WHAT IS THE VALUE OF

Deepening Teachers Understanding of Place Value

By Theresa M. Hopkins and Jo Ann Cady
Theresa M. Hopkins, thopkins@utk.edu, is a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, with a background in middle and high school mathematics. She is interested in creating quality professional development experiences for beginning and inservice teachers and also in rural mathematics education. Jo Ann Cady, jcady@utk.edu, is an associate professor of mathematics education at the University of Tennessee, with a background in elementary and middle school mathematics. She is interested in teachers beliefs, pedagogy content knowledge, and assessment practices.

@*#?
A

s faculty members of the Mathematics Education Group in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at the University of Tennessee, we are responsible for instructing both preservice and in-service teachers through courses and professional development activities. One topic we address is teaching place value to elementary school students. Teachers familiarity with the base-ten number system, however, can prevent them from fully comprehending the diffiTeaching Children Mathematics / April 2007

434

Copyright 2007 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.

Photograph by Jo Ann Cady; all rights reserved

culty these students have when trying to understand the abstract concept of place value. This article presents our evolving lesson in addressing this difficulty.

The Significance of Understanding Place Value

To circumvent our mathematics education students familiarity with the base-ten number system, we had, in the past, used base-five blocks to investigate place value. However, rather than working within the basefive system, many of our students simply tried to convert from base-five to base-ten. Further, both our preservice and in-service teachers continually read numbers incorrectlyfor example, they read 105 as 10 rather than as one zero base-five. This realization led us to brainstorm ideas for activities that would produce a cognitive dissonance in these teachers, forcing them to think about place-value concepts such as these identified by Van de Walle (2007): 1. Sets of ten (and tens of tens) can be perceived as single entities. These sets can then be counted and used as a means of describing quantities. For example, three sets of ten and two singles is a base-ten method of describing 32 single objects. This is the major principle of base-ten numeration. 2. The positions of digits in numbers determine what they representwhich size group they count. This is the major principle of placevalue numeration. 3. There are patterns to the way that numbers are formed. 4. The groupings of ones, tens, and hundreds can be taken apart in different ways. For example, 256 can be 1 hundred, 14 tens, and 16 ones but also 250 and 6. Taking numbers apart and recombining them in flexible ways is a significant skill for computation. (p. 187)

their elementary school students introduction to place value. In previous workshops and courses that we had conducted, the teachers familiarity with base-ten numerals often interfered with their learning, but this approach intentionally placed them into an entirely new number system. We also wanted the teachers to explore the importance of concrete models and grouping activities, so we provided multilink cubes for early sessions and base-five blocks for later sessions. To begin the activity, we placed a blank transparency on an overhead projector, drew an empty circle to create a group containing no objects, and told the teachers that the symbol ~ represented the number of objects inside the circle. The ensuing discussion included our statement that ~ represented nothing. Then sets containing 1, 2, 3, and 4 objects were illustrated and represented by different symbols as shown in table 1. To be sure that the teachers were comfortable working with the Orpda symbols, we asked them to indicate the symbol that represented several different sets of objects ranging in number from 0 to 4 objects.

Table 1
Number of Objects and Representative Symbol in the Orpda Number System
No objects 1 object 2 objects 3 objects 4 objects

~ *
@ # &

The Orpda Number System

Because of the difficulties students confront in understanding place value, we as facilitators decided that we would create a new number systemwhich we named Orpdathat would use symbols rather than numerals to represent values. This approach had the advantage of making the activity more abstract so that the teachers experience with place value would be similar to that of
Teaching Children Mathematics / April 2007

We explained that these five symbols were the only symbols in the Orpda number system and then challenged the teachers to use them to represent a group having 5 objects. Anticipating that the teachers might need some time to discuss answers to this question within their groups, we were surprised to see several hands go up immediately, but we allowed a few minutes for others to think about the question before soliciting responses. Although we expected the answer *~, representing a single group of 5 and no units, several teachers gave us alternative answers that quickly pushed all of us, teachers and facilitators alike, out of our comfort zone. The first teacher gave the answer *&. We wrote her response on the board and asked her to explain her answer. She stated that * represented 1 and & represented 4; therefore, *& represented 5. We
435

acknowledged her answer, recorded it on the board, and then asked if anyone had a different one. A second teacher gave the answer @#. Again, we wrote the answer on the board and asked for an explanation. The teacher replied that @ represented 2 and # represented 3, for a sum of 5. These answers were unexpected, but even more unexpected was that no one in the group of nearly fifty teachers suggested what we considered the correct answer. Rather than immediately commenting on these answers, we began a discussion about how to represent the value 6. This gave us time to think about a new direction and further evaluate the participants mathematical thinking. Again, the teachers gave several different answers, some using two symbols and some using three, such as @@@. They discussed the validity of the various representations and concluded that all were valid. We accepted these justifications and acknowledged their reasonableness but then posed this question: If we have many ways of representing the same number, how would we know which to use? We countered the explanation that @# represented the value 5 with an example from the base-ten system, pointing out that although 2 + 3 represents the value 5, the representation 23 does not. These arguments led to the realization that unless we could create a unique method of representing values greater than 4, using the Orpda number system would be very confusing.

