Fractional Commensurate Composition and Adding Schemes Learning Trajectories of Jason and Laura Grade 5

Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295
Fractional commensurate, composition, and adding schemes Learning trajectories of Jason and Laura: Grade 5
Leslie P. Steffe
Department of Mathematics Education, University of Georgia, 105 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602-7124, USA
Abstract A case study of two 5th-Grade children, Jason and Laura, is presented who participated in the teaching experiment, Childrens Construction of the Rational Numbers of Arithmetic. The case study begins on the 29th of November of their 5th-Grade in school and ends on the 5th of April of the same school year. Two basic problems were of interest in the case study. The rst was to provide an analysis of the concepts and operations that are involved in the construction of three fractional schemes: a commensurate fractional scheme, a fractional composition scheme, and a fractional adding scheme. The second was to provide an analysis of the contribution of interactive mathematical activity in the construction of these schemes. The phrase, commensurate factional scheme refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in transforming a given fraction into another fraction that are both measures of an identical quantity. Likewise, fractional composition scheme refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in nding how much, say, 1/3 of 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity, and fractional adding scheme refers to the concepts and operations involved in nding how much, say, 1/3 of a quantity joined to 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity. Critical protocols were abstracted from the teaching episodes with the two children that illustrate what is meant by the schemes, changes in the childrens concepts and operations, and the interactive mathematical activity that was involved. The body of the case study consists of an on-going analysis of the childrens interactive mathematical activity and changes in that activity. The last section of the case study consists of an analysis of the constitutive aspects of the childrens constructive activity, including the role of social interaction and nonverbal interactions of the children with each other and with the computer software we used in teaching the children. 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fractions; Schemes; Teaching experiment; Learning trajectories
Two basic problems are of interest in this paper. The rst concerns accounting for the operations that are involved in the construction of three fractional schemes: a unit fractional multiplying scheme that I refer to as the unit fractional composition scheme, a scheme for establishing equal fractions that I refer
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0732-3123/$ see front matter 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0732-3123(03)00022-1
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to as a commensurate fractional scheme, and a scheme for adding unit fractions that I refer to as a unit fractional adding scheme. The second problem concerns accounting for the contribution of the interactive mathematical activity that was involved in the construction of these three schemes. I investigate these problems in a case study of two children, Jason and Laura, who participated in the teaching experiment, Childrens Construction of the Rational Numbers of Arithmetic (Steffe & Olive, 1990), during their 5th-Grade in school. The case studies that are presented essentially constitute learning trajectories of the two children across the teaching episodes that we held with them. Simon (1995b) introduced the concept of a hypothetical learning trajectory to refer to the teachers prediction as to the path by which learning might proceed. It is hypothetical because the actual learning trajectory is not knowable in advance. It characterizes an expected tendency (p. 135). In elaboration, he commented that, it is meant to underscore the importance of having a goal and rationale for teaching decisions and the hypothetical nature of such thinking (p. 136). In a reaction to Simons paper, Beatriz DAmbrosio and I emphasized designing a learning space that is based, at least in part, on a working knowledge of students mathematics in the construction of a hypothetical learning trajectory (Steffe & DAmbrosio, 1995). In a reciprocal reaction, Simon (1995a) amplied our emphasis in his comments that: They have (appropriately, in my opinion) emphasized the teachers construction of models of the students mathematics as one of the most important foci of models of teaching based on constructivism and agreed that the teachers knowledge is constantly being constructed as she interacts with students as they construct knowledge. (p. 162) Simons emphasis in his paper was on learning trajectories as constructed by practicing teachers. Because teaching was used as a method of scientic investigation in the teaching experiment, the practice of research and the practice of teaching were interwoven in the exploration of student learning. As a consequence, the major focus of attention in the teaching experiment was on the construction of models of the mathematics of the involved children and how to bring that mathematics forth, sustain it, and modify it. So, rather than consider the construction of learning