A Study Of The Complexity Of Math Activity Materials In Large Classrooms

Materials for mathematical activities are an important part of kindergarten mathematical activities and have their own important educational value and significance.In the "Kindergarten Education Guideline(for Trial Implementation)",it is proposed that "children need to know and understand the shape and number of things based on the relationship,and form the initial concept of number,teachers should provide children with the opportunity to observe and manipulate,and repeatedly experience".In the field of mathematical activity materials research,the current research focuses on the placement of materials,the value of materials,and the current situation of materials selection and use,but there is a lack of direct research on the complexity of mathematical activity materials.This study identifies two major dimensions for assessing the complexity of mathematics activity materials based on the complexity of play materials and key elements of mathematics activities: core experiences and number of questions.This is then combined with teacher interviews to explore teachers’ perceptions of mathematical material complexity.This study focused on using the physical collection method and interview method to collect and analyze the materials used by children in 18 math group activities and 18 math activity area activities in three kindergartens in City A.The core experiences and the number of questions that the materials pointed to were scored,and the final average score of the two dimensions constituted the complexity score of this math activity materials.At the same time,teachers were interviewed to obtain their knowledge and understanding of the complexity of the mathematics activity materials in order for them to explore the factors influencing the formation of the complexity of the current mathematics activity materials.The study found that: 1.The core experiences of the materials in the large class group math activity scored 3.6,which is high,and the core experiences pointed by the materials are consistent with large class children.The number of questions in the materials of the large class math group activity scored 2.4,and the number of questions embedded in the materials of the group activity was small,which basically matched the large class children.Overall,the complexity of the materials in the math group activity scored 3.03,which is high and the complexity of the materials is appropriate for older children.2.The core experiences of the materials in the math activity area scored 3.44,and the materials point to core experiences that are appropriate for older children.The number of problems in the math activity area scored 2.83,and the number of problems contained in the materials in the activity area is basically suitable for older children.The complexity of the materials in the math activity area scored 3.14 and scored higher.The core experiences pointed to by the materials in the activity area and the number of math problems in the materials were more compatible with older children.3.The core experiences of the math activity materials in the older classroom scored higher than the number of problems scored,and the core experiences pointed to by the math activity materials in the older classroom were more compatible with older children than the number of problems.The number of problems scored in the math activity area materials was higher than the number of problems scored in the math group activity.4.Teachers would judge the simplicity or complexity of the math activity materials based on four criteria: the steps children take to manipulate the materials,the developmental level children already have,the mathematical knowledge children need to mobilize to manipulate the materials and the requirements for children’s mathematical thinking to manipulate the materials,and the instructional goals teachers intend to achieve by placing the materials.Teachers assessed and judged the complexity of materials for mathematics activities based on three assessment dimensions: children’s manipulation of the materials,the characteristics of the materials themselves,and the difficulty of teachers’ preparation of the materials.Teachers generally agreed that there was some variation in the complexity of materials in different mathematics activities,mainly because of differences in the content of the mathematics activities,the difficulty of the activities,and the goals of the activities.