Journal of Mathematical Behavior

23 (2004) 169–182

Construction of meaning: urban elementary students’

interpretation of geometric puzzles
Jill A. Marshall
The University of Texas at Austin, Science & Math Education, 1 University Station D5705,
Austin, TX 78712-0382, USA
Available online 24 April 2004

Abstract
Mathematical puzzles have long been employed by parents and teachers to augment the standard mathematics
curriculum. This paper reports on a study of urban elementary students engaged in the solution of mathematical
puzzles. The work confirms that, given the opportunity, these students will construct their own, logically consistent,
interpretations of the puzzle clues. In particular, these students used self-generated rules about alignment and
orientation to construct meaning in ambiguous clues. Such exercises in logic bring to light the value of student
approaches to problem solving, and the possibility of using these approaches as building blocks from which students
might construct knowledge in the standard curriculum.
© 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Puzzles; Games; Geometry; Urban elementary mathematics students; Logix

1. Introduction

Mathematical puzzles have long been employed by parents and math teachers to augment the standard
mathematics curriculum (e.g., Morris, 1997). The tangram puzzle, for example, has been used as a ba-
sis for exploration of geometric relationships, scale drawings, graphing, patterns, and logical thinking
(Kriegler, 1991). Such puzzles can serve to exercise students’ mathematical thinking, and to elicit the
creative problem-solving skills of even those students who have not been engaged by more formal math-
ematical activities. Constructivism holds that when students are genuinely engaged by a problem, they
will proceed in “personally reasonable and productive ways” toward a solution (Confrey, 1991, p. 111).
While these personal approaches will not necessarily produce standard or conventional solutions, they are
valid responses, indicative of the students’ own thinking, and can serve as the basis for further learning.
Previous work has shown that students following their personal approaches to data analysis will cre-
ate representations that can form the initial step in the development of standard forms, such as value bar
E-mail address: marshall@mail.utexas.edu (J.A. Marshall).

0732-3123/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmathb.2004.03.002
170 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

graphs and histograms (Marshall, Makar, & Kazak, 2002). Likewise, in creating their individual solutions
to puzzles, students may reveal mathematical thinking on which approaches to the standard curriculum
could be based.
In the fall of 2001, the author was part of a research study that employed puzzles, games, and other ac-
tivities to engage urban elementary students in mathematical thinking as part of a mathematics enrichment
program. The program was a collaboration between the Systemic Research Collaborative for Education in
Mathematics, Science and Technology (SYRCE) and Eastside Story, a community empowerment coali-
tion in Austin, Texas. According to its charter, Eastside Story was formed to combat disproportionately
high rates of crime, poverty and low educational achievement levels in an economically disadvantaged
area. A major part of this effort is a large-scale after-school program to provide students with help on
daily homework assignments, standardized test tutoring services, and computer technology training. The
after-school program is highly regarded by the community, but its methods focus on traditional skill
building. Program administrators perceived a need for authentic instruction and challenging material,
particularly in mathematics, beyond what these children could get in their schools or in the after-school
program itself. They negotiated with the SYRCE team to create the mathematics enrichment component
for the after-school program.
One of the goals of the partnership was to characterize the state and evolution of urban elemen-
tary students’ thinking in the area of logic, as part of a larger program of implementation research in
Standards-based reform. This paper includes results derived from exemplar activities with puzzles from
the game Logix,© Les Éditions de la Chenelière Inc. (Lyons & Lyons, 1991).

2. Investigation

2.1. Approach

Our approach was to develop a year-long, Standards-based mathematics enrichment curriculum, im-
plement it as part of the after-school program, observe and record students as they engaged with the
curriculum, and analyze the results for evidence of the state and evolution of student thinking on selected
topics in mathematics. The curriculum, as developed, comprised a series of 5-week stand-alone units.
The first unit focused on logical thinking and was implemented in the fall of 2001. During the 5-week
Logic unit, participants met with the researchers in two groups, third and fourth graders and fifth and
sixth graders, for 45 min each day, 4 days a week, as a pull-out program from the homework tutoring
sessions that would have been available to them as part of the regular after-school program.
The Logic curriculum unit used mathematical games to build critical thinking skills, particularly those
deemed as essential for eventual success in Algebra. The unit was designed around a hypothetical learning
trajectory in logic moving from sorting to sequencing to analogy (transfer). Students first used Pattern
Blocks and the Stick Figures game (Erickson, 1989) to investigate attributes of objects and then explored
classification further with the SET game (see www.setgame.com). After these activities designed to
develop classification skills, students explored classification combined with sequencing using Logix
puzzle cards (Lyons & Lyons, 1991) for approximately 1 week.
At the beginning of each day, the group worked their way together through a puzzle at that day’s most
advanced level. The research team elicited a discussion of any new types of clues encountered at that
level. Students proposed various interpretations of the new clues, and the instructors steered the group
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 171

