Building an Enactive Understanding of the Number Line (Poster 2)

• In Event: Intersections Across STEM Learning Environments

Abstract

Students often struggle to accurately add and subtract positive and negative integers. This paper reports on preliminary results from the experimental implementation of an innovative educational design for integer arithmetic that utilized the number-line (NL) as a resource for students to enact simple addition and subtraction problems under two conditions: (1) a body-scale NL, where arithmetic operations are enacted by walking; and (2) a regular desk-based NL supplemented with an action-figure for re-enacting the floor-based solutions. Fifteen Grade 7 students participated in the project’s pilot study that centered on how students coordinate mathematically analogous calculation activities across the large and small NL. The activity elicited students’ implicit confusions surrounding integer subtraction, thus creating opportunities for corrective intervention.

Authors

• Jacqueline Anton, University of California - Berkeley

• Dor Abrahamson, University of California - Berkeley