Olivia Leong

TED 510
Student Interview Assignment: Eliciting Student Thinking
Memo #1
I interviewed my cousin, Sophia, for the 1st interview. I learned that she understands keeping track of
numbers, addition, subtraction, and place value. She was able to write addition/subtraction equations to
explain her thinking. She was able to move the objects into a separate pile when counting and she made
different piles when I asked her questions about dividing the objects into groups. I found it surprising that
she was able to do most of the work in her head and she mostly used equations to solve the problems. I
thought she would use other mental math strategies or multiplication equations. Some of the questions I
asked her were “Why do you think that?” and “Can you write down how you found your answer?” and
“Can you explain why you did that?” She was able to solve most of the earlier questions in her head so I
encouraged her to write down her thinking or use the objects to find the answer. I felt like I was able to
elicit a good amount of thinking. I asked her how she solved each problem and encouraged her to write
down her answers. But I wasn’t sure about how much I should probe because after a certain point, a
student might just repeat the same explanation if they do not have the academic language to explain it.
Some changes I plan to make to my questioning for the next interview are to ask a variety of probing
questions to understand the student’s thinking. I felt like I was being repetitive by asking “Why do you
think it’s [answer]?” after every answer. Additionally, I want to work on being more supportive after the
student shares their answer so that they feel comfortable enough to share their thinking. I will also try to
take more careful notes during the interview. The first interview went by so fast and I was not used to
silently waiting for her to think. During this interview, I noticed that I would try to reexplain the question if
she seemed like she did not understand. I want to practice being comfortable with wait time.

Memo #2
I interviewed my other cousin, Matthew, for the 2nd interview. I learned that he understands place value,
addition, and subtraction. I found the way he wrote down his work surprising. He made almost a web of
numbers. 24 was in the middle and he wrote different equations or numbers around 24. He would explain
the steps as he wrote and then circled the equation and the number 24 at the end of the explanation.
Additionally, I noticed that even though he is the same age as Sophia, some of his answers were
different. For example, when I asked him to count the objects, he did not count them into a separate pile
so he lost track of how many he counted. However, Sophia started counting the objects into a separate
pile. I asked Matthew if there was a way we could keep track of the objects, he immediately started
counting them into groups of 5. I noticed that whenever he counted the objects, he would count in fives
or threes instead of ones. I asked him similar questions to my first interview. I asked him “Can you
explain how you knew that/why you did that?” and “How did you get [answer]?” I encouraged him to write
down his work and use the objects to find the answer. I think that I was able to elicit a good amount of his
thinking. After I asked him to explain his thinking for the first couple questions, he caught on and was
able to explain his answers for most of the other questions. I tried using more supportive phrases to
make him more comfortable, like “That makes sense” or “I can see why you did that.” During this
interview I was able to chat with him at the beginning of the interview to put him at ease. I noticed that
Matthew spent a longer time thinking about the questions so I was able to practice becoming comfortable
with wait time. He would spend a longer time manipulating the object to solve the problems so I would
watch and ask a couple questions when he was finished.
 Final Reflection