toward a consensus. In every case, these negotiated meanings were in alignment with the meaning of the
symbols intended by the authors of the puzzle cards. Thus, the students were directed toward a standard
solution for the puzzles. Our students then worked their way, individually or in small groups, through
the Logix puzzles in sequence, beginning with the least difficult and advancing at their own pace. As
the students worked, team members circulated among the students eliciting their thinking, especially as
students requested help with a problem card. Students submitted their solutions to the puzzle cards in
the form of a colored drawing showing what they believed to be the correct arrangement of the puzzle
pieces. These solutions were examined by the research team before the next meeting, and, in cases where
the student’s solution did not match the standard solution, students were questioned about their thinking.
As a culminating activity, the students designed their own Logix problem cards, creating clues for
others to interpret. Because this activity allowed students to employ the ‘standard’ representations of
the Logix game, but also afforded them the opportunity to create systems of meaning of their own, the
student-designed clue cards provided an ideal medium for investigating student thinking.

2.2. Study population

Our study population consisted of 45 urban elementary students, 23 in the third and fourth grade and
22 in fifth and sixth grade. All but two students were African American; the remaining two students were
Hispanic and non-Hispanic white. Twenty-nine of the students were girls and 16 were boys. These students
were volunteers, solicited from approximately 150 students at one site of the after-school program.
Volunteers were solicited during an orientation session for all students at the site. Both they and their
parents were required to give informed consent for them to participate in the program and permission for
them to be videotaped.

2.3. Data products and analysis

Over the course of each 5-week unit, the students and the research team were videotaped as they
engaged in the activities. Student-produced artifacts were collected and archived. Videotapes and arti-
facts were analyzed to determine students’ reasoning on tasks involving the use of logic. During the
Logic unit (of which the Logix activities were part), students were occasionally interviewed individually
with regard to a task they were performing or about a previously created artifact. These interviews were
videotaped and excerpts were transcribed. At the end of the year-long program, the students still in the
program were also given open response questions pertaining to the Logic unit on a post-test, and asked
to explain their solutions to these questions in writing. These students were also interviewed individu-
ally as they solved a task they had completed previously as part of the Logic unit. Post-test responses
were analyzed using a rubric. The interviews were videotaped and analyzed using a discourse analysis
rubric.

2.4. The Logix game

The Logix game itself consists of problem cards, each of which contains a puzzle, consisting of nine
clues. When combined, these clues uniquely determine the positions of 9 markers on a 3 × 3 grid, if they
are decoded as intended by the game’s creators. Players solve the problem by placing the markers on
an empty grid in the correct locations. The markers are three circles, three squares, and three triangles,
172 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

Fig. 1. The Five of Clubs Logix problem card. Note that dotted lines help the player to envision the unshown portion of the
grid in some clues. Text labels indicating colors were added by the author. © Les Éditions de la Chenelière Inc. Reprinted with
permission.

one each in red, blue, and yellow. The problem cards are arranged in a sequence of increasing difficulty,
identified as playing cards by suit and number. On the easiest problem cards, one through four of clubs,
each clue unambiguously indicates the position of a certain marker by showing that marker next to the
complete 3 × 3 grid with the target position shaded in.
As the player works through the series of cards, the clues provide less information individually. Be-
ginning with the Five of Clubs, shown in Fig. 1, clues show only a portion of the complete grid, but are
still “in sequence (reading from left to right and from top to bottom)” according to the instruction manual
(Lyons & Lyons, 1991, p. 3). This means that if the player reads the clues in that order, any clue that does
not show enough of the grid to be unambiguous is preceded by clues that eliminate all but one possibility
for the given marker.
For example, the clue in the bottom right corner of Fig. 1, by itself, shows only that the red triangle
must have two spaces below it, i.e., that it goes in the top row of the grid. The player who works first
across the rows and then down, however, will have already placed the yellow circle in the right spot on
the top row (clue in the upper left corner) and the red square in the left spot on the top row (rightmost clue
in the middle row), leaving only the middle spot open in the top row. The position of the partial grid in
the clue on the bottom right corner also points the player toward the middle column, as the single column
shown here aligns with the middle column in the clue above it. The dotted lines shown on the first few
clues in Fig. 1 also lead the player to assume that the position of the partial grid carries meaning, and that
the spacing around the partial grid, or its alignment with adjacent clues, can be used to determine what
part of the grid is represented.
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 173

