PME-NA

Changing Time: An Argument for Resituating Current Time Standards in Number Sense and Operations Standards

• In Event: Number Sense

Description

In this paper, we consider how elementary students operate on different units of time (i.e., minutes and hours) as they reason about elapsed time tasks. Our consideration includes how unique properties of the conventional treatment of time—such as groupings of 12 and 60—might interact with such computational reasoning. Drawing upon data involving two Grade 4 students’ reasoning of elapsed time in digital notation, we propose that the mental actions specific such calculations are more appropriately situated within the Number Sense and Operations Standards, rather than the Measurement and Data Standards, where they are currently situated.

Authors

• Amy Smith, Stetson University

• Darrell Earnest, University of Massachusetts, Amherst