trajectories as the responsibility of practicing teachers, I consider the construction of learning trajectories in the context of the idea of worlds being constructed, or even autonomously invented, by inquirers who are simultaneously participants in those same worlds (Steier, 1995, p. 71). When viewing learning trajectories as co-produced by children, it is possible to construct learning trajectories of children rather than hypothesize learning trajectories based solely on thought experiments concerning the paths by which learning might proceed. A learning trajectory that is abstracted from the experience of actually teaching children consists of an explanation of childrens initial schemes as they enter the experiment, an explanation of the observed changes in the entering schemes that the children produce as a result of interactive mathematical activity in situations of learning, and an analysis of the contribution of the interactive mathematical activity involved in the changes. The teaching experiment was designed to produce such a learning trajectory as a result of actually teaching children (Steffe & Thompson, 2000b). In a related paper, I have given an account of Jasons construction of a partitive fractional scheme and Lauras construction of a partwhole fractional scheme while they were in 4th-Grade in school (Steffe, 2002). Both of these schemes are schemes for producing proper fractions and they have their genesis in partitioning schemes. I have also given an account of Jasons unit fractional composition scheme and his construction of a commensurate fractional scheme during the rst month of the teaching experiment that was held during his 5th-Grade
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in school1 (Steffe, in press). During the same time period, Laura modied her multiplying scheme for whole numbers in situations that were designed to bring forth a commensurate fractional scheme. But she constructed neither a unit fractional composition scheme nor a commensurate fractional scheme as a result of her interactive mathematical activity during that time period (Steffe, in press).
1. The entering partitioning and fractional schemes of Jason and Laura The case study of the two children starts with the teaching episodes held on 19 November 1993 where it was the goal of the teacher to bring forth the production of a sequence of fractions commensurate with one-third in the children. Jason could already produce a fraction commensurate with a given unit fraction, and a plurality of fractions commensurate with one half, so it was the goal of the teacher to explore whether Jason could independently produce a sequence of fractions commensurate with one third. Laura could not independently produce a fraction commensurate with a given unit fraction, but after Jason produced such a fraction, she could explain why the two fractions were commensurate. Jason could operate in fractional situations in ways that Laura could not, and it was a major goal of the teacher to use Jasons ways of operating to induce similar ways of operating in Laura. 1.1. Jasons entering partitioning and fractional schemes 1.1.1. The equi-partitioning scheme Jasons construction of equi-partitioning occurred in a situation where we asked him to cut a piece of candy off from a candy stick for one of four people (Steffe, 1999, 2002). He was using the computer tool TIMA: Sticks that we had designed for the teaching experiment.2 To make the share of one of four people, Jason independently marked off one part of a segment he had drawn in the screen and pulled the part out of the marked segment. In a test to nd if the part was one of four equal parts, he made three copies of the part and joined them together with the pulled part. Marking a segment once in estimating one of four equal parts implies that he used his concept, four, in gauging where to make the mark, which means that he used four as a partitioning template. The ability to iterate the pulled part in a test to nd if the estimate was one of four equal parts was inherited from the iterability of his units of one. He introduced these two ways of using his concept of four, and they served him in constructing the equi-partitioning scheme. The purpose of the equi-partitioning scheme is to estimate one of several equal parts of some quantity and to iterate the part in a test to nd whether a sufcient number of iterations produce a quantity equal to the original. This scheme proved to be basic in Jasons production of the partitive fractional scheme. 1.1.2. The partitive fractional scheme Jason constructed the partitive fractional scheme while he was in his 4th Grade (Steffe, 2002). This scheme permitted him to establish meaning for unit fractional number words like one tenth as one out of ten little pieces that could be iterated ten times to produce a partitioned segment of length equal to the original. The phrase out of was a crucial indicator that he regarded one little piece as one unit part
These teaching episodes were held on the 25th of October and on the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd of November of his 5th Grade. In TIMA: Sticks, a segment can be drawn using the mouse cursor, the segment can be marked using hash marks, marked parts can be pulled out of the whole stick [an operation that left the marked stick intact], copies of the pulled part can be made, and the copies can be joined together to make another stick.