Fig. 2. The Nine of Clubs Logix problem card. Note that the column shown in the center clue aligns with the middle column
in the clue above it. Text labels indicating colors were added by the author. © Les Éditions de la Chenelière Inc. Reprinted with
permission.

Of course, this scaffolding is unnecessary if the player has read the clues in the expected order, and
starting with the Nine of Clubs, shown in Fig. 2, neither the alignment between clues nor spacing around
the partial grids shown in clues is intended to have meaning. For example, the clue for the blue square
in the center of the card would seem to indicate that the blue square must be on the bottom of the center
column, as the column shown aligns with the center column shown unambiguously in the clue above. On
the other hand, the clue above also indicates that the blue circle must occupy the bottom center spot, which
creates a conflict. In this case, the game’s creators expect that the player will assume that the alignment
information is faulty and defer to the earlier clues, again assuming that the clues will be read from left to
right and then top to bottom.
Later in the Clubs sequence, clues are introduced that give only partial information about the marker
itself, showing only the shape but not the color, or only the color (indicated by a crayon of that color) but
not the shape. If the clues are read in sequence, however, each clue, in combination with previous clues,
still has enough information to fix the marker on the grid. Examples of these types of clues as they appear
on a problem card from a later suit, the Queen of Hearts, are shown in Fig. 3. In later suits there are also
“negative” clues, designed to show that a marker is not in a certain place, and relative clues, showing the
position of a marker only in relation to another marker. An example of a negative clue is the rightmost
clue in the middle row in Fig. 3, which indicates that the blue triangle does not go above a circle of any
color. The center clue on the top row in Fig. 3, which shows that the red circle is one column to the left
and two columns below the red triangle, is an example of a relative clue.
In the very last suit in the Logix authors’ planned sequence of increasing difficulty, the Spades, the
arrangement of clues on the problem cards is non-sequential, meaning that even if players read left to
174 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

Fig. 3. The Queen of Hearts Logix problem card. X marks show where the indicated marker may not go. Text labels indicating
colors were added by the author. © Les Éditions de la Chenelière Inc. Reprinted with permission.

right they will encounter clues which are ambiguous, and according to the instruction manual “[t]he
logical sequence must be re-established” (Lyons & Lyons, 1991, p. 3). The player will have to iden-
tify and place the markers with definitive clues, which might be anywhere on the card, before making
a decision about where to place the markers whose clues are ambiguous. The creators of Logix claim
these cards are “a real challenge” (Lyons & Lyons, 1991, p. 3) and argue that when children are play-
ing the game “brief interventions [by adults] will probably be necessary when . . . non-sequential clues
appear” (Lyons & Lyons, 1991, p. 5). Note that a player who did not read the clues on a card in the
expected manner (left to right and top to bottom) would encounter this challenge even in the earliest suit,
the Clubs.

3. Results

3.1. Interpretation of clues (Decoding)

The creators of the Logix game assumed that players would read clues on the problem cards left to right
and then top to bottom, as described above, and thus not encounter ambiguous clues until the final series
of problem cards (the Spades). We did not, however, explicitly instruct our students to read the clues in
a given order, and for many of them it seemed more natural to begin by reading down the first (leftmost)
column before advancing to the next column. This led them to encounter ambiguous clues even among
the earliest cards. At that point, a more experienced player might have realized that information from the
remaining clues on the card could constrain the placement of the marker, but in many cases our students
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 175

