concrete representational abstract
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Lego Fractions
The photo below is courtesy of Robert Yu, Head of Lego Education China, as shared by Jonathan Rochelle, Director for Project Management at Google. The use of Legos shown here is a classic (and wicked clever) example of manipulatives. Before writing the actual fractions students can use drawings as shown below. The sequence of manipulatives,…
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Place Value Representation
Here is an easy way to create and implement strategy to unpack place value for students (created by one of my former graduate students). I suggest using this after manipulatives and visual representations (drawing on paper) in a CRA sequence. It is hands on but it includes the symbolic representation (numbers). Hence is another step…
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Concepts vs Skills – Need Both
In general math is taught by focusing on the steps. Conduct a Google search for solving equations and you will see the steps presented (below). You need a video to help your student understand solving and you typically get a presenter standing at the board talking through the examples. (I’ve posted on my approach to…
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Simplifying Expressions (Combine Like Terms)
Simplifying expressions (see photo below) is one of the most challenging algebra tasks for many students receiving special education services. A major problem is that it is typically presented as symbol manipulation…addressed in very symbolic form. My approach is to make math relevant and more concrete. Below is a scaffolded handout I use to help…
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Hands on Approach to Factoring out the GCF
Factors are “things being multiplied”, e.g. 2 and 3 are factors of 6. Factoring polynomials like 5×2 + 15 above is one of the most challenging algebra topics, especially for students with special needs. To make these problems more accessible a more concrete approach is possible. The photo above shows how finding a greatest common factor…