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Laura Pappano writes, "It’s Crazy Hair Day at Marshall Elementary School in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood—which is perfect, because Tufts University researcher Bárbara Brizuela has brought a hat."
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| Photo: Harvard Education Letter |
In the stovepipe style and made from oaktag paper, the hat is one foot tall. Brizuela then asks, “If I’m five and a half feet tall, how tall will I be with the hat on?” Second-grader Jasmine, smiley in a pink sweatsuit, answers, “Six and a half feet.” Rather than say, “Right!” Brizuela offers another question: “How do you know?”
Thus begins a math conversation that researchers like Brizuela believe may hold the key to tackling one of our biggest school bugaboos: algebra. As they talk, Jasmine uses words, bar graphs, and a table to describe how tall each person they discuss will be if they put on the hat. Jasmine creates a rule—“add one foot to the number you already had”—and applies it to an imaginary person 100 feet tall.
Brizuela even throws out a variable. “So, to show someone whose height I don’t know, I will use z feet,” she says, adding a z to Jasmine’s table. “What should I do now?” Jasmine pauses. “This is kind of hard,” she says. Brizuela, whose pilot study explores mathematical thinking among children in grades K–2, understands. “Would you like to use a different letter?” she asks, erasing the z and replacing it with a y. Jasmine smiles. She picks up her pencil and easily jots down the rule: y + 1 = z feet.
Source: Harvard Education Letter
