Listening to Students

Teacher: What type of angle is this? Students: [In unison] A right angle. Kathie: But if you turned it the other way, it would be a left angle. Teacher: If this is a right angle [fig. 1a], and this is a left angle [fig. 1b], what is this [fig. 1c]? Kathie: Thats not an angle.

he power of mathematical conversations was epitomized during a series of lessons in which fourth-grade students

The Power of Mathematical Conversations

were encouraged to make conjectures and defend their conjectures to their classmates. The opening excerpt illustrates that the students had had limited experiences with angles in various orientations. Consequently, they had internalized a very narrow definition for a right angle. However, this limited definition did not become clear until we asked them to elaborate on their thinking.
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Copyright 1999 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.

Sandra L. Atkins

Sandy Atkins, satkins@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu, teaches mathematics education classes at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1250.

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Driver and others (1994) state that making meaning involves persons-in-conversation. The Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM 1991) highlights the teachers and students roles in mathematical discourse. Both students and teachers are called on to listen carefully to each other, respond to each other, and pose questions to each other (NCTM 1991). Student-student interactions are as important as teacher-student interactions in making mathematical meaning. Teacher-student interactions also take a different form. The teacher no longer assumes the role of the transmitter of knowledge but becomes a part of the mathematical learning community. Mathematical conversations must become an integral part of classroom activityteacher with students and students with students conversing about mathematics. In such a setting, students can reflect on, and clarify their thinking about, mathematical ideas (NCTM 1989).
In general, classroom interactions about mathematics should, from this perspective, be characterized by a genuine commitment to communicate in which the teacher assumes that a students mathematical actions or explanations are reasonable from his or her point of view even if that sense is not immediately apparent to the teacher. (Cobb et al. 1991, 7)

behind those constructions. The teacher poses tasks that offer insights into the students mathematical reasoning. What follows is the story of conversations that took place in four fourth-grade classes. Two of the conversations are about finding the volume of a cube. The first conversation shows not only what these fourth graders understand but also the ways in which the physical positioning of the students affected the quality of the conversation. The second conversation shows the adaptations made by the teachers in posing the task and in physically positioning the students. A conversation about integer subtraction is included to illustrate the power that these conversations have in revealing misunderstandings about the subtraction algorithm. The final conversation, about angle measure, shows the students discussing mathematical ideas without the teachers orchestrating the conversation. Each conversation offers insights into the ways in which these children had constructed mathematics. Without fail, the adult participants were surprised by what they heard and learned a great deal about how their questioning and physical positioning affected the quality of the mathematical conversations.

The foregoing excerpt suggests that the classroom culture should be renegotiated so that students respond to one anothers comments instead of having their comments filtered through the teacher. This approach significantly changes the mathematical tone in the classroom. The teacher becomes a participant in the conversation and focuses on the mathematical understandings of her or his students as revealed in the conversations. Ball (1993) states that the teacher needs a bifocal perspectiveperceiving the mathematics through the mind of the learner while perceiving the mind of the learner through the mathematics (p. 159). That is, the teacher seeks to infer the mathematics that the student has constructed and the reasoning

Volume Conversations, Part 1

I sat on the couch with all the children gathered in front of me. Some of the children sat on the floor. Others sat in chairs. One child leaned over the arm of the couch to my left. The classroom teacher and the principal sat in chairs on the perimeter of the group. Very few of the students were able to see the faces of the other students. Each child had a calculator and a clipboard with paper and pencil. I held up a six-inch-by-six-inch-by-six-inch cube, which I had made with 216 snap cubes. It had an accordionlike construction that allowed me to open the cube to show the interior cubes.

FIGURE 1

A right angle (a)

A left angle (b)

Not an angle (c)

