Journal 39

 What is the relationship between understanding place value and understanding addition

(not just knowing the process called “add”)? Explain.

Place value is the value of where the digit is in the number. Understanding where the number is

located and gives the student a sense where each number belongs. It shows that each number has

a different meaning even if they are single digits. For example the student Alejandro thought that

11 was 10 + 10. Once the students understand the place values they will understand the addition

process. These students regrouped to they way they understood. Adding by tens is very easy and

that’s what these students did. They would add by the tens place and then the ones place. This

made the student think outside the box because he/ she no longer counted on, but analyzed what

he/she would do and back it up with a reasonable confidant answer to their best knowledge. Not

understanding place values is not understand what each number means. Having place values

gives the students a structure and without structure there is no way in building the knowledge

that the students need.

 Discuss three things you learned from the article, focusing at least one of these on student

learning.

I learned that the perfect class is not handed work must be put in to get the point across and have

the students understand and not memorize. A classroom environment must be created where the

students feel confident in expressing their knowledge without judgment. At the beginning of the

article the students gave their answers and even if they were wrong their classmates were

supportive by saying if they agreed or disagreed. This helps the student participating by building

that confidence to continue participating. No student went unnoticed this encouraged the students

to be active during mental math time. Many students decided to use the method where they
would group the numbers in the tenths place and add them and then move on the ones place and

add them. To find their result they would group both answers and find their total answer. I

learned that there are more ways to add without using a calculator a paper and pencil and even

my fingers. Learning place value changes the way we see math. I wish I were taught this in grade

school I might have liked learning math because it would challenge me to understand why I did

what I did during the addition process.