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out of ten unit parts that constituted the partitioned fractional whole. He also knew that ten tenths was the length of the partitioned fractional whole because he could iterate one-tenth ten times to produce ten-tenths. So, one tenth was a fractional unit that he could use in iteration to produce identical copies in the sense that I have just explained. The dominant purpose of the partitive fractional scheme is to partition a unit into so many equal parts, take one out of those parts, and establish a one-to-many relation between the part and the partitioned whole. The iterative aspect of the scheme serves in justifying or verifying that a unit part of the partitioned unit is one of so many equal parts. By iterating a unit fractional part so many times, Jason produced fractional language such as two tenths, . . . , ten tenths as descriptions of the results of iterating one tenth so many times. But it was a major surprise that he could not produce improper fractions as a result of his productive activity while he was in his 4th Grade. That monumental event entailed the construction of the splitting operation, which I explain below. 1.1.3. The splitting operation We asked both Jason and Laura to make a segment so that a given segment was ve times longer (as well as two times longer) than the segment they made toward the end of their 4th Grade (Steffe, 2002), and neither child could do it. Making such a segment entails positing a segment in thought that could be iterated ve times to produce a segment of length equal to the given segment, a process which produces a conceptual partition of the given segment. Realizing that the desired segment can be produced by simply splitting the given segment into ve parts implies a composition of the two operations of iterating and partitioning, where the partitioning produces parts any of which can be iterated ve times to produce the partitioned segment, and where any segment for which the given segment is ve times longer can be used to partition the given segment. The splitting operation is the basic operation that is involved in the construction of recursive partitioning. 1.1.4. Recursive partitioning The ability to produce a partition of a partition in the service of a goal is fundamental in childrens progress in the construction of fractional schemes beyond the partitive fractional scheme. When the result of a partition is given, recursive partitioning occurs when children can produce the result using two other partitions. For example, when asked to partition a stick into 12 parts under the constraint of not dialing the counter of Parts to 12,3 Jason insightfully produced a partition of a partition to partition the stick into twelve parts in a teaching episode held on the 8th of November 1993 (Steffe, in press). Recursive partitioning is the inverse operation of rst producing a composite unit, multiple copies of this composite unit, and then uniting the copies into a unit of units of units. So, producing a recursive partitioning implies that a child can engage in the operations that produce a unit of units of units, but in the reverse direction. Recursive partitioning is fundamental in the production of the unit fractional composition scheme. 1.1.5. The unit fractional composition scheme The initial observation that led to my construction of the unit fractional composition scheme occurred when Jason was at the beginning of his 5th Grade (Steffe, in press). He found how much three fourths of one fourth of a segment was of the segment by reasoning, See, if we would have had it in that (points to each one fourth part) four, four, four, and four sixteen. But you colored three, so it is three sixteenth!
3 In TIMA: Sticks, a child can use the computer action Parts to dial a counter to any one or two-digit number and then click on a stick to mark the stick into the number of parts indicated on the dial.
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Recursive partitioning was essential in his reasoning, because it was his goal to nd how much three fourths of one fourth of a segment was of the segment, which is a non-partitioning goal. For a partial result of a composition of two partitionings to be judged as recursive in the fractional context, there must be good reason to believe that a child, given the partial result (three fourths of one fourth), can produce the numerosity of the full result. But this is not all, because the child must also use the second of the two partitions (the one that is not fully implemented) in the service of a non-partitioning goal.4 The importance of this latter judgment is that, to produce the numerosity of the full partition, the child must intentionally choose to partition each part of the original partition using the second partition. In Jasons case, what this means is that he intentionally chose to partition each fourth of the original stick into fourths. This amounts to embedding recursive partitioning in the reversible partitive fractional scheme in the process of achieving the goal. Not only is recursive partitioning essential in the production of a unit fractional composition scheme, it is also essential in the production of a commensurate fractional scheme. 