Teaching Addition & Subtraction of Integer Numbers via Number Line Method

Abstract

When learning an abstract concept of a number, children are first taught about Natural Numbers and how to add and then subtract them, followed by the multiplication operation. Later on, they are introduced to negative numbers and many of the learners have difficulties with understanding them. These two sets of numbers i.e., zero, positive and negative numbers combined give us a larger set, the set of integers. Many students struggle to grasp the extension of familiar operations of adding and subtracting positive numbers to all integers, especially negative ones. It is possible that this confusion is in part a result of the pedagogy that is used to introduce these operations. Traditionally students learn by following a provided flow chart (an algorithm) to recognize which case they are dealing with when solving a problem related to operations on integers. Although this flowchart may seem fairly simple to follow, it does not provide any conceptual explanation, hence students from grades 5-8th have issues with performing required operations correctly. We designed an experiment that introduces the integers visually on a number line, and the related operations as certain walks to the left or to the right. We compared performance of students learning visually, with the group that have learned about integers using traditional pedagogy using statistical hypothesis testing. We show the results from our data analysis, showing better performance on arithmetic operations for students who used the visual approach to learning about the integer numbers.

Details

Session 1

9:30am – 11:00am

Grand Salon