An investigation into learner understanding of the properties of selected quadrilaterals using manipulatives in a grade eight mathematics class.

TL;DRAbstract

Benchara Blandford as quoted in Griffiths & Howson (1974) has provided the researcher with the inspiration to seek new methods of trying to improve the teaching and learning of geometry: "To me it appears a radically vicious method, certainly in geometry, if not in other subjects, to supply a child with ready-made definitions, to be subsequently memorized after being more or less carefully explained. To do this is surely to throwaway deliberately one of the most valuable agents of intellectual discipline. The evolving of a workable definition by the child's own activity stimulated by appropriate questions is both interesting and highly educational". Freudenthal (1973), who states that "the child should not be deprived of this privilege", further echoes this thinking. Recent literature on mathematics education, more especially on the teaching and learning of geometry, indicates a dire need for further investigations into the possibility of devising new strategies, or even improving pres

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