What Makes Mathematics Manipulatives Effective? Lessons From Cognitive Science and Montessori Education
Elida V. Laski
(Author) , Jamilah R. Jor’dan (Author)
, Carolyn Daoust (Author)
, Angela K. Murray (Author)
Publication: SAGE Open,
vol. 5, no. 2
Date: 2015
Pages: 1-8
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Abstract/Notes: Manipulatives are ubiquitous in early childhood classrooms; yet, findings regarding their efficacy for learning mathematics concepts are inconsistent. In this article, we present four general principles that have emerged from cognitive science about ways to ensure that manipulatives promote learning when used with young children. We also describe how Montessori instruction offers a concrete example of the application of these principles in practice, which may, in turn, explain the high levels of mathematics achievement among children who attend Montessori programs during early childhood. The general principles and concrete examples presented in this article should help early childhood programs maximize the benefits of using manipulatives for developmentally appropriate mathematics instruction.
Language: English
Article
✓ Peer Reviewed
Small School Reform: The Challenges Faced by One Urban High School
Abstract/Notes: This qualitative ethnographic case study explored the evolution of a public urban high school in its 3rd year of small school reform. The study focused on how the high school proceeded from its initial concept, moving to a small school program, and emerging as a new small high school. Data collection included interviews, observations, and document review to develop a case study of one small high school sharing a multiplex building. The first key finding, “Too Many Pieces, Not Enough Glue,” revealed that the school had too many new programs starting at once and they lacked a clear understanding of their concept and vision for their new small school, training on the Montessori philosophies, teaching and learning in small schools, and how to operate within a teacher-cooperative model. The second key finding, “A Continuous Struggle,” revealed that the shared building space presented problems for teachers and students. District policies remain unchanged, resulting in staff and students resorting to activist approaches to get things done. These findings offer small school reform leaders suggestions for developing and sustaining a small school culture and cohesion despite the pressures to revert back to top-down, comprehensive high school norms.
Le Case dei bambini nella Calabria di inizio Novecento attraverso l’Archivio Storico dell’ANIMI / Montessori’s Children’s Houses in Calabria at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century in the Historic Archive of the ANIMI
Abstract/Notes: The birth of Montessori’s Case dei Bambini (“Children’s Houses”) and the adoption of her innovative teaching method constitute an interesting chapter in the renewal of educational practices in Italy in the early years of the 20th century. Spreading from North to South, the biggest impact was felt where the social question was most acute. Milan, Rome and Città di Castello (the location of the Villa Montesca belonging to Leopoldo Franchetti and his wife Alice Hallgarten), together with very small communities such as those of Ferruzzano and Saccuti in the province of Reggio Calabria, were ideal contexts in which to test the assumptions of Maria Montessori’s approach to pedagogy. Specifically, this paper examines the experience of the Children’s Houses and nursery schools set up in Calabria by the Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia (ANIMI, the National Association for the Interests of the Italian Mezzogiorno). The use of partly unpublished materials kept in the Association’s Historic Archive makes it possible to reconstruct the enthusiasm for the Montessori method of some teachers who were not from Calabria and to assess its positive effects on the children, who were among the country’s most neglected, often condemned to a series of privations.
Abstract/Notes: Giuliana Sorge (1903-1987) was one of Maria Montessori’s closest disciples. Many parts of her life are linked to the alternating vicissitudes of the spread of the Method in Italy. She is personally involved at the time of the breakdown of the relation between Maria Montessori and fascism. We find her in the immediate postwar period engaged in the reconstruction of the Montessori National Institution and in the dissemination of the Method in Italy. To do this, she weaves a network of relations with exponents of the political and ecclesiastical world assisted by the friendship of Luigia Tincani, a Catholic, Montessori’s friend, founder of what will become the Free University Maria SS. Assunta and a religious congregation. This emerges from an unpublished correspondence between these two women, which also contains interesting news relating to the hostility of prof. Aldo Agazzi towards the spread of the Montessori Method.