1.1.6. The commensurate fractional scheme While Jason was in his 4th Grade, we focused on using his multiplying schemes for whole numbers in the production of a situation he could then use to abstract commensurate fractions.5 For example, Jason, along with Laura, chose to use segments from a collection of unmarked segments of length from one to ten units to produce a segment that was 24 units in length. The children were to nd which of the ten segments could be used and how many times. After using an unmarked segment of length six units four times to produce a six-part segment of length 24 units, the children thought that the segment they used was six fourths of the segment of length 24 units. This kind of error recurred in similar situations in spite of our attempts in teaching the children to overcome it. The errors that we encountered in the childrens production of commensurate fractions were necessary errors because the operations that produce a unit of units of units, and their inverse, recursive partitioning, were yet to be constructed by these children. When considering a segment of length twenty-four units, and a segment of length six units, the children were yet to conceive of the segment of length six units as a measurement unit to measure the unmarked segment of length 24 units. That is, they were yet to conceive of the unmarked segment of length 24 units as partitioned into subsegments of length six units prior to activity. They could repeat the segment of length six units four times to produce a segment of length 24 units, and they were denitely aware of that they repeated the segment four times. But they operated with two levels of units rather than three levels of units, and this produced what to us were conations of the three units that we could see in the situations. When recursive partitioning emerged in the Jasons thinking at the beginning of his 5th Grade (Steffe, in press), the conations that I have just noted disappeared. At this point, he became able to produce a plurality of fractions commensurate with 1/2. 1.2. Lauras entering partitioning and fractional schemes 1.2.1. The simultaneous partitioning scheme Laura could engage in simultaneous partitioning while she was in her 4th Grade (Steffe, 2002) in that she made uncannily accurate estimates of where to mark off one of up to ten parts of an unmarked segment.
In the example, Jasons goal was to nd how many subsegments of length equal to one fourth of one fourth of the segment would t into the segment. 5 I consider two fractions as commensurate if one of the two fractions is produced by a quantity preserving transformation of the other.
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The main difference between her simultaneous partitioning scheme and Jasons equi-partitioning scheme is that she did not explicitly disembed a part from the partitioned segment and use it in iteration in a test to nd whether a sufcient number of iterations produced a segment in length equal to the original. 1.2.2. The partwhole fractional scheme Using her simultaneous partitioning scheme, Laura produced a fractional scheme in the 4th Grade that I refer to as the partwhole fractional scheme. This scheme was used by Laura to establish meaning for unit fractional number words like one tenth as one out of ten little pieces. Establishing meaning for seven tenths entailed pulling seven distinct parts out of a stick partitioned into ten equal parts rather than iterate one-tenth seven times (Steffe, 2002). Iterating a unit fractional part is not a dominant part of this scheme, so seven-tenths is yet to refer to the length of a stick that has been produced by iterating one-tenth seven times. Each part of a partwhole fraction is a distinct part that is only equal in length to the other parts rather than identical to them. When the unit fractional part one tenth is an iterable unit, the copies produced are identical in the sense that they are implementations of the same conceptual unit item. Basically, a child who has constructed a partwhole fractional scheme is yet to construct unit fractions6 as iterable fractional units. 1.2.3. Lack of recursive partitioning In the teaching episodes held on the 25th of October and on the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd of November of her 5th Grade (Steffe, in press), Laura did not construct recursive partitioning in spite of the best attempts of the teacher to bring it forth nor did she independently produce a fraction commensurate with a given fraction. Apparently, the two operations of partitioning and iterating that were available to Jason opened possibilities for him that were not present for Laura. The difference in the two children was striking throughout the four teaching episodes during the month of November. For example, in the teaching episode held on the 8th of November, to partition a stick into twelve parts without using twelve, Laura partitioned the stick into eleven parts and then pulled one part from the stick and joined it to the eleven-part stick. In this case, Laura did engage in independent mathematical activity, but her way of operating constituted contraindication of recursive partitioning operations. It might be conjectured that Laura simply didnt think to operate in the way Jason operated (rst partition the stick into three parts and then each of these parts into four parts) because once she observed Jason operate, she did know what to do and proceeded quite smoothly. However, it was characteristic for Laura to need to re-enact an explanation made by Jason, or for there to be visual cues in her perceptual eld, before she could engage in the actions that were needed to be successful in explaining why a fraction such as one third was commensurate to, say, four twelfths after she measured the 4/12-stick and 1/3 appeared in the Number Box of TIMA: Sticks. Jason could independently engage in the operations that were necessary to produce such explanations or actions, and beyond that, he could independently produce a unit fraction that was commensurate with, say, three fteenths. I consider such independent productions as necessary in order to judge that a child has constructed a commensurate fractional scheme. It was the case that Laura did not provide any indication of the splitting operation, recursive partitioning, or a commensurate fractional scheme. However, she did engage in mathematical interaction with Jason in
I use quotation marks to indicate that, say, 1/3 was a partitive unit fraction for Laura because she was yet to engage in reciprocal reasoning of the kind explained by Thompson and Saldanha (in press). That is, she was yet to reason that if a segment A is 1/3 of a segment B, then B is three times the length of A, and reciprocally. Reciprocal reasoning is based on the splitting operation.
