This week in math my students are working on place value.
They're working on understanding the value of a digit and its place in the
number (ones, tens, hundreds, or thousands). The work I’m reviewing is the
Homelink homework from their Everyday Math Journals. Many of my students are
struggling with the concept of zero and how it still stands even if there are
zero in the tens place. For example, if the problem says there’s 7 hundreds, 0
tens, and 4 ones, instead of writing 704 I had a few of my students writing 74
like the zero didn’t exist. This shows me that students are confused with the
idea that zero can be a placeholder. I think my mentor teacher and I need to
reiterate how zero can be in a number at different places. After going
over corrections, one student stuck out to me the most. This student did not appear to have a
good grasp on the concept, either because he was extremely confused or just not
paying attention and decided to write random answers. The question I am looking
at is number 1, which has a visual representation of the 10-base blocks. The problem showed 3 hundred blocks, 7 ten blocks, and 4 one blocks. Instead this student put 102. This is one problem I was not completely sure how to analyze unless I have a conversation one on one and ask him again and see if he still thinks the answer is 102.
Certainly, one way to gain more understanding might be through providing more problems like this (show base ten blocks and ask what numbers they represent). Another angle to use to approach learning more about the student is thinking might be through the reverse: giving the student a number and asking him to represent it however he wants. Then, by comparing representations amongst different students, the student may come to understand how and why and when the base ten blocks are useful.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I think these are very helpful approaches. I really like giving the student a number and having the student represent it however he wants.
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