VACF

Learning Vector Addition through Concreteness Fading, my dissertation project at UW–Madison

Vector addition is a critical skill in STEM education. In a traditional upper middle school/early high school math classroom, vector addition has been taught in a counterintuitive way full of formal symbols and annotations that often confuse students. Inspired by Bruner’s three stages of perceiving a new concept–enactive, iconic, and abstract–I designed an intervention that aimed to provide middle school students with meaningful vector addition learning experiences. Besides, I also designed a constructionist math story making activity to enable students to present their learning outcomes.

Instructional Design of Vector Additional Learning through Concretenss Fading

I completed my dissertation project at a charter school with over 20 students in Columbus, Ohio. I want to express my sincere gratitude to Ms. Jamie Gibson, the principal of Horizon Science Academy Columbus Middle School. Without her help, this project would have never been implemented.

Left: Constructionist math story making craft Right: Participants and me

The research findings from this project have been published/accepted to be published on several journals (Zhao, 2024)(Zhao & Berland, 2024). I have also presented my preliminary findings from this project at AERA 2023 (Zhao & Nathan, 2023) and ISLS 2023 (Zhao & Gibson, 2023)(Zhao & Berland, 2023).

References

2024

  1. From Tiles to Worksheet: Exploring Concreteness Fading in Learning Vector Addition
    Yilang Zhao
    Education Sciences, 2024
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  2. Exploring students’ understanding of vector addition through constructionist storytelling
    Y Zhao, and M Berland
    Instructional Science, 2024
    accepted

2023

  1. Probing gesturing in a concreteness fading vector addition learning experience
    Yilang Zhao, and Mitchell J. Nathan
    In Proceedings of the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting, 2023
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  2. Vector Addition in Stories: Exploring Knowledge Application After a Concreteness Fading Intervention
    Yilang Zhao, and Jamie Gibson
    In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2023, pp. 298-304, 2023
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  3. Probing Mathematical Language in Concreteness Fading Vector Addition Learning
    Yilang Zhao, and Matthew Berland
    In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2023, pp. 1967-1968, 2023
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