schools, participating teachers agreed to refrain from teaching topics directly related to fractions during the study, since the purpose of the study was not to compare game play to classroom instruction but rather to ascertain whether the game is effective as a stand-alone instructional tool.”
Also, why did you put “attitude surveys” in quotes? How else can one measure attitudes? Cholesterol levels? The report lists some sample survey questions and they seem valid. Yours is the sloppiest kind of criticism, just putting something in quotes, implying that it’s somehow off.
Now, an app for continued fractions…that would be transcendental!