Mirthala Cabrera

EDCI-3334-01
February 28, 2024

Chapter 8: Developing Meanings for the Operations

Students can apply addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division more precisely and fluently

in real-world situations if they are taught to connect the various meanings, interpretations, and

relationships that these four operations have. Children can and should concurrently be acquiring

increasingly complex concepts related to numbers, identifying ways to think about basic fact

combinations, and effectively and fluently applying these operations in real-world settings as

they learn to integrate the big ideas described below. Operational sense is developed by this

reasoning.

Part-Part-Whole Problems

Part-part-whole problems involve two parts that are conceptually or mentally combined into one

collection or whole. The absence of a tangible joining or separating action distinguishes these

problems from change problems. In these cases, the missing part (one addend unknown), the

missing whole (total unknown), or both parts (two addends unknown) need to be located. In a

part-part-whole situation, there is no substantial difference between the two parts, hence each

portion doesn't need to have a separate problem as the unknown. The third scenario, in which the

whole or total is known and the two parts are unknown, offers the chance to consider every

potential breakdown of the whole since, as opposed to producing a single right answer, this

scenario typically yields a collection of appropriate responses. The notion that numbers are

embedded in other numbers is closely related to this structure. Students could, for instance, divide
the number seven into the numbers five and two, where each addendum (or component) is a part

of the seven (whole).

The Commutative Property for Addition

The commutative property for addition means you can change the order of the addends and it

does not change the answer. Children might not understand the commutative property, even if it

may appear clear to them. It is beneficial to spend time assisting children in developing the

relationship because this quality is crucial for problem-solving, understanding of fundamental

facts, and mental mathematics. First graders only need to comprehend and be able to envision the

property, grasp why it applies to addition but not subtraction, and be able to apply it. They do not

need to be able to name the property. While looking at sums up to ten, students learned the

commutative property. However, when asked if they felt it would always work, many of them

weren't sure if it applied to high numbers. Though they might not be able to articulate or even

agree that this characteristic holds true for all addition combinations, children may be able to

recognize and accept the commutative property for sums they have encountered. The core of

mathematics is asking students to consider when properties apply (or do not). This helps them

with numeration, reasoning, generalization, and algebraic thinking. Children should be given pair

problems with the same addends but various ordering to help them concentrate on the

commutative property. Putting the difficulties in different contexts aids children in concentrating

on the important commonalities. For instance, “Tania is on page 32 in her book. Tomorrow she

hopes to read 15 more pages. What page will she be on if she reads that many pages?” or “The

milk tray in the cafeteria had 15 cartons. The delivery person filled the tray with 32 more milk

cartons. How many milk cartons are now on the tray?”

Number combinations where either both addends or both factors are fewer than ten are

considered basic facts for addition and multiplication. The corresponding combinations are the

fundamental facts for division and subtraction. The equivalent addition portions are fewer than

10, hence 15 - 8 = 7 is a subtraction fact. A student has automaticity or mastery when they can

respond correctly in less than three seconds. Nonetheless, fluency development is the aim of

basic information. Being fluent involves more than just speed; it also involves being able to solve

problems in a flexible, correct, efficient, and acceptable manner. In order to become fluent in

basic facts, students go through three stages of development: mastery, reasoning techniques, and

counting. Without hurrying them, instruction and assessment must support students as they move

through these stages. Beginning in kindergarten and continuing through middle school, the

development of fact fluency is a crucial skill that leads to advancements in mathematical

achievement. Fluency with addition and subtraction facts starts in kindergarten and continues

through grade 2, when kids are expected to memorize their addition facts (i.e., to have

automaticity or learned the facts). Similarly, grade 2 is typically where multiplication and

division fact fluency starts, with grade 3 marking the end of the expectation period for mastery or

automaticity.

Memorization

This method skips over spending time on strategy development and goes straight to fact memorization

after introducing addition and multiplication ideas. There is ample data to suggest that this approach is

ineffective. One would be inclined to reply that this is how they learned the information, however,

research conducted as far back as 1935 shows that students, although receiving a lot of solitary practice,

acquire basic facts through a variety of methods. Phase 2 of the developmental process is skipped in a
memorizing technique, which has several drawbacks including inefficiency. Too many facts need to be

committed to memory. Without using strategies, students must memorize 100 addition facts (just for the

addition combinations 0-9) and 100 multiplication facts (0-9), along with the 200 subtraction and division

facts. Inflexibility. Students don't learn strategies, so resort to counting strategies, never

developing flexibility (a component of fluency). Inappropriate applications. Students misapply

the facts and don't check their work (they don't have strategies to use to confirm if the sum or

product is correct).

Guided Invention

Although in a more flexible way, strategies are the main emphasis of guided invention as well.

