Running Head: CASE ANALYSIS

Kaitlyn Gorman
Case Analysis Midterm
March 4, 2014
M321 Hackenberg

Introduction

CASE ANALYSIS

Randy Harris has been a middle school teacher for ten years. Mr. Harris lesson in this
case is about linking fractions, decimals, and percentages. He has his students use diagrams to
represent these concepts. By using grids to represent fractions, decimals, and percentages he is
challenging student thinking and verifying that his students understand the meaning behind the
procedures. Most students just go through the motions of finding decimals and percentages from
fractions instead of understanding what they are doing and why they are doing it. In this paper I
will discuss how Mr. Harris anticipated solutions as well as how his students reasoned
proportionally. I will also analyze how Mr. Harris implemented his goals and objectives, how he
supported student learning, and other improvements that Mr. Harris could have implemented in
his lesson.
Anticipating Solutions
Although the case does not tell us to what extent Mr. Harris anticipated his students
solutions, he did anticipate what would happen during the lesson. Mr. Harris predicted that
students would have more trouble on Problem Set B than Problem Set A. The second set of
problems may be more difficult for students for two reasons because they will be asked to
shade an amount that is not represented by a whole number and because the grid is not a 10x10
( 10). Mr. Harris figured that there would be a lot of difficulty on the second set of problems
because students had to think for themselves and not use what is given to them. Although Harris
did not anticipate student solutions, it could be possible that he wanted to be more candid when
students come up with solutions. It could also be possible that he has done this lesson in the past
and knew what to expect. It is not clear based on this case study whether or not Mr. Harris
prepared his own student responses
Mr. Harris wanted to monitor the class work before showing the students an example for
Problem Set B. He did this because he wanted the students to try the problems without his help.
I decided not to begin by doing an example with the whole class. Although I knew the

CASE ANALYSIS

problems were going to be hard for students, I wanted to see what they could do without my
guidance and what problems might arise ( 29). He did not want students to be limited in their
responses to the way he solved one of the problems so he did not do an example. In this way he
anticipated that doing an example would make the students do everything his way instead of
trying it out on their own. It also gave him a chance to come up with questions to ask the
students based on the way they were answering the problems. How do I ask questions that will
help students figure out how to solve the problem without telling them exactly how to do it? (
32). Mr. Harris gives the students questions that help lead them to a solution without directly
giving them a way to get there. I will discuss these questions later in this paper, but it is relevant
that Mr. Harris thought about how to ask these questions without giving them the solution.
Mr. Harris does not anticipate student solutions that would relate to the learning goal.
His learning goal is, I want my students to be comfortable moving back and forth among these
different ways of representing fractional parts so that they can use these to express a quantity
interchangeably and use the one that is most appropriate for solving a problem ( 6). Although
he does not come up with exact solutions that he wants his students to find, he does seem to have
a pretty good idea of what to say when students come up with the wrong solution in order to lead
them to the right solution without telling them what to do.
Proportional Reasoning
Some of Mr. Harris students are reasoning proportionally through their diagrams and
work. Darlenes solution for 3/8 is as follows, I looked at it the other way. Since there were
eight rows, each row was one-eighth of the rectangle so I just shaded in three rows ( 40).
Darlene was reasoning proportionally by thinking about 1/8 as 10/80. Then she shaded 3 of the
rows in order to get 3/8. This is a good example of proportional thinking because a lot of other
students may not have been able to come to that solution as quickly as Darlene did. This
solution was exactly like one of the ones I came up with for 3/8. I can see how Darlene counted

CASE ANALYSIS

8 squares on one side and thought to fill in 3 and subsequently scaled it for all 10 columns. This
solution would not work for other grids with a different amount of rows but it was smart of her to
think about how each row was 1/8 of the entire grid.
Another solution that showed proportional reasoning was Marilyns revised solution for .
725. Originally she had shaded in 72.5 of the 80 squares without thinking that 72.5 was the
number of shaded squares out of 100 total squares. Mr. Harris goes through this problem with
the class when he realizes that many students had done the same thing as Marilyn. Going
through the problem with the class, they came to the conclusion that each square was worth
1.25%. Once they found the unit ratio, they could use this to figure out how many squares they
would need to fill in to get 72.5%.
Implemented Objectives
Mr. Harris did not always follow through with his original goals, but there were some
instances where he did. I have found that while examples can be very powerful, they also can
funnel students thinking toward a particular solution path ( 29). Mr. Harris originally did
want the students to work individually and come up with solutions on their own without him
showing them a certain way. Since he did not show an example, he followed through with this
goal. Although some students were confused at first, when he started asking questions on how to
get to a solution he still made it so that the student came up with it in the end. Mr. Harris stuck
to his objective to have students come up with their own solutions. One thing he did not always
do was link fractions, decimals and percentages.
Another way that Mr. Harris fulfilled his original goals for the students was by using
leading questions without funneling the students thinking. He asked questions like, Whats the
problem asking you to do? and How many squares are there all together? and How can we
use that information to get some more facts on that? and Would any of the methods we used
yesterday help us with this? ( 33). These questions did not lead the students in any certain

