Comparing Solutions to Advance Childrens Thinking

Broken Ruler Task

Group #
Phase 1 will be led
by:
Phase 2 will be led
by:
Phase 3 will be led
by:
Intended
audience:

Marianne Kassabian
Lily Margossian
Leigh Evans
We will be doing our enactment with a group of Grade 3
students with varying levels of mathematical abilities.

Task:
I needed to measure the length of a line last night, but my ruler fell on the floor and
broke:

A) Can I still use this ruler to measure the line below so I can complete my
homework?

1. No,I cannot use the ruler to measure the line because:

2. Yes, I can use the ruler to measure the short line because:

Mathematical Content Goals

Through this activity:
o Students will develop an understanding that when we
measure, the point of origin begins at zero, which we call the zero
point.
o Students will develop an understanding that the starting
point is flexible and can be changed to measure.
o This entails understanding that linear measure is a
measure of distance traveled.

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Expectations for Students Participation in Mathematical Activity

In this activity, we expect students to
o Raise their hand prior to speaking and waiting for their
turn to speak
o Listen and respect other students opinions and ideas
o Explain their thinking and be prepared to re-explain what
others have said in your own words.
Materials:
Broken ruler (large cut-out, not to scale using real centimeters for purpose of
activity)
Line cut-out (scaled to measure 2 units on the cut-out broken ruler) to be
measured for activity
Chalk & chalkboard (or alternatively dry-erase board and markers)
Anticipated students strategies:

Solution #1:

o No, because it doesnt start at zero. You can only

measure with a ruler if the number starts at zero and its cut off.
Student understands you must start
measuring at zero, but does not understand flexibility of
the zero point and that any number can be substituted
with zero.
Solution #2:
o Yes, you can still measure it because the lines are still
there. The measure will be 2cm.
The student realizes that the line is
shorter than the ruler and therefore can be measured;
however, the student does not understand the concept of
starting at zero.
Solution #3:
o Yes, if you start measuring from 1 cm the line will reach 2
cm. This means that the line is 1 cm long.
The student understands the concept of
distance travelled, that the point of origin begins at zero,
and that the starting point is flexible (that any number
can be substituted by zero).
Solution #4:
o Yes, because the line fits in the ruler
The student understands that the line
can be measured using the broken ruler, but it is unclear
whether they understand zero point flexibility and/or
iteration (in the case if the line were longer than the
ruler).

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Analyze the potential strategies:

Looking across the
potential strategies,
what connections and
differences do you see?

Which of these
potential solutions do
you want to include in a
whole-class discussion?
Why?
How would you
sequence the potential
solutions? Why?

Most students understand that you can measure

the line using the broken ruler, but many do not
understand the substitution of a zero for any
number, which is why their measurements are
incorrect. Some students do not understand the
concept of zero point and begin measuring at the
incorrect value, or conversely they are adamant
that you cannot measure if the zero is not present.
Solution 2 because the student does not
understand that a ruler must have a zero point.
Solution 3 because the student has understood
that distance travelled is more important that
starting at zero point as the numbers on the ruler
can be changed.
Part 2: #1, #4 (focusing on zero point and zero
point flexibility)
Part 3: #2, #3 (focusing on idea of distance
travelled)

Ways we will adjust the activity if it is too challenging:

If the activity is too challenging for the students, we will take more time to focus
on misconceptions and clarify them (beginning with the idea of zero-point and its
flexibility) before moving onto the global idea of distance travelled.
Ways we will adjust the activity if it is too easy: (would be part 4 - Lily)
If the task is too easy for the students, we are going to continue with the concept
of iteration, therefore, we will be using a longer line and have the students
measure the line with a smaller ruler.

