Professional Documents
Culture Documents
in Space, Measurement,
and Chance & Data
Adrian Berenger
24 August 2010
Teaching & Learning Coach
Moreland Network
Primary Mathematics Teachers
• The focus of today’s professional learning is on
misconceptions in mathematics in dimensions
other than number.
• Warm-up Activity: Meg’s Number
• Explore: Misconceptions in
– Space
– Measurement
– Chance & Data
• Summary
Introduction
• ‘Misconceptions’ has become a word to describe
misunderstandings in mathematics. What do children
do incorrectly all the time and why? Often our lack of
modeling and representations lead to misconceptions.
The language and symbolic nature of mathematics can
cause several problems.
• Teachers need to uncover misconceptions in classes in
order to understand what students are thinking.
Strategically and deliberately making mistakes or
leading students to make mistakes are some ways of
identifying common misconceptions.
Meg’s number 1 Meg’s number 4
The sum of the digits of Meg’s The difference between the two digits of
number is greater than four. Meg’s number is greater than four.
Help your group find Meg’s number Help your group find Meg’s number on the
on the Hundred chart. Hundred chart.
Meg’s number 5
Both digits in Meg’s number are
even.
Help your group find Meg’s number
on the Hundred chart.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
SPACE
SPACE
• Language
• Orientation & Modeling
• Limited Definitions
• Mathematical Tools
Language
• Imprecise – words in mathematics take on
different meanings
– What does volume mean?
– What’s the difference between volume and capacity?
– What is a solid in mathematics?
• Van Hiele Levels (recognition, analysis, ordering, deduction, rigor)
– Language is developmental and so therefore it is
vastly different at levels 1 & 2 than at levels 3 & 4
Recognition, Analysis, Ordering, Deduction, Rigor
1 2 3 4 5
Results…
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
• Language
• Confusion with rules, units and conversions
• Measuring tools - time and temperature
MEASUREMENT
• Students perceive volume as a solid measurement and
capacity as a liquid measurement.
• Mathematical rules for calculating perimeter, area and
volume and their units get confused. They often
believe that rulers can be used to measure area.
• Children are shown to fill a space with other units and
simply count these as a measure for area. They often
believe that it doesn’t matter if these other units are of
equal size as long as they don’t violate the boundary.
• Squared units for shapes that are not square.
Language
• Volume and Capacity
– Volume is the amount of space an object takes up.
– Capacity is the amount a container can hold.
• Sometimes words have inaccurate
associations
– Bigger = larger, taller, longer
– Smaller = lighter
Time
• Students confuse the minute and hour hands.
• They have difficulty in estimating the duration
of a given length of time.
• Digital clock and timers have a number scale
based on 60 not 100.
My Open-Ended Problem
A rectangular fence has a perimeter of 240 m.
What might the area be?
– How can this problem be modified to fit a primary
classroom?
– What problem-solving strategies would help solve
this problem?
Perimeter & Area
• Students believe area is bigger than perimeter
since it involves multiplying. This
misconception results from a
misunderstanding of how perimeter and area
are different and cannot be compared, as well
as a misconception from Number that
multiplying numbers gives a larger result.
Mathematical Tools
• Students misread or misunderstand
measuring tools such as clocks and
thermometers.
• Some students believe that rulers can be used
to measure area.
• Students often misuse rulers by not beginning
to measure a length from the zero mark.
– They use the edge of the ruler or start at 1.
– When measuring lengths longer than the ruler,
some students flip the ruler over and over.
CHANCE & DATA
Chance & Data
Quick Task
Modeling
• Getting a 6 on a die is harder than 1
getting any other number. 15
• When experiments do not have 17
enough trials to match theoretical
30
probabilities then many students
believe experimental probabilities 1
(what they have seen, what they have 36
witnessed) to be more precise or 23
more reliable than theoretical
16
probabilities.
– The Roulette Phenomenon 18
– HHHHHH? 32
Resources
• Beesey, C. (1997). Jigsaw: Ideas for Assessment in
Mathematics Level 5. Macmillan Aust
• Bobis et. al. (2004). Mathematics for children: Challenging
children to think mathematically, p.105
• Booker, G.B. (2004). Teaching Primary Mathematics 3rd
Edition. Pearson Aust
• Leung, A. (2001). Learning Study 5: P.4 Mathematics Lesson
on Perimeter and Area. Last viewed 13th July 2010.
http://iediis4.ied.edu.hk/cidv/webdata/documents/medward10
2p4math/medward102p4mereport.pdf
• Teachernet. Maths Misconceptions Last viewed12th July
2010.www.teachernet.gov.uk
• VELS. Mathematics Level 2. Last viewed 12th July 2010.
http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vels/levels.html