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This paper reviews 10 years of research on virtual manipulatives (VMs) in K-5 mathematics education with a focus on moving beyond generalized conclusions that VMs can support learning to better understanding how and when they support learning. Synthesis of fifteen articles that met the inclusion criteria revealed researchers are beginning to unpack how particular features of VMs and context variables interact with student learning outcomes. The influence of context variables, such as whether VMs are used by individual students or used collaboratively, suggests a need for greater attention to the role of the teacher in implementation of VMs. Attention to the teacher's role in defining how VMs are used could inform future directions for teacher education.

Moving among levels of abstraction is an important skill in mathematics and computer science, and students show similar difficulties when applying abstraction in each discipline. While computer science educators have examined ways to explicitly teach students how to consciously navigate levels of abstraction, these ideas have not been explored in mathematics education. In this study, we examined elementary students' solutions to a commonplace mathematics task to determine whether and how students moved among levels of abstraction as they solved the task. Furthermore, we analyzed student errors, categorizing them according to whether they related to moves among levels of abstraction or to purely mathematical steps. Our analysis showed: (1) students implicitly shift among levels of abstraction when solving "real-world" mathematics problems; (2) students make errors when making those implicit shifts in abstraction level; (3) the errors students make in abstraction outnumber the errors they make in purely mathematical skills. We discuss the implications for these findings, arguing they establish that there are opportunities for explicit instruction in abstraction in elementary mathematics, and that students' overall mathematics achievement and problem-solving skills have the potential to benefit from applying these computer-science ideas to mathematics instruction.

Moving among levels of abstraction is an important skill in mathematics and computer science, and students show similar difficulties when applying abstraction in each discipline. While computer science educators have examined ways to explicitly teach students how to consciously navigate levels of abstraction, these ideas have not been explored in mathematics education. In this study, we examined elementary students' solutions to a commonplace mathematics task to determine whether and how students moved among levels of abstraction as they solved the task. Furthermore, we analyzed student errors, categorizing them according to whether they related to moves among levels of abstraction or to purely mathematical steps. Our analysis showed: (1) students implicitly shift among levels of abstraction when solving "realworld" mathematics problems; (2) students make errors when making those implicit shifts in abstraction level; (3) the errors students make in abstraction outnumber the errors they make in purely mathematical skills. We discuss the implications for these findings, arguing they establish that there are opportunities for explicit instruction in abstraction in elementary mathematics, and that students' overall mathematics achievement and problem-solving skills have the potential to benefit from applying these computer-science ideas to mathematics instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]