Learning effects of iconic representation animation teaching on the mathematics problem solving process

Abstract

Pictures play an important role in school children education. Lively and vivid pictures or illustrations are able to attract the most attention from children and enhance their interest in learning. What's more, relevant psychological data prove that people accept different information and knowledge at different paces. Human brain responds to verbal information at the lowest pace, and the consequent judgement and reasoning is also delayed. However, iconic information can come into people's minds once or twice times as fast as verbal information, from which it can be inferred that pictures can provide some teaching functions superior to languages and words. Information infused teaching can enhance students' understanding of word problems through direct iconic representation. It can improve the learning interest of students, reduce their anxiety about mathematics and improve their learning effectiveness. The research aims to design a mathematic system of animation teaching materials based on iconic representation and explore the learning effectiveness of the students in Grade 4 of elementary schools in the central of Taiwan in terms of the study unit, mathematical word problems. According to the research results, (1) the effects of Mathematics teaching is obvious with the help of animation teaching materials based on iconic representation, especially for multiplication and division methods; (2) the students hold positive and affirmative attitudes towards animation teaching materials based on iconic representation.