PME-NA

One Student’s Differing Meanings for Points in Spatial and Quantitative Coordinate Systems

• In Event: Mathematical Meaning

Description

Prior research has yet to explore how students’ meanings for points in a graph relate to their meanings for the underlying coordinate system they perceive. In this report, we present a case study of one middle school student’s activity during a task-based interview to explore how she constructed and leveraged points across spatial and quantitative coordinate systems. We find that, although the student united two phenomena in both systems, she united two motions in a spatial coordinate system and two quantities’ amounts in a quantitative coordinate system. We also find that the student shared more quantitative interpretations of points in spatial coordinate systems as she drew connections across graphs in each system. We discuss implications for researchers and practitioners in the design of tasks to support students’ graphing fluency.

Authors

• Teo Paoletti, University of Delaware

• Osmond Amponsah Asiamah, University of Delaware

• Hwa Young Lee, Texas State University

• Hamilton Hardison, Texas State University

• Halil Ibrahim Tasova, California State University San Bernardino

• Allison Juliana Olshefke-Clark, University of Delaware

• Allison L. Gantt, The College of New Jersey

• Claudine Margolis, University of Michigan

• Brandi Rygaard Gaspard, Texas State University

• Holly Zolt, Middle Tennessee State University

• Mai Bui, Texas State University