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Beth's Elementary Education Blog

By Beth Lewis, About.com Guide to Elementary Education since 1999

Real World Contexts May Impede Math Learning, Study Says

Tuesday April 29, 2008
Traditionally, it's considered a smart teaching strategy to put abstract math concepts into concrete, "real world" terms for our students. For example, teaching fractions as portions of a pizza.

Surprisingly, a new study shows that word problems not only don't help learning, but may actually interfere with it.

Do the results of this study ring true to you? Would you ever give up using concrete examples in your math instruction?

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