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those cases where her multiplying scheme for whole numbers was called forth. But this was not enough for her to engage in making independent explanations for why a fraction was commensurate to another fraction, and she remained dependent on what Jason said or did, what the teacher said or did, or the context of the situation in order to know what to do to be successful.
2. Producing a sequence of fractions commensurate with one third Because independent explanations rely on the nature and use of the involved schemes, the teacher focused on eliciting the production of a sequence of fractions commensurate with one third in the 29 November 1993 Teaching Episode. The goal of the teacher in Lauras case was to elicit independent explanations for why, say, two sixths is commensurate to one third by encouraging interactive mathematical activity with Jason. In Jasons case, the goal of the teacher was to explore whether his production of a plurality of fractions commensurate with one half was limited to one half. The teacher established a conventional language during the rst seven or eight minutes of the teaching episode to refer to partitioned sticks that were to be regarded as fraction sticks. Make a twelve twelfths stick was interpreted by the children as partitioning a stick into twelve equal parts. They understood that each part was one twelfth of the 12/12-stick and that there were twelve such parts. In the protocols, T stands for Teacher,7 J stands for Jason, and L stands for Laura. Protocol I: Production of fractions commensurate with one third. T: Now, please start with a three-thirds stick. Make me a three-thirds stick. L: Copy, copy, copy (while making a copy of the stick in the Ruler.8 She then partitions it into three parts.) T: (Asks the children to color the parts different colors.) You remember that last week we worked with halves. Today we are working with thirds. I would like you to partition that stick in a different way so you can pull out one third. I want another fraction, another fraction that will be like one third. J&L: (Sit quietly for approximately twelve seconds.) J: (Jason takes the mouse and dials Parts to 5 and clicks on each of the three parts, partitioning each into ve equal parts. He then activates Pull Parts9 and pulls out the rst three parts. The teacher asked Can you pull out a third for me? while he was pulling the three parts, but that seemed irrelevant in Jasons activity.) T: Is that piece one third of the whole stick (the stick in the Ruler)? L: No, it is three fteenths! J: (Drags the 3/15-stick into the Trash. He then activates Pull Parts and sits quietly for about fteen seconds, then pulls ve parts out of the 15/15-stick he made.) T: Is that one third? L: Because there are three whole pieces there (points three times in succession at the 15/15-stick from the left to the right) and there is one there (points to the 5/15-stick Jason pulled out).
Dr. Ron Tzur served as the teacher of the children (Tzur, 1999). A stick could be copied into a space at the bottom of the screen and used as a ruler to measure another stick in the screen by activating Measure and clicking on the stick. 9 Pullparts can be used to pull one or more parts from a marked stick. The marked stick is left intact.