CASE ANALYSIS

direction but it helped them figure out which method was best for this particular situation and it
helped them come up with it on their own.
Although the questions on the problem set connected fractions, decimals, and
percentages, it was hardly brought up in the class discussion. Some students used these
transformations in their solutions but he did not seem to touch on it much with the class but
rather went through the diagrams most of the time. When he says, In this case, would each
square be more or less than 1 percent? ( 33) when referring to .725 of 80 squares, he is relating
the decimal to percent to the fraction. First he starts by finding how much each square would be
worth percentage wise using the decimal given. Then they use that percentage to find the
fraction out of 80 squares. This is another way that Mr. Harris fulfilled his original goal to
connect fractions, decimals, and percentages. This is one of the few examples of when the class
connected the three different concepts. It also seemed as though in the end Mr. Harris did not
have time to wrap everything up because they were out of time. It would have been good for Mr.
Harris to go through everything they had talked about before the students left so they had a
concrete understanding of the concepts so they could complete their homework. Overall, Mr.
Harris fulfilled his original goals fairly well but sometimes the class discussions can lead a
different way and the lesson does not always go as planned.
Supporting Student Learning
Mr. Harris did a fantastic job at questioning students in order for them to understand the
concepts he was trying to implement. One question he asks that is helpful for the students is
when he asked Marilyn, So how does this answer differ from your first answer? ( 33). This
question helped the students differentiate between shading 72.5 squares versus shading 72.5% of
the squares. Marilyns answer was, The first time I had 72.5 squares shaded, not 72.5 percent of
the squares ( 33). This shows that she understood what he was looking for after a little bit of
questioning to lead her towards that solution.

CASE ANALYSIS

During this same questioning sequence, Mr. Harris made a move that at first I did not
quite understand. One of the students, David, made a suggestion on how to find the number of
squares using the percentage per square and multiplying it by 72.5. Although this is wrong,
instead of acknowledging Davids mistake, Mr. Harris chose to ignore Davids suggestion. He
moved on because he knew that with the other questions he asked the class David would start to
see why his observation was wrong. Had Mr. Harris questioned Davids suggestion, he would
have made the lesson more valuable for David as well as other students that may have had the
same idea. I will revisit this situation later on in the paper.
Mr. Harris did a good job of monitoring the students while they were working with their
groups. He used his monitoring in order to present useful solutions to the class. I had noticed
that Darlene had done the problem yet another way and asked her if she would share her
solution ( 40). Mr. Harris knew which solutions would be useful to present to the class based
on what he saw when he walked around helping students. He also used this method when he saw
that a lot of students were having trouble with the first problem. Although a few saw that they
had shaded in too many squares, they were not sure how to figure out how many to shade. After
about 10 minutes, I decided that it might be helpful to pull the class together and try to deal with
the misconceptions that were surfacing ( 30). Since he was monitoring the students work, he
saw that many students were having similar problems approaching the first problem. Since he
ended up using this issue to have a meaningful conversation with the class as a whole, he
supported student learning because they ended up coming to a solution together.
Lesson Improvements (Practices)
One thing that I did not see Mr. Harris use in this lesson is connecting. He did not have
time in the end to connect all of the different methods that students used. Students may think of
it as separate solutions when they all relate to each other in one way or another. Although Mr.
Harris started to write a list of some of the methods they used on the board, he never connected

CASE ANALYSIS

them so that students would see that any of the methods would work. I recapped that we found
that each square was worth 1.25%, we looked at one whole column that was 10%, and we
multiplied the decimal by the total number of squares ( 36). So although he did review the
different strategies, he did not relate each strategy to the others. This could create a gap in
student learning because students may think of each method separately.
Although Mr. Harris did a good job at monitoring the students during group work and
walking around asking questions to push students to do well, he did not sequence the solutions in
a meaningful way. Once again, I circulated among the groups, asking questions and pushing
students to use the diagram to make sense of the problem ( 36). Although he does monitoring
well, it does not mention how he sequences the solutions he chooses to show. He asks certain
students to share but he does not explain the reasoning behind the order of the solutions. His
lesson could have been stronger had he sequenced the students solutions. After he says he
circulated the room, he asked Devon to share his solution and then he asked Darlene to share
hers. He mentioned that Devon had an interesting solution and wanted him to share, but he did
not mention why he had Devon share before Darlene.
Lesson Improvements (Questioning/ Discourse Moves)
Mr. Harris did a great job at questioning students in order to come up with a solution.
Another way he can implement this practice could be when David suggested multiplying 72.5 by
1.25 in order to get the number of squares to shade ( 33). Instead of ignoring Davids
suggestion, Mr. Harris could have asked him how he figured to multiply the two values. Then
David would have explained his reasoning and based off of that, he could have asked him
questions that would have made David question his reasoning. Then he could have another
student explain it is wrong and show the correct way to find the solution. I think ignoring
Davids suggestion could have discouraged him from participating and addressing his suggestion
would have helped him understand the solution and view the problem differently.

CASE ANALYSIS

Conclusion
Overall, Mr. Harris did a good job of questioning the students, monitoring how they were
doing during group work time, and supporting student thinking. There were some things he
could improve on such as anticipating and sequencing the student solutions. Instead of ignoring
Davids suggestion, Mr. Harris could have questioned Davids reasoning to come up with a better
solution. Mr. Harris made sure to fulfill as much of his objective as he could, but he did not quite
connect the solutions together so that students understood that they all brought you to the same
point. This lesson was fairly effective in connecting fractions, decimals, and percentages based
on Mr. Harris questioning methods during periods of class discussion. He ended up meeting
most of his goals for the students during this lesson.