Alana Linde

Student Interview Assignment

Solving Quadratic Equations
Overview of the Session:
During my time spent with my student that I interviewed, I was impressed with the
students understanding of the task and ability to articulate her thinking throughout process
behind the steps taken to solve each problem. Her ease and comfortability of working with the
task leads me to believe that either they has recently learned how to solve these types of
equations or that she learned, and retained, the information well.
After the first prompt, I think the student was confused at first. Pausing to consider if she
could indeed solve the problems in another way, she told me that because the first and third
problems could not be factored, she could not provide another solution. Looking at the second
one, she thought about it, but concluded that the approach she took was the only way she knew
how to solve for x. However, when I provided the second prompt, the student was able to make
the connections between the functions of each problem and the relationship to the graphs she
produced on her graphing calculator. Overall, I was impressed with the student that I was
working with. Her knowledge of computation and problem solving was made clear, especially in
problem B that I will expand on more later.
The student clearly demonstrated her knowledge of using the quadratic equation to solve,
as well as graphing to solve. I think the student could have been a bit more clear about the
connection between the relationship of the intersecting points on the graph. I do not quite think
that she saw that those intersections are in facts the values of x she found in A. Additionally, in C
the student was able to graph, and articulate that there was no point of intersection, but perhaps
she could have used more probing to see that there was no real solution to the functions.

Alana Linde

Transcript Excerpt and Analysis:

After I provided the second prompt to nudge the student to solve graphically and make
connections across representations, the student began to consider what the graph of each of the
problems would look like. Asking at first if it was okay to use the graphing calculator, the
student proceeded to complete A. However, moving on to B is where I was enlightened about the
students knowledge about cross representations and making connections.
The following is an excerpt from the interview that speaks to the students knowledge:

[Shifts attention back to calculator, looks at paper]

Well, B would be the same graph.

And how do you know that?

Because they both equal each other. Like they both equal zero when they are set
up together. I mean they are initially written out different, but here they are the
same

This brief encounter with the task I found interesting. The student did not actually graph
the functions in B, but rather looked at the functions, and was able to conclude that they would
be the same graph without needing to do so. I was surprised that she was able to make this
connection so quickly, especially before graphing. After asking her to elaborate more on her
finding, she articulated that because she later found that either side of the equation was the same
function after she FOILed and distributed, that they graphs would be the same even though it
wasnt as evident in the initial equation.
The following is an excerpt that occurred before any prompting was given to the student
about problem B:

Alana Linde

So they are equal to each other So yeah they both equal each other.

Okay, so what does that mean?

Uhm That x is like the same value in both.

Prior to graphing, when the student was solving part B using symbolic manipulation she
concluded that x would be the same value on either side of the equation. Knowing this, I believe
she used this insight to help her later on when she was asked how the graphs of B relate to her
answer that x is the same value for both sides.
Looking back at the interview now, I wish I had probed the student to see if she could
have reached the conclusion that x is equal to all real numbers and further that when graphing,
the two functions are the same graph further confirming that x is equal to all real numbers. I
think that the student was rather close to reaching the conclusion, or maybe I just assumed that
she knew. This is great insight for my teaching that I should emphasize the importance of having
students articulate their thinking and not try to assume their thinking for them.
Analysis Results:
Looking at the students results in a quantifiable way to compare to the other students, I
scored the student based on three different levels. The first level that I scored the student on was
a way to measure the students correctness of each of the three equations that were presented in
the task. This rubric seems to be where many teachers end their analysis of student
understanding. However, it is much more enlightening when looking at the versatility and
adaptability scores for the student about their understanding of the task.
Allowing the student to begin by asking to solve for x, she (as I anticipated) started to
solve using symbolic manipulation. The student seemed comfortable with the problems at hand