The main goal is to have students choose a method using their understanding of number

relationships. A teacher could share the six plus seven facts. 6 + 7 could be seen by one student

as "double 6 is 12 and one more is 13." According to a different kid, it's 7 + 3 = 10 + 3 more.

One student may take five from each addendum to equal ten, and then add the final two and one.

The important thing is that every learner uses relationships and number combinations that make

sense to them. In guided inventions, the instructor deliberately arranges activities so that students

detect number correlations, without necessarily explaining a strategy. In the 6 + 7 exercise, for

instance, the instructor would quickly display a picture of counters in two ten-frames and ask the

class to come up with several ways they could mentally shift the counters to determine the total.

Studies reveal that when students are given a lot of practice solving issues, they not only improve

as problem solvers but also learn more fundamental functions than students in a drill program.
Chapter 10: Developing Whole-Number Place-Value Concepts

A thorough grasp of place value and our base-ten number system, including extensions from

whole numbers to decimal numeration, is linked to number sense, a rich, relational understanding

of numbers. Students count up to 100 and 120 in kindergarten and first grade, respectively, and

are introduced to patterns in these numbers. Crucially, however, students are taught to

conceptualize sets of ten things as a single entity. Students' first concepts of patterns and groups

of ten are formally linked to three-digit numbers by the second grade, and by the fourth grade,

they are able to comprehend numbers up to 1,000,000 in a variety of scenarios. Students

generalize their understanding of place value in the fourth and fifth grades. They learn that digit

positions in a number have a value that is ten times greater than the previous digit as they move

to the left. This relationship will soon be linked to decimals, as digit positions in a number have a

value that is one-tenth that of the position as they move to the right. When considering the

powers of ten, students must understand this relationship.

Groupable Models

The models that allow students to construct tens from single pieces or units and validate their

worth are the ones that most accurately depict the relationships between ones, tens, and

hundreds. The 10 single beans and the cup of 10 beans that students fill it with are identical.

Rubber bands can be used to arrange bundles of wooden craft sticks or coffee stirrers together.

Because they have a comparable shape, plastic connecting cubes may be assembled into rods of

ten, which makes them a convenient transition to pre-grouped rods. Introduce the vocabulary of

"tens" to the kids when they start to form groups of ten. For example, you can use matching to

show them that there are "cups of tens and ones" or "bundles of tens and singles." After that,

move on to a more broad term, such as "groups of tens and ones." In due course, this
terminology can be shortened to just "tens," as in "four tens and seven." As students gain more

experience with these models, they can create collections of tens ahead of time and save them as

ready-made tens (craft sticks can be left bundled, connecting cubes left connected, etc.). This

method is a useful bridge to the pre-grouped models that are discussed next.

Pre-grouped Models

Pre-grouped models are frequently utilized in teaching activities and are frequently displayed in

textbooks. Pre-grouped models cannot be disassembled or reassembled. A ten must be traded for

a single piece when ten are accumulated, and a ten must be traded for a hundred. These physical

models have the advantages of being simple to use and having an effective large-number

modeling capability. You might go over and beyond to ensure that children get that ten pieces are

actually ten ones by using pre-grouped models. As an alternative, have students group the ten

hundred pieces and assemble them into a cube to demonstrate how it is produced, even though

there is a pre-grouped cube to represent one thousand. If not, some students might assume that

the cube represents 600 because they are just counting the square units they can see on the six

faces' surfaces. Initially, the Little Ten-Frames may have greater significance than base-ten items

composed of paper strips and squares because they establish a strong connection with the

familial ten-frames that children utilized in their early number-thinking. One clear benefit of

small ten-frames is that they consistently display the distance to the next decade. A student can

observe that, for instance, when 47 is displayed with four ten cards and a seven card, three more

will result in five complete cards, or 50.

For a large portion of the population, having computational skills is synonymous with knowing

mathematics at the elementary school level. That is by no means the complete tale, but acquiring

computational abilities with whole numbers is an essential part of the curriculum. Modifications

to the way computation is taught are necessary because of the expectations for expertise in both

the modern workforce and daily life. Instead of providing a single way to add or subtract, the

best approach should be flexible enough to alter, as the situation and the numbers do. The

objective now isn't merely "knowing how to subtract three-digit numbers," but rather the gradual

acquisition of a variety of adaptable techniques and abilities that are significantly connected to

conceptual comprehension. children should complete addition and subtraction problems using

numbers appropriate for their grade level (within 10 for kindergarten students, within 100 for

first-grade students, and within 1,000 for second-grade students), according to the Common Core

State Standards. The addition of two-digit numbers to one-digit numbers or to a multiple of ten is

expected of first-grade students. It is expected of second-graders to add two- and three-digit

numbers. Students continue working with large-number addition and subtraction as they move

into the intermediate grades. They can handle problems within 1,000 with fluency by employing

a range of strategies.

