Linda BonneNew Zealand teachers’ use of equipment has increased as a result of their participation in the Numeracy Development Projects. However, the equipment choices of the four teachers interviewed in this study were not strongly consistent with the equipment use recommended in the NDP materials. In the teachers’ reasons for equipment choices, the surface features of equipment seemed equally important as the conceptual development it can support. In contrast, the reasons given for equipment choices by the 34 Year 3 children who were interviewed were almost exclusively concerned with how the equipment might help them to solve the given problem. The children’s success rates at solving the problem declined as the equipment became more structured; this paralleled the teachers’ equipment choices. The ultimate goal for teacher educators must be for all teachers to have a richly connected conceptual map of numeracy, in order for teachers to be able to effectively use equipment in ways that help children to construct their own meaningful connections as they learn about number. Rather than talking about equipment as “bright, shiny stuff”, teachers must have a clear focus on the role that equipment can play in the development of children’s part-whole thinking. In this round table presentation the findings from this study, which was conducted during 2002 as part of a Masters thesis, will be discussed.
