Markert-Week 9

For my student work blog this week I will be looking at one of recent homework assignments. This homework assignment was given during my GLT and is about nickels and pennies. I wanted to look at this homework and see if there were misconceptions in the students work. This homework assignment asks the students to answer two short word problem questions that involve counting nickels and pennies. The third question asks the students to count the pennies and nickels shown. Overall the students did a very good job at this homework assignment and were few errors. The one particular student work made a mistake with the first question.

The question states: “Sabine grabbed 2 nickels and 7 pennies. She had (blank) cents. Tony grabbed 3 nickels and 1 penny. He had (blank) cents.” The students were asked to fill in the blank to the problem. For the first blank this particular student wrote the answer “9.” I believe that this students’ misconception is coming from counting the number of coins rather than the value of the coins combined. I’ve generated this conclusion also from the students work next to the problem. Next to the problem the student wrote “2+7=9.” This tells me that the student saw the two numbers and simply added. I like that the student knew to add the numbers since the problem says grabbed, but he maybe didn’t think about what the cent notation meant. However the second part of this question the student answered correctly. He also displayed “15+1=16” next to the question. This shows me that he knows 3 nickels is worth 15 cents and one penny is worth 1 cent.

The rest of the homework sheet was done correctly, which makes me think that maybe this first question he didn’t think thoroughly through the problem. He may have rushed and immediately assumed to just simply add. This is mistake doesn’t make me think that this student needs further understanding behind the value of these coins since he did correctly answer the other questions that were similar. I believe that this may have been a careless mistake. I was very interested in the students’ use of number models. Prior to this homework we had a lesson on change-to-more number models and this student demonstrate an understanding for these models in his work alongside the question. This student clearly understands the grabbing more coins means addition and he also is using the addition sign and equals sign appropriately. He shows that by grabbing more coins we are going to add these two numbers together and those two numbers are going to equal the third which is also the answer. Even though the first part of the first question he did not get the correct answer he used the number model correctly and correctly added those two numbers together. One way I can advance this students thinking is by asking him questions about why he chose to add these two amounts together? Or why did he not convert the coins in the first problem? I would also like to see the student explain how he came to the result that he did? This would force the student to think about why he is doing what he is and why it is important. It would also show me the students thinking and what he actually is gaining from this homework and lesson.