Analyzing Students Thinking

Addition
Examine the following examples of students procedures for solving the same addition problem. Explain what each student did to obtain the correct answer. Then, choose one of the strategies and solve the problem 1367 + 498. 1. Kelly 567 +259 700 110 16 826 2. Rudy 567 +259

567, 667, 767 777, 787, 797, 807, 817 818, 819, 820, 821, 822 823, 824, 825, 826 4. Yours 1367 + 498 1000 700 150 15 1865

3. Andy 567 600 +259 +226 826

259 - 33 226

Explanations: 1. Kelly : Kelly added the hundreds place first, then added the tens place and wrote that answer below the hundreds place and then add the ones place and wrote that answer below the tens. Then she added all three answers together to get her final sum of 567+259. 2. Rudy : Rudy showed first the number 567 one hundred more and then two hundred more getting the number 767. Then on the next row she showed the number increasing by ten five times since 259 has a five in the tens. And then on the next row she showed the number increasing one number 9 times because of the 9 being in the ones place in the number 259. She then got the answer of 826. 3. Andy : Andy made the problem easier by changing the 567 into 600 by adding 33. He then took the 33 away from 259 so that he wasnt changing the equation. He then had 600 plus 226 which is easy to compute because of the zeros so he was able to get the answer 826.

Subtraction
Examine the following examples of students procedures for solving the same subtraction problem. Explain what each student did to obtain the correct answer. Then, try Caitlins procedure to solve the problem 152-39. 1. Caitlin 2. Louis 63 -18 63 10 = 53 52, 51, 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45 3. Kenley 63 -18 28 38 48 58 +5 4. Yours- (use Caitlins procedure) 152 - 39 10 10 10 10 6313 - 18 45
2

or

40 +5 45

152-30= 122 121,120,119,118, 117,116,115,114,113

Explanations: 1. Caitlin: Caitline subtraced 10 from 63. She then only had 8 remaining to subtract because the original number was 18. 18-10 is 8. She then counted down from the number she got which was 53, she counted down 8 numbers to get 45. 2. Louis: Louis borrowed 10 ones from the ten place making the 3 a thirteen. She then subtracted 8 from 13. She had 5 left over after letting the ones place borrow so now she had 50-10. 50-10 is 40. The answer is 45.

3. Kenley: Kenley added ten to the number 18 until getting up to 58. Then to get from 58 to 53 she added 5 more. Then she added the tens on the side and the five to get 45.

Multiplication
Examine the following examples of students procedures for solving the same multiplication problem. Explain what each student did to obtain the correct answer. Then, use the lattice method to solve the problem 57 x 23. 1. Sasha 43 x 62 6 80 180 2400 2666 3. Tabitha Lattice method 4
2
6 6 2 0 4 8

2. Emily 43 x 62 20 x 62 =1240 20 x 62 =1240 3 x 62 = 186 2666

4. Yours - Lattice method 57 10 14 2 15 21 3 1311

57 x 23

3
1 0 8 6

x 6 2

Explanations: 1. Sasha: First she multiplied the tens. Then underneath that answer she multiplied 40 and 2. Then under that answer she multiplied 60 and 3. Then under that answer she multiplied 40 and 60. She then added all of these partial products to get the product 2666.

2. Emily: Emily split up the number 40 into 20 and 20. She then used distributive property and multiplied 62 by each twenty and then added the two partial products together.

3. Tabitha: Tabitha used the lattice method. She did 6 times three and 6 times four and two times three and two times four and then added diagonally.

Division
Examine the following examples of students procedures for solving the same division problem. Explain what each student did to obtain the correct answer. Then, use the lattice method to divide 832 by 6. 1. Doug 137 r 4 5| 689 -500 100 x 5 189 -50 10 x 5 139 -50 10 x 5 89 -50 10 x 5 39 -35 7x5 4 137x5 3. Madelaine 500 5 = 100 100 5 = 20 50 5 = 10 30 5 = 6 95= 1 r4 689 5 = 137 r 4 2. Nancy 137 r 4 5| 689 -5 18 -15 39 -35 4

4. Yours Lattice Method or MultiGrid

Stencil (see More Division Strategies)

Explanations: 1. Doug: Doug used the 7 method. He guessed how many times 5 would go into 689. First he did 100 and that was 500. He subtracted that from 689. Then he tried five which was fifty, so he subtracted that. Then he did that again and subtracted fifty and again until he got 39. He could not take fifty away again so he tried 5 which is 35 and had 4 left over. He then added 100, 10,10,10, and 7 to find out how much altogether went into 689. 2. Nancy: Nancy did it the standard method way. First she did how many fives go into the number 6. Then subtracted this number from six. Then she brought down the tens. How many fives go into 18. Then subtracted 15 from this number. Lastly she did how many fives go into the number 39. Seven is the most that can go into this number with a remainder of four. 3. Madelaine: She broke up the number 689 into five hundred, one hundred, fifty, thirty, and nine. She then divided each of these numbers and added up the numbers that she got.