*3.2.1 Lesson organization during distance learning*

During distance learning, all teachers provided workpacks of notebooks, books, and worksheets for the children, which parents picked up from school on Monday and returned on Friday for correction. The tasks contained in them served to repeat and practice already-known lesson content, especially in mathematics [11].

Over time, some teachers changed distance learning and included videoconferencing, explainer videos, or other digital offerings, and increased contact with children. The personal accompaniment of the children by the teachers was important to them, as the answer of one participant 8 shows: "We did not want to leave the children

### *The Importance of Activity-Based Learning for Mastering Mathematical Tasks during Distance… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113303*

alone, we wanted to accompany them" [11]. The teachers showed great commitment in designing distance learning in general and tried out different methods and possibilities over time. Here, too, a very heterogeneous picture emerges, since due to the lack of guidelines from the Ministry, the teachers tried to design distance learning according to their own possibilities and the needs of the children [11].

#### *3.2.2 Teaching mathematics during distance learning*

A particular challenge for the teachers interviewed was teaching mathematics in distance learning. The greatest difficulty for them was the lack of material, which they used in face-to-face lessons, especially for the activity-oriented development of new content, and which the children did not have access to in distance learning. The teachers tried to deal with this problem in different ways [11].

One teacher provided Montessori materials for the students to use at home. The children could pick these up at school and share them. However, she found that the students could not handle them at home without an introduction by the teacher and thus did not benefit from the materials. In order to still be able to teach new learning content with the support of materials, she provided illustrations of materials and worked more with finger pictures. According to this teacher, the children not only lacked haptic experiences with the didactic materials, they were also unable to build up internal images. When the students were allowed to return to school after the distance learning phase, the teacher repeated the learning content again with the materials [11].

Another teacher also gave Montessori materials to take home but had a good experience with them. She combined the work with the plans in print format with video conferences in which a lot was discussed about mathematics, mathematical problems and possible solutions [11].

Another teacher made her own materials for the children to work on fractions in 4th grade and sent them home with the work packets. In this way, the students were able to use these materials to work on fractions and fractional arithmetic. She postponed topics that could not be worked on in an activity-based manner at home until after the distance learning phase and thus to the face-to-face classroom [11].

One teacher offered video conferences on mathematical topics. In these, she worked with a document camera and showed the work with the materials. The students were not able to work with the materials themselves, but they got an idea of how the material could be used. This teacher explicitly referred to the fact that the active work with the materials before the school closures was very valuable for the students. Students had developed internal images of the materials and what they could do with them that they could draw on during distance learning [11].

Other teachers emphasized the importance of inner images about actions with materials. During the videoconferences, the children referred to these actions that they performed in face-to-face lessons and were thus able to build a deeper understanding of mathematical actions. This was especially evident for those students who were not affected by school closures until the third or fourth grade and who were able to do a great deal of work with mathematical materials in their first years of school [11].

Several teachers reported that they worked on as little new content as possible during the distance learning period. They planned very carefully for what content could be worked on later during face-to-face periods when students had access to the materials again [11].