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I began the conversation by asking the children how many small cubes I had used to make the large cube. Several children began pointing at the air as if counting the cubes. Some began writing on their paper while others pushed the keys on their calculators. After a short time, students began to raise their hands. Teacher: Susan Susan: Two hundred and sixteen. Teacher: How many of you agree with Susan? Thumbs up if you agree, thumbs down if you disagree, sideways if you arent sure. [All students show thumbs up.] Teacher: How did you decide that there are two hundred sixteen cubes? Steven. Steven: There are six rows of six cubes. That gives thirty-six. And there are six sides. So I timesed thirty-six by six and got two hundred and sixteen. Peter, Sherri, Angela: Yep. Thats what I did. Teacher: Did anyone do it differently? Carlos: I just said there were six down and six across and timesed them, and that gave thirty-six. And then six sides made two hundred and sixteen. At this point I was trying to formulate a question that would require the students to reconsider their thinking without telling them how volume is calculated. Teacher: Let me see if I understand [I hold up the cube]. You are saying that there are thirty-six cubes on this face [I moved my hand across the front face; see fig. 2a] and thirty-six cubes on this face [I moved my hand across the lateral face; see fig. 2b]. Did you count these cubes twice? [I pointed to the column of edge cubes; see fig. 2c]. I thought that I had formulated the perfect question to cause the students to discover a flaw in their thinking, but I quickly found that I had not. My repeated asking whether they were counting the edge cubes twice was not problematic to these students. Teacher: Okay, let me see if I understand. There are thirty-six cubes on this face [as I moved my hand across the front face]. And there are thirty-six cubes on this face [I turned the cube to the left and moved my hand across the new front face]. And there are thirty-six cubes on this face and this face and this face and this face [as I continued rotating the cube to show the remaining four faces]. [All students shook their head in agreement.] Teacher: So that gives two hundred sixteen? Students: Yeah.
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Teacher: Then what about these cubes? [I opened the cube, which revealed the cubes in the center.] A spontaneous look of wonder appeared on the students faces. I knew that what I had asked was problematic for most of the students. I had finally found the right question. Now it was up to them to figure out the solution. After a while, the boy leaning over the arm of the couch spoke up. Brandon: There are six layers. [He moved his hand horizontally showing the six layers.] Teacher: What do you mean? Class, please listen. Brandon: There are thirty-six cubes [as he pointed to one of the faces], and there are six layers [he pointed to each of the layers]. That gives two hundred and sixteen cubes. I was shocked when I looked at the clock and realized that these students had been engaged in talking about mathematics for an hour. Reflecting on this conversation, I realized why counting the edge cubes twice was not problematic to the students. Although I said cube, the students heard square. They were counting the faces of the small cubesthe I thought that I small squaresnot the cubes themselves. Therefore, they had formulated the were not counting a cube twice because they were perfect question to counting each face only once. The importance of askhighlight a flaw in ing how they arrived at the students thinking answer became clear. The students did give the correct answer in saying 216. Had I not asked, I would not have known that the students were thinking in terms of surface area, not volume. As I reviewed the physical arrangement of children and the discussion, I realized that the conversation was directed to me and filtered through me and that very little student-to-student interaction had occurred. I wanted to structure the physical environment to encourage better conversations in which the students would interact with one another.

Volume Conversations, Part 2

Learning from the previous conversation, I repeated this activity in another fourth-grade classroom. A large braided rug covered the wood floor in one section of the room. Students sat on the perimeter of the rug so that each could see his or her classmates. The teacher and I sat on the rug
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FIGURE 2
Thirty-six cubes on the front face (a)

Thirty-six cubes on the right face (b)

Cubes counted twice (c)

with the students. Again, I asked students how many small cubes I had used to construct the sixinch-by-six-inch-by-six-inch large cube. The conversation began as had the conversation in the other class. The students once again said that the cube was made from 216 small cubes because 36 cubes were on each face and the cube had six faces. Once again my question about counting the edge cubes twice did not cause the students to see a flaw in their thinking. This time I had a five-inch-by-fiveinch-by-five-inch cube, which I held up, and asked the same question: How many small cubes did I use to make this cube then? Students once again began working with their calculators and writing on their clipboards. David: One hundred fifty. Teacher: How many of you agree with David? [About two-thirds of the thumbs turn up.] Anyone disagree? [No one shows thumbs down.] Anyone unsure? [About one-third of the students turn their hand to the side.] How did you get that, David? David: There are twenty-five cubes on the side times six. Thats one hundred fifty. Adam: But there are only one hundred twentyfive cubes. The class went on to discuss that the large cube has 125 cubes because it had five layers of 25. My choice to use another cube example to motivate them to rethink the method that they had used to find the number of cubes in the first cube was successful. The students original method would not generalize to a second example. They needed to find another explanationlayers instead of faces. Interestingly, in this class the students began to discuss the problem with one another rather than direct all comments to me. Whether this discussion reflected the physical positioning of the participants or the classroom culture that had been negotiated prior to this lesson was unclear. The classroom was furnished with tables instead of
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traditional student desks. The teacher did not have a teachers desk in the room. She chose to sit at one of the tables with the students. In addition, this teacher had been able to create a classroom environment that offered the students opportunities to take ownership of their learning. For example, the teacher and the students developed scoring rubrics for many of the class assignments. Students were also given opportunities to grade themselves. This sampling illustrates how this teacher had reconceptualized what it meant to become involved in the teaching and learning process.

