Computer Tools for Interactive Mathematical Activity in the Elementary School

Abstract

The computer tools for interactive mathematical activity (TIMA) were designed to provide children a medium in which they could enact their mathematical operations of unitizing, uniting, fragmenting, segmenting, partitioning, replicating, iterating and measuring. As such, they are very different from the drill and practice or tutorial software that are prevalent in many elementary schools. The TIMA were developed in the context of a constructivist teaching experiment focused on children's construction of fractions. They were used to promote cognitive play that could be transformed into independent mathematical activity. Teaching interventions were often critical in bringing forth mathematical activity. Students' interactions were also important provocations for mathematical reasoning with the TIMA. The TIMA do not, by themselves define a microworld. Rather it is the children's activity and their interpretations of the results of that activity, while interacting with others, that bring forth a microworld of mathematical operations. Designers of computational environments for children need to take into account the contributions children need to make in order to build their own mathematical structures. For teachers to make effective use of software such as the TIMA they need to understand (and share) the views of learning that shaped the development of the software.