appeared to assume that they should be able to place the marker based solely on the information in the
given clue and previous placements (as was, indeed, the intention of the Logix authors).
In some cases students were stumped, but in general they demonstrated an extraordinarily robust ability
to generate additional meaning in the clues. They were able to fill in the missing information by generating
rules for interpreting the clues. These rules, far from being random, were both reasonable and productive,
allowing the students to place the marker to their satisfaction. In some cases, these personal interpretations
eventually led to an inconsistency in the placement of the remaining markers, but in some cases they did
not. These approaches are properly called personal as they were generated by the students, as opposed to
being imposed by an external authority, but we found that many students held the same interpretations
in common, confirming their inherent logic and pointing toward their likelihood as useful elements in a
learning trajectory.
We did not attempt a statistical survey of student approaches. No systematic record was kept of when
students asked for help with a solution, for example. However, approximately 20% of the solutions that
students submitted on paper were at variance with the solution proposed by the authors of the game.
Since the students had the opportunity to ask for help, it can be assumed that they submitted their solu-
tions with confidence that they were correct. Further, upon examination, in no case did the non-standard
solutions appear arbitrary. The logic was always apparent once the research team had identified common
approaches through observations and informal interviews. In interviews, students were uniformly able
to explain the thinking behind their solutions. Further, the personal approaches students used to solve
these puzzles were fairly stable. Students generally used the same approach at the end of the year as
they had in the fall, during the Logic unit. The most common personal interpretations are categorized
below.

3.1.1. Iconic interpretations

Some of the personal approaches were based on a strictly iconic interpretation of the clues, and might
be considered fairly primitive. For example, the Logix cards use a stylized representation of a red crayon
to represent ‘any red marker’ (see the center clue in Fig. 3). Several students indicated that they felt
that this symbol must indicate the placement of a triangle, because the point of the crayon is drawn as a
triangle. Since the three markers are a square, a circle, and a triangle, to them the obvious choice, given a
symbol composed of a rectangle and a triangle, was the triangle marker. The students seemed somewhat
surprised that their instructors did not see the obvious connection.

3.1.2. Alignment between clues

Some of the personal approaches indicated more advanced reasoning, for example by combining several
clues (as must ultimately be done in the more advanced cards) but not necessarily in the way the Logix
authors intended. Our students often generated ‘alignment rules’ between clues to interpret an ambiguous
clue. On the second day of the Logix activities during the Logic unit, Hope, a fourth grader, was asked
to justify a placement decision. She indicated that she knew the blue triangle and the red triangle in the
adjacent clue (as shown in Fig. 4) must go in the same row, because the shaded squares indicating their
positions lined up on the problem card. Recall that in the earliest cards, such a rule appeared to apply.
The early clues were laid out so that if marker positions lined up on the problem card, they would line
up on the solution grid. For example the bottom right corner clue in Fig. 1 shows that the spot for the red
triangle lines up with the center column in the clue above, and, indeed, the authors intend for the triangle
to go in the center row.
176 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

Fig. 4. Illustration of alignment between clues. A student used the alignment between the two clues shown here to constrain the
placement of the blue triangle.

3.1.3. Alignment of clue and grid

Some students also invoked a personal rule that the portion of the grid shown in an individual clue must
align with the overall grid in some fashion, for example, that one corner of the clue must align with the
corresponding corner of the 3 × 3 grid. Again, this allowed students to place markers whose positions
were not constrained, at least not by reading the clues in the order the students read them.
In one case, Carter, a fourth grader, was videotaped as he worked the card shown in Fig. 5, during the
second day of the Logix activity during the 5-week Logic unit. He first placed the yellow triangle in the
upper right corner of the 3 × 3 grid in response to the lower left clue, assuming that the upper right corner
of the clue must align with the upper right corner of the grid. The creators of the Logix card had intended
that the student would read across the first row of clues and already have placed the red circle in this

Fig. 5. The Ten of Clubs Logix problem card. Text labels indicating color were added by the author. © Les Éditions de la Chenelière
Inc. Reprinted with permission.
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 177

Fig. 6. Logix-type clue from post-test question. Students were instructed to indicate the place or places in the grid (right) where
the triangle might go based on the clue (left).

position. Absent the student’s rule that the upper right corner of the clue must correspond to the upper
right corner of the grid, the lower left clue could then be satisfied by placing the yellow triangle in the
center of the top row. Later Carter was confronted with an unambiguous clue that the red circle should go
in this slot (see Fig. 5, clue in the upper right corner). He then traded the red circle for the yellow triangle
temporarily. After pondering the card for a significant time, he finally decided that the yellow triangle
should go there after all and replaced it, his belief in his alignment rule been so sound as to overcome
unambiguously conflicting information.
In our analysis, alignment by corners turned out to be a very common personal rule. Some students
were given the clue shown in Fig. 6 as part of the post-test at the end of the program. Nearly 70% of these
students (9 out of 13) used an alignment rule to place the triangle rather than simply stating that it could
go in one of two places. In her written explanation of how she decided that the triangle should go in the
center spot on the grid, one student stated “The top look [sic] like the beginning.” Another said simply
“Because it looks right!”. Yet another student indicated “Line ing hem [sic] up. Will not look right if it
is upside down.”