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Activity Sequence
Phase 1: Launching the Task
Introduce your group and establish expectations for student participation.
Good morning boys and girls. I hope you are all having a great morning. My name
is Ms. Marianne. Ms. Lily, Ms. Leigh and I are very thankful that you are helping us
with this problem we are having.
Before we start thinking about how we can solve our problem, were just going to
set a couple of guidelines for the activity. Can anybody tell me the best way to
behave at circle time?
Ask the students what the best way to behave is and set the following
expectations.
a. Raise their hand prior to speaking and waiting for their
turn to speak.
b. Listen and respect other students opinions and ideas.
c. Explain their thinking and be prepared to re-explain what
others have said in your own words.
Introduce the task.
I will ask the students questions to elicit prior knowledge about measuring and the
way they measure.
What is the first thing you think about when you hear measuring or to
measure?
How have you measured before?
Transition
Great answers everyone, thank you for participating so well.
So, here is our problem. Ms. Leigh, Ms. Lily and I were doing our math homework
yesterday and we noticed that the only ruler that we had was broken! So, we need
your help in solving our ruler problem. We had to measure this *hold up piece of
paper*line, but we only had this broken ruler to measure it.
Explain to students what you want them to do next (in the Monitor phase).
I want you to think about whether or not you would be able to measure this piece
of paper, with this piece of a broken ruler. Once you have thought about whether or
not you would be able to measure it, I will ask you to share with a partner next to
you. Then we are going to come back and discuss your answers as a class.
Think-Pair-Share
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Okay, great job girls and boys. Now we are going to share our ideas as a class. Can
anyone remind us of these expectations?
Pry for expectations.
Lets share some of our ideas. Who thinks that we cannot measure the ruler, and
who thinks we can measure it?
I will then place the data collected in a table on the chalkboard. I will also write
down all the names of the students who contributed to the table next to their
specific idea in order for Lily and Leigh to transition smoothly into their parts of the
lesson.

Monitoring Students Progress During Work Time & Displaying their

(All group members should participate in this)
After students are presented with the task, they will be given 5 minutes to ThinkPair-Share while teachers circulate to sample student thinking and to help elicit
ideas:
Prepare ahead of time questions/additional task you can ask of students who finish
ahead of their peers. This work should be related to the task at hand.
Phase 2
Hello boys and girls as Ms. Marianne told you my name is Ms. Lily. You guys had
some great participation and a lot of charisma so lets continue!
Ask the students what the best way to behave is and set the following
expectations.
a. Raise their hand prior to speaking and waiting for their
turn to speak.
b. Listen and respect other students opinions and ideas.
c. Explain their thinking and be prepared to re-explain what
others have said in your own words.

Phase 2

Objective: Starting at Zero Point!

Solution 1: ____1_____
Focus students attention on one solution.

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Student Solution would already be on the board (Phase 1)

Can you explain to me how you were able to get to your conclusion?
Can someone else repeat what Student Solution 1 said? What do you think
he/she meant by this?
Can I see with a thumbs up how many people agree with Student Solution 1?
I see some of you agree but also some of you that dont!
Why do you think Student Solution 1 is saying no?
Great job! thank you Student Solution 1! I think we should look at another student
solution now and maybe come back to yours.
Let us look at another solution.

Solution 2: ____4_____
Focus students attention on a second student solution.
Can you explain to me how your brain was thinking about this problem?
What do you mean by the line fits? Do you think we can get an accurate
measurement?
I will ask the students to consider what a regular ruler has that this broken one does
not.
What if I told you that I can get you a regular ruler! Would I be able to measure the
line int hat case?
I will give the students a minute or so to Think-Pair-Share
Student X can you explain your thinking?
Student N could you repeat?
Why dont you come on the board and show us?
Why should you measure like this? Can anyone else explain why he/she went
about going to measure?
- I would continue to ask students up to the board to make sure that
students are in fact measuring by aligning the edge of the line with the
beginning of the cm (to make sure no extra partial units are added but not
accounted for.
Why do we have to align the line with the cm line like that? Why is this
important?
So making sue we have aligned everything. How long is this line?
- Make sure to change data if students have changed their minds.
So if I had not dropped my ruler, I would have been able to measure without any
problems! What happens if in fact this ruler was broken? Ms. Leigh will help us try to
figure this puzzling question out!

