Number Line Touch: Multiplication

“Number Line Touch: Multiplication” is an education puzzle-based game for developing students’ multiplicative reasoning in the elementary classroom or at home. The app is designed primarily for students in grades 2-5 to develop a robust understanding of multiplication and division that facilitates a meaningful understanding of basic facts and procedures. The app includes all of Level 1; additional levels will be forthcoming. To access the user guide (complete with activities and standards/level alignment), please visit: http://spedapps.kent.edu/ourapps.php The app is a puzzle game merged with a number line. Students must place rods with different values onto a number line to find missing numbers. Students must demonstrate mastery by earning three stars on the level before they can move onto the next, more advanced level. Additionally, the app generates a new puzzle for each level when a student opens that level. Therefore, students can practice their math and have fun with endless variations of puzzles at their level. Throughout Level 1, students begin learning to use the number line to count onto and down-from given numbers. Each sub-level in Level 1 is designed to scaffold learning how to skip-count numbers (an important skill for developing multiplicative reasoning). Level 2 has a similar scaffolded design, but focuses on improving students’ skip-counting skills. Levels 3 and 4 introduce and focus on formal multiplication and division on the number line. Level 5 focuses on developing meaningful understanding of algorithms for multiplying and dividing multi-digit numbers. The app was developed by Dr. Karl Kosko (kkosko1@kent.edu), Dr. Rick Ferdig (rferdig@gmail.com), Dr. C.C. Lu, Venkata Gorthi, Xiqian Han, Rachel Kozy, and other Kent State researchers and educators that were a part of SPEDAPPS project (http://spedapps.kent.edu; spedapptest@gmail.com). Please visit the website for additional information and resources. Music for the overview video was used from: www.royaltyfreemusicforfree.com.