Alana Linde

and did not have any problem using the quadratic equation to solve for x. The student was able to
articulate her thought process and providing reasoning in many instances without me having to
further question why the student went about that process.
Before any prompting, the student was able to solve all of the equations. For A, I scored
the student as a 4-Completion on the Problem-Solving Rubric. For B, the student did not
physically write down that x = x or all real numbers, but through her explanation, she was able to
articulate that x carries the same value on either side of the equation, which yields a score of 4Completion as well. Lastly, the student in problem C made a minor computation error (just as I
did, and called attention to in class) for her final answer. Because she followed all the steps
necessary to finding the value for x and her knowledge of imaginary numbers, this yields a 3Result because the problem was very nearly solved.
Based on the Rule of 4 Model, I was looking for the student to be able to represent and
analyze relationships as well as translate among the representations. Based on the readings about
this before the interview, I anticipated the student would be more versatile compared to
adaptable. In terms of the students versatility, I rated her at Moderate level because although she
did not correctly solve all three equations because of the small computational error in C, she was
able to solve the equations using symbolic manipulation and by graphing (after prompting).
However, for the adaptability model, I rated the student at Low because it took the second probe
for her to solve graphically and make the connections between the functions on either side of the
equation in the initial problems. Although the student was able to tell me in parts B and C that
the graph was the same, or there were no points of intersection, I am not certain that she made
the connection that the values of x were all real and no solution respectively.

Alana Linde

Reflections:
1.

As previously mentioned the biggest thing that I have learned about student thinking and

teaching through this assignment is not to assume anything about the students knowledge. More
specifically, I now know not to interpret one thing that the student says as firm understanding
when in fact I do not know for certain. Looking back at the transcript from this interview, what I
thought in the moment the student understood, I am not certain that she did. At least I did not
prompt her with questions that would lead to verbal evidence of her understanding in some
instances.
In terms of the teaching aspect, I have learned that it is so important to front load the
work you put into an assignment before you implement it. I have been learning strategies of how
to do so through the 5 Practices and I hope to use the framework more in the future. When you
anticipate students approaches and come up with focusing questions prior to the lesson, you will
be more prepared and serve as a better guide toward your students understanding. I found
myself taken aback because the student was able to articulate her thoughts more clearly than I
anticipated. I think that the fact that I was so impressed with this aspect of the interview to a
point where I was not as focused on extracting more information out of the student to really get
at the heart of the problems that were assigned. From a teaching aspect, it is also crucial that you
do your work ahead of time because you need to make sure you fully understand what the
solutions mean across representations before you expect your students to be able to. Admittedly,
it has been a while since I have worked with these types of problems, so I did not have all of my
knowledge of these types of functions pulled to the front of my brain to help during the
interview.

Alana Linde

After doing this just once, I have a lot of personal feedback about things I would do
differently and how to better prepare myself to provide for students. Of course not having any
experience working on a task like this with a student (interview setting), it was a little foreign to
not only the student but also myself. I believe that practicing these types of things will better
prepare me in the future.
To coincide with that enlightenment, I also learned not to discount students. The student I
had was extremely bright and intentional in the way she went about solving the problems that she
was given. She also asked me for further clarification in a certain instance to be sure that she was
approaching the problem correctly. The students intuition about the problems that she
encountered enabled her to revisit one and catch her mistake. This could be because of what her
classroom teacher has instilled in the students. Perhaps they have a classroom environment
where they investigate math rather than just breeze through it.
Lastly, I have learned that students do not all have the same thought processes, which is
excellent. Good math instruction should enable students to approach a problem in a way that is
most comfortable to them, rather than approach it the way their teacher wants them to. However,
this means that a lot of work must be done in order for the teacher to properly assess where the
student is. I only had one student in my interview and I feel like I could have asked more. It
opens my eyes to how much work I will have to do to circulate around a room and formatively
assess students understanding as they are working. This is no easy task!
2.

Perhaps the most revealing responses in the interview that allowed me to gauge where the

students understanding of the mathematics involved would be from problem B as I previously

reflected on. The student at first made an algebraic error and reached the solution of 0 = 5. She
did not trust this answer, so she went back and analyzed what she did, and as she was verbalizing

Alana Linde

her steps, she caught her mistake. Further, the student was able to conclude that because the
functions on either side of the equation were the same once the symbolic manipulation was
complete, the graphs would also be the same. Therefore, the values of x were the same for both
equations.
Although the student in part A and C solved for x using the quadratic equation, and
graphed after prompting. I am now seeing that she may not have made a complete connection
between these two representations. For example, when the student graphed the functions in part
A, she told me that she saw there were two points of intersection, but she wasnt sure what I had
meant by relationship in the prompt. Steering her to speak more about the intersections that she
was just talking about, the student began to compute the x values she found from the quadratic
equation, and then used to trace function to determine that the values were really close to each
other. Wishing I would have further questioned her as to what that meant now, I thought that she
saw that connection after computing those values, but I am unsure if that connection was made
or not.
3.