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Phase 3 (Whole Group Discussion)

Expectations:
o Raise their hand prior to speaking and waiting for their
turn to speak
o Listen and respect other students opinions and ideas
o Explain their thinking and be prepared to re-explain what
others have said in your own words.
Focusing on concepts of:
- Flexible Zero Point
- Distance Travelled
Following Part 2 which focuses on the idea of measuring beginning at a zero point, I
will be transitioning into the idea that this zero point can be flexible and can
substitute any number when measuring. As well, once I have solidified the idea that
we can substitute any number for zero, that what matters when measuring is
distance travelled.

Narrowing in on idea of Flexible Zero Point:

o So now that weve looked at a ruler that isnt broken, weve agreed
that the line is 1cm! Does everyone agree? We used a full ruler, we started
measuring from zero, and we discovered that the line is 1cm long. Is this
correct?
o Now lets go back to our original problem. Even though we now know
the line is 1cm long, lets pretend we didnt have that full ruler, and were still
stuck with this broken one and we still dont know how long the ruler is. Ill
ask you again, do you think that we CAN measure the line using the broken
ruler? Raise your hand if you think we can.
o Lets look at student1 who said we CAN. Could you come up and show
us how you would use our broken ruler to measure our line? *Have student
come up. They will demonstrate that the line is 2cm long because
they are measuring from 1-2cm and seeing the 2 as the numerical
value rather than seeing it as distance travelled*
o Ok. So you say its 2cm. Interesting. Lets write that down. *Write
down length as 2cm from student1*
o Can someone else who agrees that we CAN measure the line using
the broken ruler come up and show us how they did it? *Have student
come up. They will demonstrate that the line 1cm*
o How did you get 1cm? We just measured it before and student1 said it
was 2cm, could you explain how you got a different answer? *Student2 will
demonstrate that theyve replaced the 1 with a 0 and the 2 with a 1.
This student understand the flexibility of the zero point.
o Interesting! So student2 replaced the 1 with a 0, and the 2 with a 1.
Lets write that on top of our broken ruler and see if it makes sense to do

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this *Write these new values atop the existing values to have the
ruler starting at 0.
o So now we have two different answers.How can we come to an
answer that everyone agrees on? Lets go back to our full ruler for a moment
and count to double check. *This time, measure the line using the full
ruler but draw the cm as a jump on the board* Ok. So do we agree
that our line is ONE jump? Each jump, is 1cm. Our line is 1cm
o Remember student1 said our line was 2cm. How many jumps would
we have to do to measure 2cm? *2 jumps. Draw 2 jumps in another
color. Put the line up against these 2 jumps and ask students if they
still think the line measures 2 jumps. Have them discuss that it is 1
jump, not 2.
o Can we do the same thing on our broken ruler using this way of
measuring as number of jumps? *Have students count with you as you
measure the line using the broken ruler counting JUMPS* So we just
used our broken ruler, and measured one JUMP.
o When we used a full ruler, we measured one jump. When we used the
broken ruler, we ALSO measured 1 jump.
o What can we say about the line, that will explain why we got 1 cm
and not 2cm? Why isnt it 2 cm long? *The line did not grow, it stayed
the same throughout. It is # of jumps, distance traveled, that
matters*

Conclude the activity by saying something like:

Nice work today on solving this task. I noticed that students found really
interesting ways to solve this problem. Describe the mathematical ideas that the
class worked on, and/or ask students to describe what they worked on
mathematically today.

Comment on how the group participated in the mathematical activity, given the
expectations you laid out. E.g., I especially liked how everyone ___________
(contributed to our whole class discussion, noticed important mathematics in
each others solutions, etc.). Be as specific as possible about what you noticed
they were doing well.

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