The Effect of Using Storytelling Strategy on Students’ Performance in Fractions

Abstract

Research findings in the field of Mathematics Education emphasize that storytelling is an effective instructional tool in the teaching of mathematics, as it provides a meaningful context that attracts students’ interest and makes learning a pleasant process. The use of stories and fairy tales in the teaching of mathematics motivates students to learn and provides students with an authentic context to understand mathematical concepts and procedures. It is a clear way to incorporate mathematics into other, broader cognitive domains and promotes mathematical discussion in the classroom. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the role that the use of storytelling can play in teaching fractions to third grade students. The study sample consisted of 76 third graders, who attended two primary schools in the city of Florina (Greece). This sample was divided into experimental (n=38) and control (n=38) group. In this study target-focused teaching stories were used. These stories were written in accordance with the objectives of a new Curriculum for rational numbers teaching. The study results showed that the use of storytelling had a positive effect on students’ achievement in fractions, as the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group. The students who benefited most from the use of storytelling were those with medium, especially, with low performance. Finally, the use of storytelling had a positive effect on specific mathematical skills, such as comparing fractions, finding equivalent fractions, creating and manipulating representations and problem solving.

Computational identity and programming empowerment of students in computational thinking development

“…As mentioned earlier, in the design of our curriculum, we included game design, storytelling and the use of video sensing as the programming tasks. We aimed to choose these tasks because they were more relevant and meaningful to the students (Farris & Sengupta, 2016; Foster, 2008; Lemonidis & Kaiafa, 2019). It is important for educators and practitioners to bear in mind the importance of allowing the students to see the meanings of the learning tasks, as it can affect their computational identity development.…”

An Evaluation of The Preservice-Teacher Training for Children’s Literature and Mathematics Integration

“…Some are mentioned as follows: providing meaningful contexts for learning mathematics, modeling mathematical experiences, creating problems, introducing materials related to the book, preparing or developing the teaching of a mathematical concept or skill, measurement, and evaluation, and showing the use of mathematics in different fields and daily life as well as introducing mathematical words to students (Hong, 1996;Welchman-Tischler, 1992). Integrating mathematics with children's literature has some benefits for mathematics education, such as mathematics and geometry success (Capraro & Capraro, 2006;Durmaz & Miçooğulları, 2021;Lemonidis & Kaiafa, 2019), motivation and attitudes (Mink & Fraser, 2005;Munro, 2013), and mathematics anxiety (Green, 2013).…”

“…Considered as teaching mathematics through children's books in the relevant literature, this approach benefits teachers and students in various ways (Edelman et al, 2019;Ginsburg & Uscianowski, 2017;Jett, 2018;Young & Marroquin, 2006). The integration of mathematics teaching and children's literature contributes to the connection of mathematical concepts with each other and with daily life (Columba et al, 2005), the introduction of mathematical concepts (Wallace et al, 2006), the concretization of abstract concepts (Barone, 2011), the development of mathematical language (Hassinger-Das et al, 2015), relieving mathematics anxiety through methods such as bibliotherapy (Furner, 2018;Green, 2013), increasing students' interest in mathematics (Luedtke & Sorvaag, 2018), changing the students' attitudes positively (Mink & Fraser, 2005), presenting a natural context for mathematical language (McDuffie & Young, 2003), developing problem-solving skills (Cankoy, 2011), differentiating teaching depending on students' needs (Forbringer, 2004;Forbringer et al, 2016), diagnosing and eliminating misconceptions (Courtade et al, 2013;Skoumpourdi & Mpakopoulou, 2011), and increasing academic achievement (Capraro & Capraro, 2006;Lemonidis & Kaiafa, 2019).…”

Revisiting the Plausibility of Learning Style Theories with Evidence of Kinesthetic Perception: A Literature Review and Proof of Concept Towards Justifying Differentiated Instruction

“…They were also able to develop related mathematical skills such as finding equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. Learners also developed the essential skills of problem-solving and manipulating representations (Lemonidis and Kaiafa, 2019).…”