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T: Ok, can you give it another name? Thats one third, so can you give it another fractional name? J: Five fteenths. (He then uses Label to label the stick he pulled out 5/15.) T: Five fteenths. And before that you said one third. One third or ve fteenths of what? J&L: Of the whole cake. (Laura actually made a copy of the stick in the Ruler and partitioned it into three equal parts using Parts. She then said, Thats a cake. when the teacher asked her what it was.) Both of Jasons and Lauras language and actions in Protocol I were remarkable, but for quite different reasons. After the teacher said, I want another fraction, another fraction that will be like one third. Jason sat for approximately twelve seconds deep in thought. He then recursively partitioned the 3/3-stick by partitioning each part into ve parts. Interestingly enough, he then pulled out three rather than ve parts to make one third. I consider pulling three rather than ve parts out to make one third an indication that his partitioning of each of the three parts into ve parts was not an application of a general scheme for making fractions commensurate with a given unit fraction. The lack of a general scheme for making commensurate fractions, when coupled with the twelve seconds he sat deep in thought, indicates that his recursive partitioning act was indeed a creative act that might serve in the construction of a commensurate fractional scheme. Recursive partitioning was the basic operation underpinning the act of creating a new partition that could be used to make a fraction commensurate with one third. After the teacher asked, Is that one third? and Laura answered, No, it is three fteenths! after Jason made the 3/15-stick, Jason did make a correction and pulled out a 5/15-stick after trashing the 3/15-stick. I consider this experience of producing a 5/15-stick given a 1/3-stick as one that he had not experienced before. It was a novel experience. When Laura said, No, it is three fteenths! initially I considered this comment to indicate that she understood that three fteenths was not one third because it was not a fraction commensurate with one third. In hindsight, however, her judgment that three fteenths was not one third was based on the fact that it was three out of fteen parts rather than one out of three parts because she could not independently produce a fraction commensurate with 3/15. Nevertheless, after Jason pulled the 5/15-stick from the 15/15-stick, she explained that it was one third Because there are three whole pieces there . . . and there is one there . . . . She obviously knew the 5/15-stick was called ve fteenths, but her explanation for why it could be called one third as well indicates that she made a unit containing three composite units each of which contained ve elements. She appeared to be very condent in her explanation, and her additional act of making a copy of the stick in the Ruler and partitioning it into three parts as a representative of the whole cake, together with her condent attitude, corroborates the inference concerning making and comparing composite units. For the rst time it seemed as if she might be able to independently initiate her own partitioning activity. Being encouraged, the teacher continued on. Protocol I: (First Cont.) T: Can you now make another fraction? You already have one third, and you already have ve fteenths. Can you make another part so that you can pull out one third? J: (Shakes his head no and Laura sits quietly looking at the teacher.) T: Cant do another one? J: Uh Huh (no). T: Last week you had a lot for halves. So I bet that you can have more number names for a third.
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J: (Sits in deep concentration for approximately ten seconds. He then drags the 3/3-stick Laura made from the bottom of the screen upward, activates Parts and it is still dialed to 3, but he does not use it because the stick is already partitioned into three parts. He then lls the three parts different colors.) L: (Sits looking straight ahead with no apparent overt indications of mental activity.) T: Copy that one ve or six times up here (the top of the screen) so we always have them lled. J: (Makes several copies at the top of the screen. He then activates Parts and partitions each part of the 3/3-stick he colored into three parts. He then pulls the rst three parts.) Three ninths. L: Three ninths. T: (To Laura) you want to label it? L: (Labels it 3/9 using Label.) T: Can you make another one? J: (Takes the mouse and starts.) T: No, let Laura do the next one! L: (Drags a stick from the copies Jason made to the middle of the screen and partitions each of the three parts into four parts.) four, four, four. T: Before you pull it out, what will be the fraction that you are pulling out? L: Four, ah, four . . . . J: Twelfths (almost simultaneously with Laura). T: How did you know that? J: Because . . . . T: Wait, wait, wait. Let Laura. We have to take turns because we cannot all talk at the same time. You know we cannot all talk together. L: Four, four, and four make twelve. Four and eight and twelve. (She then labels the part 4/12 and pulls it out of the 12/12-stick she made.) T: Now this is interesting. You have three ninths, four twelfths, and ve fteenths (pointing at the respective parts). Can you think of something that will be . . . even smaller than what we have? J: Umm (yes). T: What would you do? Which one are you going to try? L: I know one . . . Maybe not. Three seconds! Three twos! T: You go ahead (gesturing toward the computer). J: I dont know what she is talking about. L: (Partitions each part of a 3/3-stick into two parts. She then pulls the rst two parts out of the 6/6-stick she made.) T: Go ahead. Pull it out and label it, please. L: Two, two . . . . (subvocally utters number words) six! T: So this is what she has to label (To Jason)? J: Because she had, there are six pieces and there are two. They are kind of a part. L: (Labels the part 2/6). The claim that Jasons act of partitioning each part of the 3/3-stick into ve parts in Protocol I was a creative act is corroborated by the fact that initially he said that he could not do another one. After the teacher