3.1.4. Spacing
It was also common for students to invoke a “spacing” rule in order to interpret ambiguous clues, such
as the one in the center of the clue card in Fig. 2. Lawrence, a third grader, invoked such an interpretation
of this clue when he solved this puzzle as an interview task at the end of the year-long program. He first
applied the clues moving down the first column (as was the first instinct of most of our students) and
reached the bottom left clue without the previous placements required to constrain it. Here he confidently
placed the yellow triangle in the center of the bottom row, based on a grid which he could imagine
surrounding the clue:
Lawrence : You have to, like, fill in the little squares and you see where it wants you to go . . . If you fill
in all the squares around the triangle [gestures with his hand], you’ll see that you need to go
all the way down in the middle.

3.1.5. Rotation or reflection

Many students clearly possessed a personal rule indicating that it was permissible to rotate or reflect
the portion of the grid shown with respect to the problem card. For example, Lawrence, when solving
this card as part of the same year-end interview task mentioned earlier, was confronted with the clue for
the blue circle (Fig. 2, top row, center). The blue circle unambiguously belongs in the bottom center spot
according to the rules of Logix, but Lawrence had already placed the yellow triangle there based on his
personal alignment rules. He resolved the conflict by indicating that it was within his personal rules to
178 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

rotate the clue (by 180◦ ) with respect to the grid, meaning that the clue actually indicated that the blue
circle should be in the middle space on the top row.

Lawrence : It goes to right here. It [the problem card] could be upside down or it could not. So I’m gonna
put it at the top because the yellow is on that seat that it’s at, is already taken.

Another student, LaKeisha, a fourth grader, applied a rotation solution in working the clue card in Fig. 5
when she was interviewed at the end of the year. She had already placed the red circle in the upper right
slot when she came to the clue for the yellow triangle, which she first interpreted as also belonging in the
upper right (invoking alignment of the upper right corners of clue and grid). She decided that the yellow
triangle could also go in the left position on the middle row because it was permissible to rotate the clue
by 90◦ with respect to the grid.
Likewise, students commonly asserted that it was allowable to flip the clue (reflect it about a vertical
line at its edge, for example). In year-end interviews about their solutions to the card shown in Fig. 5,
several students thought that the red circle, constrained to be in the upper right corner of the grid by upper
right clue, could go just as well in the upper left corner of the grid, because the diagonal shown in the
clue could be flipped. This was particularly common with clues showing a diagonal portion of the grid,
but one student also performed a similar operation on the upper right corner clue in Fig. 3, leading him
to place the yellow triangle in the upper left corner of the grid.

3.1.6. “X” marks the spot

Students fairly consistently used a personal criterion to interpret the X symbol in the clues on the Logix
problem cards, which the game’s creators had intended to mean that “the object is not in the marked
place.” The students’ rule was that “X marks the spot” and the marker must go in the indicated location,
as opposed to that it must not go there. On the day students first encountered cards that used the X
symbol, students were polled about what they thought it might mean, as was the case when any new
symbol was first introduced. The class was able to come to a consensus, guided by the researcher leading
the discussion, that X must indicate where the marker could not go (based in part on clues with multiple
X’s). Some students, however, were persistent in indicating that the X showed where to place the marker.
Micah, a fourth grader, vehemently insisted, “ I put it where the X was and it fit” [emphasis original]. In
interviews, several students interpreted the rightmost clue in the middle row in Fig. 3 to mean that the
blue triangle should go above a circle rather than that it should not.