Looking back at the questions that I asked the student during the interview, I would

categorize them as focusing questions as opposed to funneling questions. Even when the student
was confused about my prompt and questioned me, I really tried not to give a specific answer,
but rather to lead in her a direction where she would still have to uncover what it meant for
herself. I did not feel as though I needed to provide any leading questions, besides form the
probes, during the interview because the student was proactive in her approach for solving the
problems. When I first asked the student a question pertaining to the method of her symbolic
manipulation, I wanted to see if she understood why an equation has to be set equal to zero, her

Alana Linde

response told me that she knew that by doing this she could use the quadratic equation for
solving for x.
Another instance where I further probed the students to explain her thinking was in part B
where she found that both functions were the same on either side of the equations. The student
seemed to hesitate with what this was telling her. By asking, what does that mean? the student
was able to articulate that x is the same value for each equation.
When the student was asked to describe the relationship between the graphs of the
functions of each equation, she began by talking about the points of intersection, but was unsure
what I meant by relationship. This was a difficult one for me to quickly respond to. I asked the
student if she wanted to expand a little bit more about the intersection that [she] was talking
about to see if that would give her a step in the right direction. The student computed and found
that the intersections were close. I wish I had asked one further question along this context.
Perhaps How does the x-value you solved for relate to the graph? Maybe here the student
would have said that the x-values are the points of intersection.
Similarly, for part C, the student graphed and saw that there were no points of
intersection, but I did not continue to probe to ask how that related to her x-value prior graphing.
If I had redirected her back to this for instance, maybe she would have been able to articulate that
there is no solution because there is an imaginary number in her solution.
4.

In order to move my student to a more robust understanding of the concepts we were

working with, I would have provided further questioning in certain instances as I spoke about
above. Working mainly with part A, I would have pressed the student to further describe how her
x values and the intersections are close in numeric value and what that means. If the student were
to continue to be unclear, perhaps posing it as, if you were only provided an image of the graph

Alana Linde

for this problem, how could you articulate what the solution of the problem is? Although she was
close in her articulation, I would have liked to have seen myself probe further so she could have
walked away knowing that the intersection of functions are solutions to the equation.
When grading the adaptability for parts B and C, I would like to see this student with a
higher level than what I had marked her at in the future. In doing so, I think that I could provide
the student to continue articulating what the solution of the equation is when looking at the
graph. She knew that the graphs were the same, but I did not press her to speak much about the
solution of the equation. Likewise for part C, she did find the imaginary solution to the problem
(with a small error), and noted that the graphs never intersect. However, I could have further
asked what the graph meant in terms of the solution. Maybe asking something along the lines of,
you told me there the functions dont intersect, but what does that mean about the solution to
the problem?
Something that students, myself included, arent too familiar with is the three types of
solutions when it comes to graphing equations a numeric solution at the point(s) of
intersection, all real numbers, and no real solution. This cause of unfamiliarity could be from
previous teaching. As I mentioned at the beginning of this analysis, teachers tend to stop their
investigation of students understanding based on their answers. Either it is right or wrong and
that is easy for them to quantify. These types of learning experiences could lend themselves to
only solving problems like part A where students solve for specific solution and are pleased to
find a number, even if they dont know how that connects back to the problem.
As a follow up to this task, if students had the same issues with articulating parts B and C
or making connections between the graph and their computations, I would provide them with an
activity that gave them images of functions on graphs. We could investigate how we would

Alana Linde

deduce what the solutions of the equations were without solving using symbolic manipulation.
Further, after students found the solutions using the graphs, we could go back and compute as
they normally would when solving for x. I find that graphing it is much more enlightening as to
what the solutions to the equations actually means rather than just manipulating numbers and
variables.
This was a challenging task on my end. I think found that there is a lot of work that goes
into even what some may consider a straightforward task. Trying to be intentional about what I
want my future students to learn. I find it so important to highlight what the goals of the task are
and how I will bring students to that understanding. It was difficult to hold back and not jump in
to help the student when she was questioning herself in some areas of the task. I think that where
we lose the most students in math is when it becomes more and more abstract and they have not
been provided the tools to make connections across the procedures that they learn to do.

