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COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

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 3 Meg’s number 2


Meg’s number is not odd. The first digit of Meg’s number is
larger than the second.
Help your group find Meg’s number
on the Hundred chart. Help your group find Meg’s number
on the 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

Students at level 1&2 Students at level 3&4

• corners, pointy • angles

• like a square • rectangular

• diamond • rhombus or kite

• a square has four


• a square has four equal sides and at
sides least one R.A.
Mathematical language is and should be different at different developmental levels.
Orientation & Modeling
• Coordinates in mapping are
commonly reversed, so the order
of ‘horizontal then vertical’
needs to be consistently
represented and emphasised.
• Map reading depends on the
orientation of the viewer with
respect to the map itself.
• Difficulties with perspective
representations
• Hidden surfaces in 3D
representations
Limited Definitions
What is a hexagon? But most would not agree that the
following shapes are also hexagons

- The first figure is only a regular hexagon.


What is a polygon?
- any closed shape made up of straight lines
3 straight lines (triangles)
4 straight lines (quadrilaterals)
5 (penta), 6 (hexa), 7 (septa), 8 (octa), nine (nona),
10 (deca), 12 (dodeca), 20 (icosa)
Definitions that matter
• What is a solid? • What is a shape?
 Mathematically, stability or  A shape is the appearance of
rigidity does not define a something especially its
solid. A solid is a region of outline that is not dependent
space enclosed by a 3-D on size, position or
figure. It may be a rigid orientation. It need not be 2-
structure but need not be. dimensional.
It may be open or closed. It  A regular shape is not simply
may be regular or irregular. one that is common. A regular
It may have curved shape is one where all its
surfaces. sides and angles are equal.

REGULAR REGULAR IRREGULAR


Symmetry
• Students find more lines of
symmetry than actually exist.
– Simple or convenient definitions
that lines of symmetry ‘chop’
shapes into half do not necessarily
imply that these lines must also
create one half the exact mirror
image of the other
• How can ICT be used to overcome
this misconception?
Angles
• Angles should be defined as the ‘amount of turn’.
– Modeling with two sticks joined together of different
lengths is important to overcome this common
misconceptions with angles.
• What other terms can be used to develop completeness of
definition in relation to angles? eg. pivoting, rotation
• What other modeling can be used? eg. clock hands
Mathematical Tools
• Reading and using the scale of a protractor
– Many children believe a protractor measures the
length along curved lines
– They often confuse the position or alignment of
the centre.
– Many students misread protractors as there are
two sets of numbers on most protractors.
60 Kindergarten children…
• The children were shown 5
quadrilaterals
• They had to colour all the shapes that
were the same

1 2 3 4 5
Results…

1 2 3 4 5

• 56% coloured figures 1 & 4


• 30% coloured figures 1, 4 & 5
• 7% coloured figures 1, 2 & 4
• 7% coloured figures 1, 2, 4 & 5
One student’s response…

1 2 3 4 5

• “Even though that shapes maybe turned around,


they’re still the same shape that they were…
• “1, 2, 4 are identical but are changed. 5 if you’re
talking about the same shape even though they might
be small or large, 5 is the same as 1, 2 & 4…
• “Shape 3 is just like a square – stretched”
Summary
• ‘…a rectangle is a long shape…’
• ‘…a square is not a rectangle…’

• This is a square, this is a diamond.


Children associate
the word right with
a b directional
language.
• angle a is smaller than b
• a right angle and left angle
Summary
• A triangle is not a polygon.
• Using a protractor.
• The diagonal of a square is the
same length as its side.
• 3D shapes have diagonal lines.
• All lines which divide a shape
into two equal 'halves' are lines
of symmetry.
MEASUREMENT
MEASUREMENT

• 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

• Language & Symbols


• Limited Definitions
• Modeling and Representations
– more simulated activities
Language & Symbols
• Students have imprecise meaning for the
following terms
– fair, chance, luck, odds, likelihood, randomness
• Meaning is normally based on subjective
reasoning rather than quantitative reasoning
• Some symbols and words cause confusion
– and, or, I , U, n(X=3), Pr(Y >2)


Quick Task

• The Venn Diagram


opposite shows the STRAW CHOC
number of students
5 3 6
that like particular
ice-cream flavours. 2

 Find the following


n(STRAW) =
N(CHOC) =
How many like both STRAW and CHOC?
How many like STRAW or CHOC?
Limited Definitions
• Most students believe that data is about drawing
graphs.
– This comes from an over-emphasis on displaying data in
different ways rather than interpreting these displays
• Statistics involves using a range of tools and summary
statistics (mean, mode, median) to represent,
interpret, analysis and summarise data.
– This means that teaching and learning activities needs to
be centred on students developing a set of questions that
they want to know answers to.
– Student may be able to calculate summary statistics but
what do they mean?
Modeling and Representations
• Students have general difficulties in
organising, displaying and analysing data
especially if it is not their own
– When a tally in required they sometimes group in
6’s not 5’s ie. instead of
– They often misread scales and axes on graphs
Chance Experiments
• Spinners are always balanced.
• Expressing probabilities as fractions,
understanding proportion and ratio present
great problems in this area of mathematics.
3
– example: Prob of selecting an apple =
2


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

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