Examining Technology Uses in the Classroom: Developing Fraction Sense Using Virtual Manipulative Concept Tutorials

This paper describes a classroom teaching experiment conducted in three fifth-grade mathematics classrooms with students of different achievement levels. Virtual fraction manipulative concept tutorials were used in three one-hour class sessions to investigate the learning characteristics afforded by these technology tools. The virtual fraction manipulative concept tutorials exhibited the following learning characteristics that supported students during their learning of equivalence and fraction addition: (1) Allowed discovery learning through experimentation and hypothesis testing; (2) Encouraged students to see mathematical relationships; (3) Connected iconic and symbolic modes of representation explicitly; and (4) Prevented common error patterns in fraction addition.

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