Conversations about Number and Angle

I asked the fourth-grade teachers if I could try this instructional strategy for an extended period of time. The teachers and I agreed that I would work with two new fourth-grade classes for two weeks. One teacher was doing data-analysis activities that would include the construction of a circle graph.

Integer subtraction conversations

In the middle of the data-analysis unit, I began to wonder about the students understanding of the four arithmetic operations. We pushed all the desks to the perimeter of the room and sat in a circle on the floor. Each student brought a clipboard to the circle. The assistant principal and I sat on the floor with the students. The classroom teacher sat at a table on the perimeter of the circle so that she could take notes. I began the discussion by asking students to add 5 and 7 and 7 and 5. Then I asked the students to multiply 2 and 4 and 4 and 2. I asked the students what they noticed about these problems. They stated that two times four and four times two give the same answer. Next, I asked about 5 minus 2 and 2 minus 5. Although these students had no difficulty with the initial questions, the
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students disagreed on the answer to 2 minus 5. Some students said that the answer to 2 minus 5 was 0, some said that the answer was 3, several said that the answer was 3, and one student said that the answer was 8. We had an interesting and enlightening conversation. Teacher: How did you get eight? Walter: You cant take five from two. So you borrow one from the five [fig. 3a] and give that to the two [fig. 3b]. Twelve minus four, eight. Teacher: Let me see if I understand. You cant take five from two, so you borrowed one from the five. Gave it to the two, so twelve minus four equals eight? Walter: Right. Teacher: What do the rest of you think? Several students indicated that they understood what Walter had done. It was very challenging to pose a problem that would lead Walter to see a flaw in his thinking. I asked how he was able to turn a 1 into a 10 when borrowing one from the 5 and turning the 2 into 12. This question did not create a conflict. I asked the students to comment on Walters solution. To refute Walters argument, one student said, You dont do that with those problems. You do that when theyre up and down. Wow! What now? Finally, the classroom teacher reached into a desk drawer and pulled out two spools of thread. Classroom teacher: Look! You have two spools of thread. Your mother asks to borrow five spools of thread from you. What do you need to do? Serena: I know. You sell each of the spools for like a dollar each and then go buy what you need. All the adults in the room were struck by the power of algorithms to diminish the sense-making process in mathematics. Walter had become so focused on the algorithm that he no longer was giving meaning to subtraction. At that point, we had been conversing for almost an hour. Since I was uncertain of the individual students understanding of this problem, I asked each student to describe his or her solution to 2 minus 5 in writing. Some of the students provided solutions that seemed more reasonable to the adults in the room. We understood the reasoning of the student who argued that 2 minus 5 equaled 0. We inferred that this student had not had many experiences with negative numbers. We were intrigued also by the counting-down strategy used by several students in obtaining 3. We realized that most of the students in the room did have a sense of subtraction and that a few did have some understanding of negative
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integers. Nevertheless, we could not forget Walters mathematical construction.

Angle-measure conversation
The second excerpt from the data-analysis unit is a conversation about angle measure. Of the four conversations presented in this article, this one is the closest approximation to my vision of how I wanted these conversations to sound when I began these lessons. Again we pushed the tables aside and sat in a circle on the floor. We placed two large sheets of newsprint and several markers on the rug in the center of the group. On one sheet of newsprint, a 90 degree angle was drawn; a 60 degree angle was drawn on the other sheet. Teacher: [I pointed to the sheet with the 90 degree angle.] What can you tell me about this angle? Kadeejah: Its 90 degrees. Peter: Its a right angle. Teacher: Does everyone agree with Kadeejah and Peter? [All students showed a thumbs-up.] Teacher: [I pointed to the sheet with the 60 degree angle.] Is this angle smaller or larger than the right angle? Kadeejah: Its smaller. Teacher: Does everyone agree with Kadeejah? [Again, all students showed a thumbs-up.] When I originally drew the two angles, I unknowingly made the rays of each angle the same length. The assistant principal wondered whether the students were judging the size of the angle by the lengths of the rays. She reached over and extended one of the rays of the 60 degree angle. Assistant principal: How about now? Is this angle smaller or larger than 90 degrees? Kadeejah: Its larger. Michelle and Adam: No, its still smaller.

