DIENES

Hidaya Awang Muil

Nor Hafizah Sakip
B IOGRAPHY
 Zoltan Paul Dienes (1916-)

 Synonymous with the Multi-

base blocks which he
invented for the teaching of
place value.
 inventor of Algebraic materials and logic
blocks (sowed the seeds of contemporary
uses of manipulative materials in
mathematics instruction).

 an approach to mathematics learning that

uses games, songs and dance to make it more
appealing to children.
• Rules of a game
• ‘Trick” to invent games with rules which Stage 2
match the rules that a inherent in some
piece of mathematics which the
educator wishes the learners to learn.
• Trial & Error
• How the would be-leaner becomes Stage 1
more familiar with the situation with
which she/he is confronted.
learning mathematics
Zoltan Dienes’ six-stage theory of
• representation
• suggest some diagrammatic
representation such as an arrow Stage 4
diagram, table, a coordinate system or
any other vehicle which would help fix
in the learner’s mind what this common
core is.
• Comparison
• Encouraged learners to take the first
halting steps towards abstraction, which
is of course becoming aware of that
Stage 3
which is common to all the games with
the same rule structure, while the actual
physical “playthings” can gradually
become “noise”.
• Formalization
• making the first steps towards realizing
that the first few descriptions can be Stage 6
AXIOMS, and the other properties can be
THEOREMS, the ways of getting from
the initial axioms to the theorems being
the PROOFS
• Symbolization
• a symbol system can now be developed
which can be used to describe the Stage 5
properties of the system being learned,
as the information is gathered by
studying the map.