Pretext of the following transcription: In order to listen to a students mathematical thinking from the grade span of 8th, I visited

the 8th grade math class of Ed Gehrke. The day that I visited his classroom he had started a performance task called Community Garden. Even though the content of this lesson was not a standard of 8th, he wanted to give his class a problem that would help them use math practices. Specifically, he wanted to help them practice the following: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. This transcription is one I had with an 8th grader named Jalia, and her partner Arleth. Jalia: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, 15,16,17,18,19,20. (cut off) Ms. Borlik: Arleth, do you understand what Jalia is doing? Arleth: Umm, no. Ms. Borlik: Jalia, can you explain what you are doing to Arleth? Jalia: Maybe. Jalia: You divide each of these, and see if you can get it matching into a section of 40 feet. And then you divide all the squares into a fourth, sixth, eighth, and twelfth. Pretty much. In order to do that you should count about 12 right here by 28. Arleth: Why are you making a 12 by 28 rectangle? Jalia: Because when you add it together you get 40. Then I am going to make it in eacha fourth, a sixth, an eighth, and a twelfth. And see if it works out. Arleth: I still get why you put a 12 by 28? Jalia: Because he said you have to find the area and then you have to divide them all into a certain part. And then Ms. Borlik: So you are saying that 40 square feet is the area of the garden? Jalia: Yah. Ms. Borlik: Do you understand what she is saying Arleth? Arleth: I see what she did, But it isnt right. Jalia: looks at Arleth with the cold stare only an 8th grader can give Ms. Borlik: I think I understand what you are thinking Jalia. Why dont you try rereading the question and maybe we can review what the length and width of the garden should be, because I dont think it is 12 by 28. Jalia: The total area for the class to plant vegetables will be a rectangle 40 feet long and 30 feet wide. Oh, so the area is 70, not 40. Ms. Borlik: Show me where the 40 feet long and the 30 feet wide are. Jalia: This. Points to 40 square units by 30 square units. Arleth: There is more than 70 squares inside that. Jalia: Oh, 1200. There is 1200. Yah! I was supposed to multiply.

Observation of 8th grade student thinking transcription: It was very interesting to hear a student think about a task like Jalia was able to share with me. Jalia spoke and sounded very confident about her work, which made me realize that when a student focuses on the mechanics of math solely, as long as they are doing some kind of procedure, they reason that they are correct. She made multiple errors in her thinking, and as a teacher, it was difficult to decide which one to address. The student working with her was less kind and just kept denying Jalia the validation she needed. It is my belief that Arleth was simply frustrated because she didnt understand Jalias erroneous thinking. Jalia spoke with such authority, that in the beginning Arleth did not question it, but rather questioned herself and her own thinking. I think that I should have asked Jalia more questions about area instead of just redirecting her to the correct dimensions. Listening to Jalia and Arleths mathematical thinking, I had hoped they would find the solution together, but I believe that Jalia may have just faked knowing what Arleth was talking about to avoid embarrassment. Instead, it is probably the case that Jalia does not truly understand the concept of area, and that for her, area is just a set of procedures that have gotten lost in her mind. Conclusion: I uncovered a lot of student thinking and misconceptions in this exercise. I learned that Jalias landscape of learning regarding area is very fragile. She understood that the area of a rectangle was somehow connected to the length and width of it, but she did not understand many concepts beyond that. The students were doing this activity on graph paper, and Jalia did not see the correlation of the square units inside the garden with dimensions on the outside of the garden. When she confused area for adding one length with one width, she should have noticed that the square units inside the rectangle did not correlate with that number. She would have noticed this had she understood the relationship between the linear units of the dimensions with the square units of the space inside. If I had more time with Jalia, I would work with her on this concept of area using base-10 cubes and graph paper. I think it would also help her to discuss the concept and definition of area as it relates to other aspects of life. Working with manipulatives and defining the word may help her gain a clear understanding of area that she will retain.