La formazione degli insegnanti nell’approccio montessoriano: il dibattito nelle pagine di La Coltura Popolare (1911-1922) / Teacher’s Training in the Montessori Approach: The Debate on the Pages of La Coltura Popolare (1911-1922)
Abstract/Notes: In the first two decades of the Twentieth Century, reflections on teacher training were particularly rich, implying the lively and significant participation of a plurality of actors. Even Maria Montessori actively participated in this debate and the meeting with the Humanitarian Society in Milan, and with Augusto Osimo primarily, proved to be very fruitful on these issues. The specialist magazine La Coltura Popolare represents a faithful and interesting mirror of this relationship and of the many reflections and initiatives arose from it, promoting the propagation of the Montessori method and offering at the same time a space for dialogue and comparison of all the most innovative and vivifying voices of the pedagogical reflection of the time. This paper proposes a first and partial reconstruction of the significant role that La Coltura Popolare played, from 1911 to 1922, in soliciting the attention of its public on the topic of teacher training, in spreading the Montessori method, in stimulating a not biased and preconceived comparison between different approaches, experiments and views on childhood.
Maria Montessori, Pedagogical Orthodoxy, and the Question of Correct Practice (1921-1929) / Maria Montessori, l’ortodossia pedagogica e la questione della pratica corretta (1921-1929)
Abstract/Notes: The issue of correct practice (i.e., according to Henri Louis Go, practice that reflects the spirit and letter of a pedagogy), concerns every pedagogue, and Maria Montessori certainly took correct practice very seriously from the outset. Indeed, her emphasis on this crucial issue explains some of the strategic choices she made, as well as the ways she promoted her method abroad, and the relationships she maintained with her contemporaries (analyzed here via the early years of the journal Pour l’Ère nouvelle). These all led to accusations of dogmatism or pedagogical orthodoxy that continue to be leveled at the Montessori network today. This article sets out to explore the controversy surrounding the issue of correct practice in the field of pedagogy, taking Montessori as its example. Focusing on the 1920s, it considers the questions raised by attempts to protect a life’s work within a heterogeneous array of philosophical and political practices and positions. It also explores the reticence that some of Montessori’s contemporaries (particularly Decroly and Ferrière) showednot toward her pedagogy per se, but toward the way she conceived of and applied this pedagogy.
Maria Montessori e Anna Freud: intrecci e contaminazioni tra pedagogia e psicoanalisi / Maria Montessori and Anna Freud: Links and Influences Between Pedagogy and Psychoanalysis
Abstract/Notes: The fascination with the Montessori Method stems from a never quite exhaustive analysis of her studies, which, due to the multiplicity and complexity of its elements, continually lend themselves to readings, hermeneutic interpretations and discoveries. Following a series of “clues” that see the figure of Maria Montessori intertwined with that of Anna Freud, this article intends to enhance the interdisciplinary interweaving and the multiple links which, by relating pedagogy with psychoanalysis, favor a broader vision of the implications relating to the changes occurring during the first half of the twentieth century, in which the child is the protagonist.
Abstract/Notes: This paper deals with the emergence of political consciousness among Indonesian teachers and students in public Dutch-Indonesian teacher training schools (Hollands Inlandse Kweekschool, HIK) during the last colonial decade up to the beginning of the Japanese occupation in 1942. Most of the Indonesian teachers and students, who pursued careers and education respectively in government schools, had initially embarked from personal expectations of upward economic mobility. Yet, in the course of the 1930s, they grew in deliberate willingness and perception to engage in a wider scope of social dynamics without limiting themselves to the area of power politics. In this paper, the manner in which these students and teachers gave meaning to their daily lives inside and outside of school is identified and analyzed as the factor that critically contributed to the emergence of political consciousness among them. Although the transformation that the teachers underwent in their view of school education was a radical leap when seen from the perspective of the Indonesiacentric historiography of the 1930s, it did not actually show a process of transformative pedagogy. The sense of citizenship that the teachers shared in the 1930s, albeit a dramatic shift from the motivation that had originally propelled them, did not reflect the notion of public education as an independent practice of cultural upbringing irrelevant to the state and state-formation ideology.
