From Concrete to Abstract: Teaching for Transfer of Learning when Using Manipulatives

One of the most important uses of manipulatives in a classroom is to aid a learner to make connection from tangible concrete object to its abstraction. In this paper we discuss how teacher educators can foster deeper understanding of how manipulatives facilitate student learning of math concepts by emphasizing the connection between concrete objects and math symbolization with, preservice elementary teachers, the future implementers of knowledge. We provide an example and a model, with specific steps of how teacher educators can effectively demonstrate connections between concrete objects and abstract math concepts.

Perpetual Conflict or Compromise? The Cost of Domestic Legitimacy in the Realm of Women's Human Rights: A Case Study on the Right to an Abortion

With its turbulent and volatile legal evolution, the right to an abortion in the United States still remains a highly contested issue and has developed into one of the most divisive topics within modern legal discourse. By deconstructing the political underpinnings and legal rationale of the right to an abortion through a systematic case law analysis, I will demonstrate that this right has been incrementally destabilized. This instability embedded in abortion jurisprudence has been primarily produced by a combination of textual ambiguity in the case law and judicial ambivalence regarding this complex area of law. In addition, I argue that the use of the largely discredited substantive due process doctrine to ground this contentious right has also contributed to the lack of legal stability. I assert that when these elements culminate in the realm of reproductive privacy the right to terminate a pregnancy becomes increasingly unstable and contested.