FIGURE 3

Walters integer subtractionstep 1 (a)

Walters integer subtractionstep 2 (b)

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Teacher: How can we find out which is larger? How do we measure an angle? Sonia: We could measure it with a ruler in centimeters. [I handed Sonja a centimeter ruler.] Sonia: [She took the ruler and placed it across the 90 degree angle.] Its forty-four centimeters. Adam: Its suppose to be ninety. Kathie: Not there. Measure the lines. Sonja: [She measured the lines, using the ruler.] Its eighty centimeters. Peter: Oh, you dont use a ruler. I think you use that curved thing. It looks like half a circle. Michelle: Yeah, a protractor. Teacher: [I placed a chalkboard protractor on the carpet.] Is this what youre thinking of? How do you measure with this? [Michelle moved to the We teachers were center of the carpet, took the protractor, and delighted that we were placed it on the angle, turning it several differable to fade into the ent ways. Peter joined woodwork Michelle on the center of the carpet.] Kathie: Oh, yeah. I remember Mrs. Daniels showing us how to use that once. Michelle and Peter: [They placed the protractor on the angle so that it showed that the angle was 90 degrees.] See, its 90 degrees. Sonja: But that [other] one is still bigger. Adam: What do you mean, its bigger? Sonja: [She took the ruler and closed in the third side to make a triangle.] See, its bigger. Michelle: [She placed the chalkboard protractor on the angle.] Look, its 60 degrees. [She placed a desk protractor on the angle.] Look, its still 60 degrees. The lines could go for miles, but its still 60 degrees. The corner doesnt change. Do you see? Sonja: No. It still looks bigger. Adam: [He moved the paper and protractors in front of where he was kneeling. He placed the protractor on the angle.] What does that say? [He pointed to the protractor.] Sonja: Sixty. Adam: Right! [He placed the ruler on the paper to form the third side but did not touch the protractor.] Look, it still says sixty. Do you see how it hasnt changed? Sonja: No. Adam: Its changed? Sonja: Yes. Adam: [He slid the materials toward Sonja.] Then you show me how it has changed.
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In this conversation we were delighted that we were able to fade into the woodwork. The students began to challenge one another, to ask one another questions, and to offer explanations. These students began to talk to one another rather than to the adults in the room.

Reflections on This Process

I found that I was exhilarated but tired after these conversations. If I wanted to facilitate the conversations and let students lead us where we needed to go, then I needed to listen to what they were really saying, infer the mathematical meaning that they had constructed at that point, and formulate a question or encourage the other students to formulate questions. I did need a bifocal-perspective (Ball 1993). As I went through this process, my own mathematical understandings were quickly surfacing. It was unavoidable. I could not understand the connections that these students had made without thinking in terms of my own mathematical understandings. My role as a teacher was redefined in the process. Although I was responsible for finding a rich mathematical task, I had to work to renegotiate the classroom culture from turn taking to engaging in a mathematical conversation. I believed that I had accomplished this task when I was no longer involved in the conversation.

Conclusions
Engaging in mathematical conversations is an evolutionary process. The tone and quality of our conversations change as we change and learn from the students and our own interactions. Mathematical conversations provide a tool for measuring growth in understanding, allow participants to learn about the mathematical constructions of others, and give participants opportunities to reflect on their own mathematical understandings. The selection of the appropriate task and the questioning techniques used by the teacher are vital to this conversational approach. In addition, the physical layout of the classroom affects the quality of the conversations. In the conversations described in this article, positioning the students so that they could see one another encouraged richer conversations among them and increased the likelihood that the teacher could become a member, rather than leader, of the mathematical community. Students of that community began to form a collegial relationship in which they challenged, modeled, and reconstructed one anothers ideas.
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References
Ball, Deborah L. Halves, Pieces, and Twoths: Constructing Representational Contexts in Teaching Fractions. In Rational Numbers: An Integration of Research, edited by Thomas P. Carpenter, Elizabeth Fennema, and Thomas A. Romberg, 15796. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993. Cobb, Paul, Terry Wood, Erna Yackel, John Nicholls, Grayson Wheatley, Beatriz Trigatti, and Marcella Perlwitz. Assessment of a Problem-Centered Second-Grade Mathematics Project. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 22 (January 1991): 329. Driver, Rosalind, H. Asoko, J. Leach, E. Mortimer, and Philip Scott. Constructing Scientific Knowledge in the Classroom. Educational Researcher 23 (October 1994): 512. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Va.: NCTM, 1989. Professional Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Va.: NCTM, 1991. L

Corrections to the October 1998 issue

Robert Berkman, the author of Exploring Interplanetary Algebra to Understand Earthly Mathematics, is currently an eighth-grade mathematics teacher at MS 88The Peter Rouget School, Brooklyn, NY 11215. The correct price for Math by All Means: Area and Perimeter, Gr. 56, by Cheryl Rectanus, is $23.95. We regret the error. Tenth Planet Explores Math: Representing Fractions is currently being sold for $89.95 by Sunburst Communications, 101 Castleton Street, Pleasantville, NY 10570, (800) 321-7511.

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