Chinese American Educational Research and Development Association
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Educational Research & Development Journal
Vol 16, No 1 (2013)
An Effective Remedial Instruction in Number Sense for Third Graders in Taiwan |
| Pei-Chieh Chen, Mao-Neng Li, Der-Ching Yang |
Abstract |
| To examine the effect of remedial instruction on number sense performance, two third-grade classes from an elementary school in Taiwan joined a 7-week remedial instructional program (one number sense-based [NS-based] remedial instruction class and one textbook-based remedial instruction class). The results from both tests and interviews showed that students in the NS-based remedial instruction class made more progress in number sense than those in the textbook-based remedial instruction class. This implies that the NS-based remedial instruction had a more positive effect on students’ number sense performance than the textbook-based instruction. This finding further indicates that NS-based remedial instruction via well-organized teaching materials and appropriate math manipulatives has a positive impact on students’ number sense development. Some educational implications are also discussed.Recent studies and international white papers have highlighted that the development of children’s number sense should be incorporated into school mathematics teaching (Jordan, Glutting & Ramineni, 2010; National Research Council [NRC], 2001; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000; Verschaffel, Greer, & De Corte, 2007). Due to its importance, more and more research studies around the world have focused on the teaching and learning of number sense (Griffin, 2004; Jordan, Kaplan, Oláh & Locuniak, 2006; Yang & Wu, 2010). However, current mathematics teaching in Taiwan continues to emphasize written computation for an exact answer; a practice that may obstruct students’ development of number sense (Reys & Yang, 1998). In addition, Yang & Li (2008) also found that 5th-graders in Taiwan performed poorly on number sense and suggested that number sense should be taught at an earlier grade level. These results have encouraged researchers to consider the following questions. How has a student’s number sense developed after completing the third grade mathematics course? Can textbook-based activities enhance students’ number sense? If not, how can we improve students’ number sense? Can we design and perform NS-based remedial instruction to promote students’ number sense development? How much difference is there between NS-based remedial instruction and textbook-based remedial practice? Given these questions, the task of developing NS-based remedial instruction for third graders deserves attention by researchers in Taiwan. Accordingly, the following research questions were developed to address this issue:(1) How can number sense activities be implemented in NS-based remedial instruction?(2) Does number sense remedial instruction have a more positive impact on the development of students’ number sense than textbook-based remedial practice? (3) Do students who receive number sense remedial instruction more frequently use number sense than students who receive textbook-based remedial practice? |
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ISSN: 1526-8659