Meaning making with manipulatives

This year I have an interesting year 11 class. Most of then are targeted 5 or 6, but only achieved 3 or below in their end of year 10 mocks. They had a poor diet of maths through their KS3 due to staffing issues and long term sicknesses they had some.non maths teachers and also extended periods of time with supply. They did have strong teaching in year 10, and some did in year 9, but they have massive gaps in their core skills and knowledge that I’m discovering and trying to close on the way through. For instance, today they did an assessment which included the question “round 7364 to 3 sf” 50% of them answered 736, and a further 20% had different wrong answers. They lack confidence in their own ability and some of them are turned off by the subject due to it. They are all capable of getting to grade 6 at least, but some of them don’t believe it so I’m working to try build that confidence as well as filling the gaps.

Last week we were looking at probability, venn diagrams had gone well and three diagrams were going very well, until we looked at a question that involved conditional probabilities. Cant remember the exact question, but it was along the lines of their being 8 red things and 3 blue things in a bag, someone takes 2 of them at random without replacement, what is the probability they get 2 the same colour.

They could see the first set of branches, but couldn’t get their heads round the second. I tried explaining it a few ways and nothing was working, so I pulled out the box of multi link cubes that lives in my cupboard and passed some round. They had 8 of one colour and we of another and we looked at what was going on.

This simple use of manipulatives really allowed the students to get their heads round the concept. Normally I think I would have resorted to drawings, because there is, at least in the back of my mind, a feeling that manipulatives are only useful for younger students or those with lower attainment levels. But recently I’ve been trying to build more manipulatives into my practice and many I’ve spoken to have told m how successful they can be with older and higher achieving students.

This use of them not only helped their understanding, but it built their confidence, and after trying a couple of times with the cubes they could answer the questions just aswell without them.

I think I will consider other places manipulatives will be helpful with this class as I move throughout the year, as I think it ca help them with meaning making and understanding, but obviously only where it fits and adds to the learning. I don’t want to b using things for the sake of it where it may detract from the learning taking place.

I’d love to hear any places you use manipulatives and how you use them. If you’d llike to share, please so do in the comments or social media.