3.1.7. Aesthetic criteria

In other cases, our students invoked personal rules based on aesthetics in playing the Logix game.
For example, in the interpretation and creation of Logix clues several students invoked a requirement
that each row and column have one red, one blue, and one yellow marker. Beatrice, a fifth grader, was
interviewed by the author during the course of the Logix activities in the fall. She explained why she had
to place her markers with one red, one blue, and one yellow on each row and on each column (rather than
in other configurations that would have been acceptable under the standard Logix rules) by invoking this
criterion:

Beatrice : ‘Cuz what’s getting me is like this right here. It’s blue, yellow, red, and then yellow, blue, red,
so it’s probably gonna be like the colors here.
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 179

3.2. Generation of clues (Encoding)

We also provided our students with the opportunity to create their own Logix cards, and although
not explicitly directed to do so, some students generated their own, sometimes quite ingenious, encoding
schemes for the cards they created. For example, Olivia (a sixth grader) used two different representations
to indicate a marker of a given color but unknown shape: one a splotch of that color and the other a crayon
of that color. While at first this might appear to be an inconsistency, the two symbols actually had different
meanings for her, and the interpreter of her card was required to decode both meanings to solve the puzzle
successfully. A blue splotch next to a grid in which certain boxes were indicated meant that there was a
blue marker somewhere within the indicated positions. A blue crayon, on the other hand, meant that the
indicated boxes all contained blue markers. Used consistently, her system allowed for a unique solution.
Cherise, also a sixth grader, devised an ingenious system, which was quite challenging for the instructors
to decode. She created an “empty” clue, a splotch with no color, which at first might seem to convey no
information (see top row center clue in Fig. 7). In fact, two of our instructors could find no way to solve
her card. However, when questioned about her clue, she correctly pointed out that a process of elimination
(from the other clues) allowed the player to uniquely identify the “unknown” marker as the red square and

Fig. 7. Logix-type problem card created by Cherise. R, B, and Y indicate objects that Cherise colored red, blue, and yellow,
respectively. Note that the center clue in the top row describes where an unknown shape of unknown color may be placed,
apparently conveying no information. The player must use a process of elimination to determine that this clue indicates the
placement of the red square. A similar process of elimination tells the player that the triangle in the rightmost clue in the middle
row must be the blue triangle.
180 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

correctly locate it within the indicated spaces. Her system requires the player to identify each clue with a
given marker, either as indicated, or by a similar process of elimination. Her clue card would have been
inconsistent by standard Logix rules in that the rightmost clue in the middle row would seem to indicate
that no triangle may be placed in the left or center column, as the triangle shown here has no color. By her
rules, however, the player should know that this clue refers only to the blue triangle, as the other triangles
are accounted for. She seemed quite proud on hearing that some of the research team members had been
“stumped” by her card, and that it had been designated as the most creative student-generated Logix card.

4. Discussion

When considering the personal rules that guided the decisions of our students, it is important to recognize
several things. First, without careful study of these students’ actions on video tape and careful listening
to their explanations in interviews, the logic in their approaches would have been difficult to discover.
For example, in his final solution to the problem card shown in Fig. 5, Carter placed the red circle in the
top center space on the grid. An instructor evaluating Carter’s solution might have been hard pressed to
understand how he could have made this choice based on the upper right clue (which shows the placement
of the red circle unambiguously, by the Logix rules). She might have been led to the conclusion that Carter
was simply not thinking, proceeding randomly, or, perhaps even that he was unable to distinguish the
shapes and colors of the markers.
It is only in the video tape that it becomes clear that the red circle is where it is because it was the last
marker placed and fell in that slot by a process of elimination. Watching Carter’s struggle about whether
the red circle or the yellow triangle should get the upper right corner spot, it is clear that he is by no means
proceeding randomly. To the developers of the Logix game, it is clear that the red circle goes there; to
Carter, it is just as clear that the yellow circle goes there. It is not that he doesn’t understand; he simply
understands the problem differently.
This brings us to the second consideration. Carter would have placed the yellow triangle as he did
regardless of the order in which he read the clues, but many of the students were only led to invoke
personal rules when the order in which they read the clues rendered them ambiguous. For example,
students “reflected” the clue for the red circle in Fig. 5 because they had already placed the yellow
triangle in the place indicated. These non-standard approaches would never have emerged if the students
had simply been instructed to read the clues from left to right across the top row first before proceeding
down, and then drilled in that procedure. Had the goal been simply for these students to master the rules of
the game, that might have been a much more efficient procedure, but one that would not necessarily have
engaged these students’ mathematical thinking in the same way. Because they were allowed, somewhat
fortuitously, to encounter the more challenging, ambiguous clues early on, before they had internalized
the standard strategy of Logix, students were led to “think outside the box,” or perhaps, better said, to
look at the box from different angles. The ability to think outside the constraints of conventional rules
can serve students well in the course of many careers. Previous work shows that this kind of thinking can
allow students from groups traditionally underrepresented in technical fields to create unique and valid
solutions to standard engineering problems (Marshall & Buckingham, 1995).
The next consideration is how the student thinking evidenced here might be exploited to promote
concept mastery in the standard curriculum. First, the conceptions of alignment and orientation that our
students employed are key elements in graphing (alignment with axes) and geometric transformations
 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182 181