Abstract/Notes: Alternative education methods which occured as a reaction to the traditional education systems are approaches that are child centered and that focus on practical learning and accept each child as a unique individual. Montessori Method, one of the alternative education approaches, differs from other alternative education methods by being an approach giving maximum freedom to the child, reflects the education principles not only to the education method but also to the physical environment of the child, and advocates that the strongest relationship in education is established between the child and the environment. This study, in which the main principles of Montessori Method were determined via conceptual analysis, aims to examine the effects and reflections of generated concepts on space organization. For this purpose, five Montessori schools from different countries, designed by different architects in different years, which can be reached through visual, written, and drawn documents are discussed. / Geleneksel eğitim sistemine tepki olarak ortaya çıkan alternatif eğitim metotları, özgürlükçü, çocuk odaklı, deneysel öğretimi esas alan ve her çocuğu ayrı bir birey olarak kabul eden yaklaşımlar olarak dikkat çekmektedir. Bu alternatif eğitim yaklaşımlarından biri olan Montessori Metodu ise, çocuğa maksimum bağımsızlık veren, eğitim ilkelerini sadece eğitim yöntemine değil, çocuğun fiziksel çevresine de yansıtan ve eğitimdeki en güçlü ilişkinin çocuk ile ortam arasında kurulduğunu savunan bir yaklaşım olmasıyla diğer alternatif eğitim metotlarından ayrılmaktadır. Montessori Metodu’nun temel değerlerinin kavramsal analiz yoluyla belirlendiği çalışma kapsamında, oluşturulan kavramların mekân örgütlenmesi üzerindeki etkilerinin ve yansımalarının irdelenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Bu amaçla alanyazında yer alan, görsel, yazılı ve çizili belgelerine ulaşılabilen, farklı ülkelerde bulunan, farklı yıllarda ve mimarlar tarafından yapılmış olan beş adet Montessori okulu ele alınmıştır. Çalışmada elde edilen kavramların bu okullar üzerinden okuması yapılarak eğitim yöntemi ile eğitim mekânı arasında güçlü bir ilişkinin olduğu ortaya konulmuştur.
Abstract/Notes: This study examined how teachers in multi-grade classrooms manage and use available resources in their classrooms. The study focused on multi-grade classrooms in farm schools in the Free State province of South Africa that cover Grades 1 to 9. The concepts “multi-grade classrooms” and “resources” are explained below. The availability and utilisation of resources in multi-grade classrooms is discussed in some depth. A qualitative research design was used to collect data. Interviews were conducted with 9 teachers who worked in multi-grade classrooms. The data reveals that the availability of resources has improved somewhat in the multi-grade classrooms surveyed; however, textbooks specifically meant for multi-grade classrooms are still lacking. The data also points to several other trends. For example, most multi-grade schools in the sample have insufficient resources. Where available, the resources are either under-utilised or used improperly. Furthermore, it is usually the case that learners are required to share resources across various grades. Moreover, teachers often use their personal resources to get their work done, and in this regard, smartphones play an important part. Finally, the study also reveals that teachers do try to use various types of resources to cater for different learning styles.Keywords: activity centres; classroom organisation; Montessori educational theory; multi-grade classrooms; resource corners; resources
Pedagoška glasbena načela po Edgarju Willemsu v povezavi s pedagogiko montessori v predšolskem obdobju [Edgar Willems' Pedagogic Principles of Music in Conjunction with the Montessori Method in Pre-School Teaching]
Abstract/Notes: Montessori pedagogika in glasbeni pristopi Edgarja Willemsa vzbujajo interes številnih, ki se ukvarjajo z vzgojo in izobraževanjem v povezavi z glasbeno umetnostjo. Težko je opisati razloge, zakaj je temu tako, ker se večina procesov odvija na emocionalni in podzavestni ravni, ki temeljijo na občutenju, nedvomno pa je, da oba pristopa obravnavata otroka kot prioriteto in se ob zavedanju njegovih sposobnosti optimalno razvijata otrokove individualne potenciale. Metodi temeljita na vsebinah, ki otroka vodijo do znanja na sprejemljiv in zabaven način. Oba pristopa poznata seveda tudi drugače misleče, vendar lahko na podlagi izkušenj trdimo, da je razlog temu v nepoznavanju in nekompetentnosti določenih pedagogov in glasbenih pedagogov v kontekstu pedagogike Montessori in metode Edgarja Willemsa. V magistrski nalogi predstavljamo v prvem teoretičnem delu pedagogiko montessori, njena načela in filozofska izhodišča ter pedagoški pristop in metode dela Edgarja Willemsa. V nalogi obravnavamo njune skupne in nasprotujoče vsebine, izhodišča in pristope. Med drugim izpostavljamo, kako glasbeno izobraževanje vpliva na kognitivno-socialni, afektivni in psihomotorični razvoj otrok. Oba pristopa pomembno ugotavljata, da je potrebno razumeti otroka, ga sprejemati kot