Direct Modeling

Direct modeling is the developmental stage that typically comes before newly developed tactics.

This method entails using pictures or manipulatives in addition to counting to clearly illustrate

the meaning of an operation or story problem. It's highly likely that students who constantly

count by one in situations involving addition lack base-ten grouping principles. That does not

imply that you should refrain from posing two-digit number puzzles to them. Instead, offer them
a tool to aid in their thinking when you engage with kids who are still having trouble

conceptualizing ten as a unit, like linking cubes to form bars of tens or organizing counters in a

ten-frame. Even though they are counting every 10 rods by one, some students will first utilize

the base-ten rod of 10 as a counting tool to keep track of counts of ten. For memory support,

have students write down the corresponding numbers as they finish each intermediate count.

Invented Strategies

Any method that deviates from the usual algorithm, doesn't require the usage of tangible things,

or doesn't entail counting by ones is referred to as an invented approach. The Common Core

State Standards define these methods as "based on place value, properties of operations, and/or

the relationship between addition and subtraction" for students in the first and second grades. In

particular, students are required to "develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and

generalizable methods to compute sums and differences of whole numbers in base-ten notation,

using their understanding of place value and the properties of operations". Invented tactics

occasionally develop into mental techniques after the concepts are investigated, applied, and

comprehended. After some practice, students might be able to mentally complete 75 + 19, for

instance (75 + 20 = 95, less 1 is 94). To help them remember the procedures as they solve 847 +

256, students might need to jot down the intermediate steps (i.e., add 3 to 847) on paper. Written

support is frequently recommended in the classroom when techniques are developed since it

facilitates sharing and helps students concentrate on the concepts. Particularly during the

developmental stage, it is not crucial to distinguish between written, partially written, and mental

processing.
Chapter 12: Developing Strategies for Multiplication and Division Computation

Students start to concentrate on multiplication and division computation procedures as they move

into the intermediate grades. In fact, comprehending multiplication is a requirement for at least

half of the grade 3 Common Core State Standards. Researchers contend that, in contrast to

addition and subtraction, the relationship between multiplication and division processes is more

elusive and that devised solutions for these operations are less thoroughly documented. To

overcome these obstacles, educators should establish a flexible learning environment that

encourages students to successfully investigate and test new concepts. Students who are only

familiar with the conventional multiplication and division algorithms frequently struggle to

follow steps they do not completely comprehend, just as they did with addition and subtraction.

Students are growing as autonomous learners when they are able to solve multi-digit

multiplication and division problems in a variety of methods, complete written records of their

work, justify their conclusions and debate the advantages of one method over another.

Compensation Strategies

Both adults and students search for methods to work with numbers to make calculations simple.

An adjustment or compensation is made after the problem 27 X 4 is converted to a simpler one in

Figure 12.4. The "half-then-double Strategy," in which one factor is halved and the other is

doubled, is demonstrated in the second example. When a 5 or a 50 is involved, this strategy is

frequently applied. These procedures cannot be applied to all computations because they rely on

the numbers involved. Still, these are useful strategies, particularly for estimating and mental

arithmetic.
Partitioning Strategies

Students break down numbers in a variety of ways that demonstrate their grasp of place value.

With the exception of students always starting with the greatest values, the "by decades"

partitioning technique (which can also be extended to the hundreds, thousands, etc.) is the same

as the regular algorithm. This is an extremely effective mental math technique. Making a tiny

addition or subtraction after mentally calculating the multiples of 25 and 50 is another useful

tactic. Every method of partitioning requires an understanding of the distributive property.

Cluster Problems

A method for multiplying many digits is known as "strings" or "duster problems." In order to

directly educate students in doing increasingly difficult computations, this strategy encourages

them to employ a sequence (or string) of facts and helpful combinations they already know.

Students can use the cluster or string of problems in ways that promote specific techniques by

applying number relationships and logic. For instance, students could write down the following

cluster of known facts: 3 X 50, 10 X 50, 34 X 25, 30 X 20 in order to find 34 X 50. With the use

of these challenges, students can examine which ones—of which there are several—can be

utilized to locate the product. Students can break down numbers into simpler bits by using

cluster puzzles to help them think through their options. Using the distributive property and

place-value knowledge, the method of splitting up the numbers and multiplying their

components is a highly useful method for flexible computation that also gets pupils ready for

comprehending the conventional algorithm. Although the distributive property is not a formal

phrase required by the Common Core State Standards, students are expected to comprehend its

meaning as it is essential to their comprehension of multiplication and its connections to

algebraic thinking.