Abstract
"Abstract: Our research focuses on developing elementary students’ mental computation skills with the help of card games. Choosing this area of study was motivated by our personal experiences, namely, that mathematics programmes of study do not lay emphasis on this aspect; there are too few hours dedicated to developing this skill, and several mental computation strategies are not presented in the classroom. As a result, students struggle with mental computation, a basic skill needed in our day-to-day life, and a relevant basis for further mathematical knowledge, computation competence, and higher order thinking skills. In order to develop this skill, we have transformed well-known card games into didactic games, which encourage development almost unnoticeably, given the fact that children love to play, they need play. We have devised five new, appealing tools, with different levels of difficulty, suitable for developing mental computation skills in an attractive way. This paper presents an experiment involving second grade (8-9 years old) students. Two experimental groups were involved. The aim was to investigate whether mental computation is more efficient when using the traditional method or when using card games. We hypothesized that using card games might prove helpful in developing mental computation skills."
Highlights
Our research focuses on developing mental math skills
We have found that elementary school students cannot set oral operations apart from written ones
We hypothesized the following: H1: It is hypothesized that the group which uses card games to develop mental computation skills will show significant differences compared to the group which uses traditional methods to practice mental computation
Summary
Our research focuses on developing mental math skills. The choice of topic was motivated by our personal and work-related experiences, namely, that developing mental math is not given enough importance in education. We have not witnessed one single class which would focus on developing mental computation skills. These types of problems were generally used at the beginning of the class, in the warm- up part, while the main part of the lesson focused on other issues. We have found that elementary school students cannot set oral operations apart from written ones. They solve both types in the same way, with the slight difference that when they do mental math they picture the operations. Written operations are stored better in the long-term memory than mental math strategies. If children learn oral operations, they will have a better understanding of number system relationships (Hope, 1986; Schall, 1973), they will know their way around numbers and their logical thinking will develop (Reys, 1985)
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