Abstract:

Fractions represent a hesitant issue for primary school children [1-4]. Some authors say that the understanding of difficulties in learning fractions is crucial as they can lead to mathematics anxiety, and affect opportunities for further engagement in mathematics and science [5].

The Junior Science ® – Science for Children – Project, that is being implemented in different private schools in Oporto, Portugal, since early 2013, is a didactic strategy that aims to slowly introduce children into the scientific methodology [6-9]. Aiming to overcome these realistic difficulties, and also the small amount of innovative resorts for instruction on the subject matter, our team designed and built a set of games named: the fraction learning game kit.

We have implemented these games, which have a gradual complexity, to an amount of 35 students aged from 7-8 years old from 3 different private schools.

After evaluating the knowledge students were getting from the contact with Junior Science ® – Science for Children Project’s methodology using the games’ kit, it could be diagnosed that, after an average of 2,5 hours of contact, there was a 36% improvement of the students’ knowledge on the subject matter and that 49% of them could easily sum and subtract fractions (53% of which had 7 years old and had never studied the subject).
We will continue our work in this issue with these particular students.

Our proceeding’s aim is to share the game’s details and further results from the assessment.

References:
[1] Charalambous C., Pitta-Pantazi D. (2007). Drawing on a theoritical model to study students' understandings of fractions. Educ. Stud. Math. 64, pp. 293–316.
[2] Grégoire J., Meert G. (2005) L'apprentissage des nombres rationnels et ses obstacles, in Les Troubles Du Calcul, ed Noël M.-P., editor. (Marseille: Solal; ), pp. 223–251.
[3] Moss J., Case R. (1999). Developing children's understanding of the rational numbers: a new model and an experimental curriculum.J. Res. Math. Educ. 30, 122–147.
[4] Behr M. J., Lesh R., Post T. R., Silver E. A. (1983). Rational numbers concepts, in Acquisition of Mathematics Concepts and Processes, eds Lesh R., Landau M., editors. (New York, NY: Academic Press), pp. 91–125.
[5] Florence G., Frédéric C., Dénes S., Vincent C., Bernard R., Alain C., (2013) A componential view of children's difficulties in learning fractions. Front Psychol. 2013; 4: 715 pp 1-12.
[6] Costa, F., Pratas, H., Paramés. A., Harry Leite V., Ribeiro L. (2015) Junior Science project– A study case on Colégio Cedros – Pedagogical experience with differentiated education. INTED2015, 9th International Technology, Education and Development Conference Proceedings ISBN: 978-84-606-5763-7, pp. 3996-4000.
[7] Costa, F., Pratas, H., Paramés. A. (2014) Junior Science Project— Developing Attention and Concentration Skills to Nurture a Sustainable Learning of Natural Sciences. US-China Education Review US-China Education Review A, ISSN 2161-623X Feb. 2014, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.125-128.
[8] Costa, F., Pratas, H., Paramés. A. (2014) Junior Science – Teaching Science in Primary School. INTED2014, 8th International Technology, Education and Development Conference Proceedings IATED ISSN: 2340-1079, ISBN: 978-84-616-8412-0, pp. 4886-4889.

Keywords:

Teaching frations in primary school, game based experience, Junior Science ® – Science for Children.