"First Graders Dividing 62 by 5: A Teacher Uses Piaget's Theory"
Developed and Narrated by: Constance Kamii, Ph.D.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Produced by: Faye B. Clark
Samford University
Teacher: Leslie Baker Housman
South Shades Crest Elementary School - Hoover, Alabama
Pub Date: 2000, 25-min.
Constance Kamii and Faye Clark show constructivist teaching in action.
Using an approach based on Piaget’s theory, Leslie Baker Housman encourages her first-grade students to think critically about mathematics.
The results are compelling. We see a room of students who have faith in their own deliberative skills. We are privy to a teacher who does not correct students, but instead encourages them to question answers and subsequently express their viewpoints.
Finally, we observe children who have a genuine understanding of mathematics rather than a superficial, perfunctory one.
"Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic
Multidigit Division: Two Teachers Use Piaget's Theory"
Developed and Narrated by: Constance Kamii, Ph.D.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Produced by: Mel Knight, Ed.D.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Teachers: Linda Joseph [2nd grade], and Sally Jones [3rd grade]
Hall-Kent Elementary School - Homewood, Alabama
Pub Date: 1990, 19-min.
Constance Kamii shows constructivist teaching in elementary classrooms.
Linda Joseph and Sally Jones, two elementary school teachers, use an approach based on Piaget’s theory to encourage their students to reinvent arithmetic.
This video show examples of how students can invent the logic of division.
"Direct vs. Indirect Ways of Teaching Number Concepts at Ages 4-6"
by Constance Kamii, Ph.D.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
November 2013
Recorded in conjunction with:
Center for Teaching and Learning
University of Alabama at Birmingham
This video shows that although number concepts cannot be taught directly, they can be taught indirectly by encouraging children to think.
Kamii, C. (1989). Double-column addition: A teacher uses Piaget's theory (videotape).
New York: Teachers College Press.
Giving Change When Payment Is Made with a Dime:
The Difficulty of Tens and Ones
This video illustrates the difficulty of constructing tens solidly out of the ones that are in the child’s head. The second grader in the videotape refused to accept the dime that the “customer” offered for a 6-cent purchase. She had all the verbal knowledge necessary to accept the dime such as the fact that a dime was worth 10 cents, and that 10 cents was “too much” for a 6-cent purchase. She could give the correct change when 8 pennies were tendered for a 4-cent purchase. She could easily add a few cents to a dime but could not subtract 6 cents from a dime because, for this subtraction, it was necessary to break “one ten” down into “ten ones.” This difficulty is explained by Chandler and Kamii in an article entitled “Giving Change When Payment Is Made with a Dime: The Difficulty of Tens and Ones” in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40(2009), 97-118.
In the video, giving change for a dime appears toward the end of the following sequence. It begins by showing that, as long as only pennies were involved, the child had no trouble giving change.
Candy purchased Cost Payment
1 small 2 cents 2 pennies
1 large 3 cents 4 pennies
2 small 4 cents 8 pennies
2 large 6 cents 1 dime
3 large 9 cents 1 dime and 2 pennies