answer compared *~ to 10 in the base-ten system, saying we had one group of 5 with no singles left over; this formulation compares with one group of 10 with no singles in the base-ten system (see fig. 1). Many of the teachers accepted this representation and its explanation, but some did not. A discussion regarding the use of ~ (zero) ensued. Several teachers suggested that ~ represented nothing, as defined at the beginning of the lesson, and should not be used. Others countered that ~ represented the idea that there were no units but rather one group of 5 objects, hence the use of *~ to represent the value displayed. They maintained that their idea was related to the idea of 10 in the base-ten system being represented by one group of 10 objects and no units or ones. We then provided more information on the invention of zero and its use as a place holder. The teachers struggles with the concepts of zero, grouping, and the position of digits within a numeral parallel the struggles their elementary school students might have with the same concepts.

Using manipulatives to understand a number system

Using multilink cubes, the teachers were then asked to count and represent sets of objects up to 30 within the Orpda number system. We found it interesting that the teachers used the multilink cubes to represent the number of objects but did not use them to create groups of 5. As we continued to count, the teachers began to see the patterns that developed, similar to patterns that elementary school students find when completing a hundreds table. Several teachers connected the ideas from the base-ten number system to the Orpda number system and quickly created symbols to represent the values of sets of objects through *~ ~ (25). Others needed more time to think and some guidance from the facilitators. We let the teachers struggle with the problem

Relating to the base-ten system

We asked the teachers to think about the numerical, or place-value, relationships in the base-ten number system and then create a unique symbolic representation of 5 in the Orpda number system. After much discussion within their groups, the teachers suggested the answer *~, which we displayed on the board. Several teachers were skeptical and asked for an explanation. The teacher who had suggested this

Figure 1
Combining units to create a rod in the base-ten number system (a) and the Orpda (base-five) number system (b)

1a. 10 = 1 rod and 0 units

1b. *~ = * rods and ~ units

436

Teaching Children Mathematics / April 2007

on their own until we felt the frustration level rise; only then did we step in to offer suggestions to those who were frustrated to the point of no longer trying. At this point, we suggested that they use the cubes to model the values. Rather than show or tell the teachers what to do with the multilink cubes, we continued to ask questions such as these: What do you already know about the symbols for numbers in the Orpda system? How can you represent these symbols with cubes? How would a set of X X X X X X objects be represented in Orpda? What would happen if you added one more object to the set? How would you represent this value? What happens when you have X X X X X X X X X X objects? What patterns do you see? After a short time, one teacher suggested that we create a group of five rods, or groups of 5, to make a square (flat) and use the symbol *~ ~ to represent this value. Many of the teachers could now make the connections between the base-ten system and the Orpda system. They correctly represented the Orpda symbol *~ ~ ~ as a cube, or 5 groups of 25 (5 flats). At the conclusion of many of our workshops, we encouraged a discussion about the participants frustration level. We were surprised by the teachers vehement opposition to using the word frustration to describe feelings about mathematics. They viewed this term as negative and stated that they did not use it with their students during their mathematics work. However, we see the inherent challenges and frustrations of problem solving as an integral part of learning mathematics. It is through cognitive dissonance that we build strategies for problem solving and deepen our understanding of mathematics. Several teachers commented that, as a result of participating in the workshop, they would now be more understanding of their students struggles with mathematics. Even with persistent questioning, however, we had difficulties eliciting responses about the mathematics content. When we asked the teachers to focus on what finally made the light bulb turn on, most referred to the use of the manipulatives. This led to a discussion of their initial reluctance to actually manipulate the cubes rather than use them merely to display a value, a reluctance similar to some students reluctance to use manipulatives to help explore mathematical situations. These stateTeaching Children Mathematics / April 2007

ments reinforce the difference between having and using manipulatives in the mathematics classroom. As teachers, we should not assume that because we provide a set of linking cubes for students to use during an activity they will actually use them. Students might be hesitant to use the cubes, as the teachers in our workshop were, thinking that the need to work with cubes is a weakness.

Conclusions
We found that using the Orpda number system opened the eyes of these teachers and future teachers to some of the struggles their students face when learning place-value concepts as defined by Van de Walle (2007). Their additional insights into the availability of manipulatives versus their actual use during mathematics and the advantages of using manipulatives themselves will result in better attention to their students and practice in the classroom. In presenting the base-five Orpda number system to preservice and in-service teachers, we do not expect them to master this system. We want them to examine and evaluate the activities and models that helped them understand the concept of place value associated with the Orpda system. Most important, we want them to look more deeply at the mathematics of place value. We hope that teachers will remember the following critical ideas for developing an understanding of place value: The concept of zero as a value and a place holder is the underpinning of the base-ten system. The use of manipulatives, grouping activities, and multiple representations allows exploration of place-value concepts Patterns in the hundreds chart reveal characteristics of the base-ten system. A numbers position determines its value. Teachers with a deeper understanding of place value, we feel, will prepare activities for their own students that will better help them explore place value. They will have a more empathetic understanding of the students difficulties and of how to assist them in overcoming these difficulties.

Reference
Van de Walle, John A. Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. s

437