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European Journal of Education Studies ISSN: 2501 - 1111 ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu Volume 3 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.843515 MAKING AN EDUCATIONAL GAME TO TEACH PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS THE MEANING OF NATURAL NUMBERS Duong Huu Tongi School of Education, Can Tho University, Vietnam Abstract: Teaching mathematical concepts contains many contents such as: specific characteristics, properties, and exercises. Among them, teaching the meaning of concepts also plays an important role. The meanings of concepts are associated with the history of concepts and enable us to know the nature of concepts deeply. There are many teaching methods or ways to teach the meanings of concepts such as: designing exercises, creating situations, holding an experimental research. Here, our choice is an educational game because in teaching mathematics, it is regarded as a pleasant, amusing learning form, based on the created situation to help pupils apprehend the new knowledge, consolidate the old knowledge, skills, solution methods, the experience of life self-consciously, actively, independently and creatively. This paper offers an educational game to teach the meaning of natural numbers. The results show that students have recognized the meaning of natural numbers in the last phase of the game due to the teacher’s help. Keywords: educational game, mathematical concepts, the meaning of concepts, natural numbers 1. Introduction 1.1 Some benefits of educational games Bragg (2003) has suggested that game is a good way of motivating students, then developing their positive attitudes and raising their success in problem solving. In his study, 210 students played games of solving problems related to decimal numbers. Some research findings are drawn that most students are motivated and feel success in Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 23 Duong Huu Tong MAKING AN EDUCATIONAL GAME TO TEACH PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS THE MEANING OF NATURAL NUMBERS their mathematics lessons. In addition, many children have a positive attitude towards mathematics and learning. Meanwhile, in his Likert scale survey, it appeared that game negatively affected attitudes. (Bragg, 2007). Erika (2012) pointed out the benefits of integrating games into mathematics teaching and learning. First, the games bring meaningful situations, in which mathematical skills are formed. Next, children have more motivation because they are free to choose the games and enjoy playing, then they have positive attitudes towards their learning. Additionally, their thinking abilities are developed through different levels of the games. Also, through the games, teachers have the opportunity to evaluate students' knowledge and mathematical skills. Because of these advantages, she integrated games into her mathematical teaching practice. Besides these benefits, Griffiths (2002) stated that videogames are considered as educational research tools, and develope some basic skills such as: language skills, mathematics and reading skills, and social skills. Moreover, videogames are said to improve children’s health care because some games are designed to improve self-care skills and medical compliance in children. Kaune et al. (2013) said that games play an important role in learning and understanding of mathematics. Indeed, learning through the games forms interactions between students because they can work in pairs or in groups when playing. Moreover, one of games’ aims is to construct mental models for mathematical concepts and methods. Like other games, mathematics games facilitate individual cognitive and metacognitive skills of learners and motivate them to apply and deepen their knowledge, then improve their attitudes towards mathematics positively due to more engagement in learning mathematics when playing games. From here, the researchers designed some games to enhance metacognitive and discursive activities in mathematics classes. The research findings show that the activities of playing games improve the mathematical performance of students. Robertson (2012) thought the games are educationally beneficial, so teachers are advised to aware of the advantages of game making because of their motivational power. According to him, game design is a complex task because teachers need to pay attention to many factors such as problem finding, problem solving, evaluation and communication. Furthermore, he pointed out the gender difference in game playing habits and preferences. In his study, girls have games score higher than boys; in particular, they are good at skills associated with storytelling. For downloading the full article, please access the following link: http://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/view/959 European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 3 │ Issue 9 │ 2017 24