Appendix:
Includes:

Interview Transcript

Copy of Student Work

Alana Linde

Student Interview Transcript

Italicized represent when teacher is speaking, and regular depicts when the interviewee spoke.
Im going to ask you some questions about solving equations. Im interested in how you come up
with your answers, so Ill ask you to talk out loud about your thought processes of how you go
about solving them. It wont be graded I will give you a worksheet now... Solve for x.
Okay, and just talk about how I did it after Im done?
Mhm, or you can do it along the way.
[Student works on problem A]
Okay So I mean do you want me to go along and solve it out loud?
Yes. You can go step by step.
So, I subtracted 5 from both sides and set the equations equal to zero to get x2 plus 7x plus 7.
And then thats not factorable, so I put it into the quadratic formula. So negative 7 (uhm) square
root of seven squared minus 4 times 1 times 7 over 2. And then got negative 7 plus or minus the
square root of 21 over 2.
How did you know you needed to subtract 5 when you started?
Uhm because in order to solve for x your equation needs to be equal to zero. So then by
subtracting 5 from the 12 since theres no variable, then it would make the equation equal to
zero.
Alright. Then you can go ahead and do the other two as well.
[Students works on problem B]
(puzzled) I dont know if I did something wrong Okay well, I FOILed the x minus 2
squared to get that and then that gave me x squared minus 4x plus 4. And that equation needed to
be multiplied by 2 So then I got 2x squared minus 8x plus 8. Which is equal to 2x squared
minus 8x plus 3 And then I was trying to set the equation equal to zero, and it ended up being
like 5 equals 0. So that is like not possible.
Okay
I think thats how it should work out I dont know, that doesnt sound right though. I dont
know if I did something wrong.. OH! I know, yeah I forgot the.. minus 5. Okay, so 2x squared
minus 8x plus 8 and then minus 5, which equals 2x squared minus 8x plus 3. Okay. Then this
equals 3. So they are equal to each other So yeah they both equal each other.

Alana Linde

Okay, so what does that mean?

Uhm That x is like the same value in both.
Okay. Now you can move on to C.
[Student works on problem C]
Okay so for this one, I added the x to the x squared plus x minus 2 to get x squared plus 2x
minus 2 equals negative 7. Then I added the 7 to both sides to get x squared plus 2x plus 5 equals
0, and thats not factorable so I put it in the quadratic formula Got negative 2 plus or minus
(uhm) in the radical then 2 squared minus 4 times 1 times 5 and got negative 2 plus or minus the
square root of negative 16 over 2. And that is... like 16 can be square rooted... Ha. I know thats
not how you say it Into 4, but since its negative you take out an i So I got negative 2 plus or
minus 4i over 2. And you can divide each of those by 2. Or the negative 2 and 2 cancel so its
like negative 1 plus or minus 4i.
Okay, now since you have solved all of these. Is there another way that would could have solved
these problems, and with so can you show me.
Uhm Not with A or C, because if they were factorable you could have factored them or done
the quadratic formula. But since they cant factor out, I think that is the only way you can do
them. And then B I Thats like the only way I know how to. Just like step by step to do that.
Okay, so then my next question is what would be the relationship between the graphs of either
side of the equation?
Am I allowed to graph it first (referring to the calculator).
Yes.
Okay so you just want me to graph like 5 and then this part and this part or like the new
equation?
The relationship between the graph of each side of the equation.
Okay. (Begins to put into the graphing calculator) So, I have a graph going in a straight line
coming through 5 on the y axis. And then like a parabola and it intersects on 5 in 2 different
spots.. Uhm What do you mean by like relationship?
So, do you want to expand a little bit more about the intersection that you were talking about?
I get like where they meet. Like the roots? No, just kidding (mumbles)
[Enters values into calculator]

Alana Linde

Well like when you solve this out to get like the negative 7 plus radical 21 divided by 2. Thats
like very... thats like part of the root is.. its like point zero 2 off from the intersection uhm
closest to the y axis, so thats like that one. And then (returns back to calculator to perform
functions) The other point is when negative 7 minus radical 21 divided by 2 Thats really close
to the other intersecting point between the parabola and the line across 5.
Okay And then could you do the same for B and C as well?
[Shifts attention back to calculator, looks at paper]
Well, B would be the same graph.
And how do you know that?
Because they both equal each other. Like they both equal zero when they are set up together. I
mean they are initially written out different, but here they are the same And then.
[Back to calculator for problem C]
Okay and then for C, negative x minus 7 is like a linear line And x squared plus x minus 2
is like a parabola and they dont ever meet because, x square plus x minus 2 is bounded below so
it never goes past uhm.. negative 2 and that x minus 7 wont ever meet, so they dont intersect.
Okay, thank you for participating in this interview.
Is that all!?

Alana Linde