(rotations, reflections) and indicate well-developed spatial visualization capability. Spatial visualization is
a key component in understanding geometry and is critical to success in engineering. This capability can
be developed, removing a barrier for students who have traditionally been underrepresented in engineering
fields. For example, the gender gap in performance on spatial-visual tasks can be reduced to negligible
levels through exposure to activities engaging these skills (Devon, Engel, & Turner, 1998; Sorby, 2001).
Our students’ ability to envision the puzzle grids from multiple perspectives (rotated, as the card would be
seen by someone facing the player, or reflected, as the card would be seen from the back) could support the
construction of engineering conventions, for example the way that blueprints and plan drawings represent
different views of three-dimensional objects.
Further, the ease with which our students were able to envision the portion of the grid shown in the
clue in relation to the entire grid, even when the Logix authors intended no such relation, also indicates
spatial visualization capability. While it might be important for students to recognize when the portion of
grid shown constrains the placement and when it doesn’t, envisioning an alignment based on spacing is
also a sophisticated task, and students should be encouraged to master it as well. In fact, this is a higher
order extension of the very skill required to solve clues on all but the earliest cards, the ability to envision
the unseen remainder of the grid.
Battista et al. (1998) have argued that visualizing and enumerating the unseen portion of a 2D array
of squares (such as the Logix grid) hinges on a student’s ability to ‘structure’ the array. As defined by
these authors, spatially structuring an object “determines its nature or shape by identifying its spatial
components, combining components into spatial composites, and establishing interrelationships between
and among composites” (p. 504). They report that sweeping motions, such as those Lawrence made to
indicate the invisible columns around the one shown, permit students to interiorize the creation of row
or column elements, and to take these elements as symbols for successive iterations. Such structuring
correlates with the use of multiplicative strategies in enumerating the squares (Outhred & Mitchelmore,
1992). In fact, Battista et al. suggest that spatial structuring is a prerequisite for treatments of multiplication
and area in the standard curriculum, and “the foundation for geometric and visual thinking” (p. 531).
Finally, it is perhaps of greatest importance to recognize the affective consequences of paying attention
to students’ personal logic. The case of Cherise, who had created her own system of clues for Logix,
highlights the importance of carefully listening to student voice. The incident greatly enhanced her
affiliation with the program; she was one of the students who emphatically indicated a desire to continue
with the program when given a chance to voluntarily withdraw. In response to the question, “Do you
wish to continue with the program?” she wrote “Yes! Yes! Yes!” across the page. Recall that, at first
glance, research team members were not able to see the logic in her card. It was only after listening to
her explanation that we understood her approach, and appreciated its creativity. The outcome might well
have been different had her card been simply marked as “incorrect” because it was not consistent with
the standard rules.

5. Conclusions and implications

The urban elementary-aged students studied here did, indeed, proceed in personally reasonable and
productive ways when we challenged them to solve the mathematical puzzles, even though their solutions
often did not match the expected solutions. They were able to make their own sense of the clues given to
them, showing us “different, valid ways of creating meaning of the same experience” (Duckworth, 1987,
182 J.A. Marshall / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 23 (2004) 169–182

p. 110). In the constructivist view of learning, this personal construction of meaning is always required.
This finding implies that allowing students to explore their own solutions before presenting standard
approaches can be valuable. The extra effort at eliciting student thinking, particularly from those students
whose solutions appear to be wrong when judged against a standard approach, may provide valuable
opportunities to facilitate learning, and to enfranchise students.
This also work indicates that puzzle activities, such as the Logix game, have an appropriate place in
the mathematics classroom. If these activities can be tied directly to elements of the standard curriculum,
instructors can use them to identify building blocks from which further knowledge can be constructed.
Again, this would require that the instructors view their students as creators of mathematical ideas, and
invest the time and effort to discover the logic students use in their individual approaches.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant ESR 9816023. Nerfertiti Williams and
Rebie Nicholson served as instructors for the program and provided invaluable assistance in analyzing
video tapes and preparing this paper for publication.

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