For this assignment, I interviewed two of my cousins, Sophia (age 9) and Matthew (age 9).
Although both children are the same age, I noticed that they counted and showed their work in different
ways. In the book ​How Children Learn Number Concepts​, the author Kathy Richardson states “Counting
is a complex concept - the integration of several important ideas. Children need to understand all of the
related Critical Learning Phases before we can be sure they understand what counting is all about” (5).
Of the 9 “Critical Learning Phases” for counting objects, one that I observed during my interviews was
“Keeping track of an unorganized pile” (8). Richardson states, “When children have developed systems
for keeping track and are consistent in a variety of situations...it can be said that they can keep track” (8).
During my first interview, I noticed that Sophia was more consistent with her counting and had a system
for keeping track of the objects. When I asked her to count the objects, she counted them into a separate
pile and explained that she used this system so she wouldn’t have to count them again. During the 2nd
interview, I noticed that initially, Matthew was not as consistent and he did not use a system for keeping
track of the objects until I asked him if he could think of another way of counting. He started by counting
the objects by 5s and counted 25. He used his fingers to touch 5 objects at a time when counting. I
asked him if he could show me a different way of counting the objects and he counted by 1s. This time
he counted 25 objects again. I told him, “I noticed you were counting by 5s and using your fingers to
touch the objects. Is there a way we can group the objects and count them again?” He suggested making
piles of five and explained that when there’s groups of five it’s easier to see which group is missing an
object. It is possible that he was subitizing those groups of five to determine the total amount. In the
textbook, ​Elementary and Middle School Mathematics​, John Van de Walle states that, “​When you look at
a number of objects, sometimes you are able to just “see” how many are there, particularly for a small
group of items. For example, when you roll a die and immediately know that it is five without counting the
dots, that ability to “just see it” is called ​subitizing”​ (127).​ When Matthew counted those groups of 5, he
counted 24 objects. But he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he got two different totals. Richardson
states, ““if counting is going to be a meaningful task, children need to understand why keeping track
matters. When children do not fully understand, it won’t bother them if they end up with different amounts
when recounting the same group of objects” (9). It is possible that the first question about estimation
influenced his answers to the counting questions. In the beginning, I noticed that when I asked him to
estimate the number of objects, he spent a long time looking at the objects before saying there were 25
objects. It seemed like he was counting the numbers in his head instead of estimating. After he estimated
that there were 25 objects, he seemed set on that answer for the other counting questions even if he
counted the same object twice. During the first interview, Sophia was a bit unsure about estimating but
quickly looked at the objects and estimated that there were 20. Estimating can be a difficult skill to
understand. Students need to have a deep understanding of the meaning or concept to be able to
estimate an amount. I noticed that first asking students to estimate the number of objects can throw them
off. The students want to have the correct answer so I assure them that I just want to know their estimate
and that they don’t need to worry about having the “right” number.

Another concept I learned about was the way both children understand place value and
mathematical operations. During both interviews, I encouraged the children to write or draw their thinking
on paper. Both children wrote down their work and used the objects to help solve the problems. I noticed
that both children mostly used addition or subtraction equations to answer the questions but they showed
their work in different ways.
 Sophia’s work is pictured on the left. She was able to use addition
and subtraction equations to answer the questions. When I asked
her to show her work, she wrote separate equations neatly with
adequate space between them. She used the standard addition
and subtraction algorithm to determine the solution and was able
to explain how she added or subtracted numbers using those
algorithms. For example, when I asked her, “If I had 3 times as
many items as you, how many would I have?” she wrote down
“24+24+24” stacked on top of each other (pictured in the middle
left of the page). Then she explained how she added the 4s first,
carried the one, and then added 2+2+2+1 to get a final answer of
72. She understood that the tens and ones are in separate
columns and that she needed to add the 1s column first, then
carry, and finally add the 10s column.
She also demonstrated an understanding of place value but didn’t
use the exact term “place value” to explain her thinking. For
example, when I asked her to add 100 more to the 24 objects, she
quickly said there would be 124 objects. When I asked her how
she knew this was the answer, she said, “I added a one to the front because when you count with
hundreds the one is in the front.” She used her knowledge of place values to determine the answer.

Matthew’s work is pictured on the right (I’ve also

included a zoomed in image). He was also able to use addition
and subtraction to answer the questions and showed an
understanding of place value when adding or subtracting.
However, his work is not as clear to read. He wrote everything
together and did not use the whole page. I asked him why he
wrote all his equations together and he said “I put it in a box so
I don’t have to write all over the page.”
I found it surprising that when he explained his way of
adding or subtracting, he would add/subtract the tens and
ones columns separately. For one problem, he combined his
knowledge of adding and subtracting to find an answer. I
asked him how many objects he would need to get to 40. He
wrote down the numbers quickly and said 16. His explanation
was: “a 10 right here equals a 3 ​[pointing out the 10 in 16 is
from 30-20=10] a ​ nd a six right here equals a 10 ​[pointing out
that the 6 in 16 is from 6+4=10]​ so 24 plus 16 equals 40.” So
he used what he knew about place values and was able to
split up the numbers to find the answer. He used a similar strategy to find how many more to get 100. He
said “a 7 plus 2 equals a 9 so if we change this place to a 6 that equals a hundred.” I found it interesting
that he was able to use prior knowledge of addition/subtraction fact families to find the answer.
When reflecting on my recordings, I realize that I should have asked more probing questions
about their knowledge of place values. During the interviews I would ask them only once to explain their
thinking but I did not probe any further. Further questioning ( ex: “Can you explain what you mean by
[phrase]?” or “Why does that make sense to you?”) would help me learn more about their understanding.