individuum, vedeti, na kakšen način razmišlja in kako mu je potrebno ustrezno predstaviti nove vsebine, ki bodo otroka zanimale, ga pritegnile in ohranile pri delu dalj časa. V nalogi predstavljamo tudi vlogo vzgojitelja in pomembnost otrokovega okolja. V empiričnem praktičnem delu predstavljamo, kako montessori pedagogika ponuja otrokom glasbo in s katerimi pripomočki. V nalogi predstavljamo tudi posamezne vsebinske dele Willemsovih vzgojno učnih ur, postopek in predloge, kako jih lahko izvajamo ter nekatere pripomočke za uspešno delo. Willems je nedvomno natančneje in bolj strukturirano izoblikoval glasbeno pedagoške metode dela, kot je to razvila pedagogika montessori v predšolskem obdobju. Njegova dognanja sem umestila v montessori okolje tako pri glasbenih dejavnostih, kot tudi v kontekstu pripravljanja materialov, ki so otrokom dostopni kadarkoli v času varstva. Tako se lahko otrok v pripravljenem montessori okolju s pomočjo Willemsovega pristopa bolje seznani z glasbeno umetnostjo. [The Montessori pedagogy and Edgar Willems' approaches to music education arouse interest in many people who work in teaching and education combined with music. It is difficult to define the reasons for this because most of the processes occur on the emotional and subconscious level based on feelings but it is a fact that in both approaches a child is viewed as a priority. While being aware of their abilities, both of them develop individual child’s potentials optimally. The methods are based on the contents that motivate a child to learn in an acceptable and fun way. There are some people who oppose these approaches but from experience we can tell that it is because certain pedagogues and music pedagogues are incompetent and don’t know The Montessori pedagogy and Edgar Willems' method. In the postgraduate thesis we present the Montessori pedagogy, its principles and philosophy basis and Edgar Willems' pedagogic approach and his teaching methods in the first theoretic part. We present the contents, the basis and the approaches they have in common and the ones that are different. We point out how music education influences the cognitive-social, affective and psychomotor children's development. Both approaches point out that it is necessary to understand a child, accept them as individuals, understand their way of thinking and introduce new topics that will be interesting and will motivate them to learn for a longer period of time. We present the role of the teacher and the importance of the child's environment. In the empirical practical part we present how the Montessori pedagogy offers music to the children and what teaching accessories they use. In the thesis we present individual learning content parts of Willems’ lessons, the procedure and suggestions for the process of teaching and some teaching accessories for successful work in class. Willems has undoubtedly created musical pedagogy methods more thoroughly and structurally than the Montessori pedagogy in the preschool period. I have incorporated his discoveries into the Montessori environment with music activities and within preparing the materials which the children can use during the day care. So a child in a well arranged Montessori environment with help of the Willems’ approach can learn more about music.]
Language: Slovenian
Published: Maribor, Slovenia, 2018
Article
Maria Montessori e la supernatura: la telegrafia senza fili: in memoria di Mario M. Montessori junior
Psychologische Beobachtungen in der Montessori-Grundschulklasse [Psychological Observations in the Montessori Elementary School Class]
Emmy Bergmann
(Author)
, Deutschen Montessori-Gesellschaft E. V. (Editor)
Book Title: Psychologisches zur Montessori-Methode: Aus dem Montessori-Heft der Neuen Erziehung [Psychological information on the Montessori method: From the Montessori booklet of the New Education]
Published: Berlin, Germany:
Hensel and Co. Verlag, 1927
Book
Maria Montessori e il suo metodo: organizzazione dell'ente Opera Montessori
[unspecified] (Author)
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Language: Italian
Published: Roma, Italy:
[s.n.], [1947]
Book
Together with Montessori: The Guide to Help Montessori Teachers, Assistant Teachers, Resource Teachers, Administrators and Parents Work in Harmony to Create Great Schools
Abstract/Notes: This bachelor thesis Motivation of parents to choose Montessori preschool education is divided in two parts-theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part I described what is Montessori, who was Maria Montessori, how does Montessori look like now, what are the main principles of this education, how important is a role of a teacher and prepared environment and the end of this chapter was about a relationship between parents and education. The practical part was based on a questionnaire survey that was send among parents who have their children in Montessori kindergarten. The results show that parents choose Montessori especially because they sympathize with Montessori philosophy and it´s principles. For parents the most important were individual approach of teachers to children, kids learning responsibility and mutual respect.
