Day 3 ( 3rd April 2013)

The takeaway thought for today lesson was "If an abstract idea cannot be seen in the concrete material, it is not CPA Approach."

Concrete Pictorial Abstract Approach is similar and orginally based on the work of Jerome Bruner in the 1960s.

1) Concrete components include manipulatives, measuring tools, or other objects the students can handle during the lesson.

2)  Pictorial representations include drawings, diagrams, charts, or graphs that are drawn by the students or are provided for the students to read and interpret.

3) Abstract refers to symbolic representations such as numbers or letters that the student writes or interprets to demonstrate understanding of a task.

The concrete material should contain the concept we want to teach. It should be emboided the abstract idea to be considered as a concrete material. E.g. Checking for equals parts on a piece of paper. The equal part is the abstract idea, while the paper is the concrete material.

The Pictured relationships show visual  representations of the concrete manipulatives and help children visualize mathematical operations during problem solving.

Hence, it is important that children should be familiar with visuals (visual literacy), observing and processing through mental images and are provided opportunities for them to develop their motor skills development. This can be done through art, music and movement and other activities that promotes visual literacy and physical development.

 

The second take away was "fraction means equal parts." As easy as it may sounds, how well do you know the meaing of equal? Have you ever use an apple to teach fraction? If you do, please discontinued using apple as an example to teach fraction. Why? Simply becuase no matter how precise you cut the apple, the halves would not be equal. And you know it very well, fraction means having equal parts.

When the parts are equal, we can actually name them. The denomination is a name and in this case (3/4),  the nominal number 4 has a name call "fourth". Hence we can call it three fourth, or 3 out of 4.