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reminded him that he had done a lot for halves last week, and asserted that he could have more number names for one third, that apparently reoriented Jason in such a way that he considered it possible to make a partition other than the one he had already made. That is, he had eliminated the perturbation that drove his generation of ve fteenths, and the teachers provocation served in his reestablishment of a goal to generate another number name. That he sat in deep concentration for approximately ten seconds does indicate that partitioning each part into three parts did not immediately occur to him. I suggest that his experience was more or less one of being in a state of perturbation in a search mode but with nothing appearing in his consciousness. But his recursive partitioning operations were activated, and to partition each of the three parts into three parts appeared to him rather suddenly. This is indicated by the activity in which he engaged that marked the end of the period of search. All at once he knew what to do. Moreover, after the teacher asked, Can you make another one from the same family? he immediately initiated activity, which indicates that he was now aware of how to proceed. That is, he had abstracted how he operated. The teacher sensed that Laura could now initiate making another fraction commensurate with one third. So, he stopped Jason from acting by saying, Let Laura! It might seem as if he should have made this suggestion much before this time, but his suggestion was made on the basis of his interpretations of not only Lauras language and actions, but on the basis of his interpretation of her body language as well. Because she now seemed condent when saying three ninths the teacher decided to ask her to make the next fraction. She immediately partitioned each of the three parts of the 3/3-stick into four parts, and said that it was four twelfths of the whole stick. My interpretation is that she also knew that it was one third of the stick because, when the teacher asked the children to think of something so that the numbers would be smaller, she generated three twos. What she meant was that she would partition each one of the three parts into two equal parts. She obviously focused on the three partitioned 1/3-sticks (the 3/9-stick, the 4/12-stick, and the 5/15-stick) because she did not immediately complete the fractional number word two sixths. Instead, she counted how many parts the 6/6-stick comprised before she could say two sixths, and then she said six rather than sixths because she had just counted the six parts. Both children seemed to be poised to make the generation of fractions commensurate with one third systematic. So, the teacher asked them to arrange the fractions that they had made in a systematic order. Protocol I: (Second Cont.) T: Can you now arrange the screen so that we will have two sixths, then we will have three ninths, then we will have, you know, like, a sequence. J: (Arranges the sticks so that the pair of sticks corresponding to 2/6 is on the bottom, then 3/9, then 4/12, then 5/15. Laura was active during this time, making several suggestions.) T: Now comes the question. Without making the stick, can you think and tell me what will be the next one in the sequence that will be one third? Which one will it be? L: The next to highest or to lowest? T: You started with the two sixths, then three ninths . . . . J: (Points to the 3/3-stick at the very top of the screen over all the others) that one will be the lowest. T: Thats right. Thats the one rst, so you want to put it down here (underneath the 2/6-stick and the 6/6-stick). J: (Moves all the sticks upward to make room for the 3/3-stick and then drags it beneath all of the others and labels it 1/3).
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T: (While Jason is arranging the sticks) While you are working, think what will be the next one, the next one in the sequence upward. L: (After talking to herself) six thirty sixths! T: Six thirty sixths? We will wait for Jason. Ok, she is saying the next one will be six thirty sixths. (To Jason) What do you say? (He didnt ask Laura to explain because he was waiting for Jason to complete the rearrangement of the sticks.) ... T: Ok, Laura said that the next one that you are going to put will be six thirty sixths. L: (Grabs the mouse) I know . . . (Plays with copies of the 3/3-stick remaining at the top of the screen.) T: Wait, wait, wait. Jason, what do you say? J: Seven twenty oneths. Three times seven is twenty-one, and twenty-one comes before thirty-six. L: (Just as Jason is starting to say Seven twenty oneths) Oh, oh, I know!! (After Jason is done explaining) six times three is . . . six eighteenths. Six eighteenths (with condence)! T: So, it will be six eighteenths now? J: Yeah, six eighteenths. T: And what will come next? After the six eighteenths, what will come? J: (Puts his head down and thinks) I dont know . . . . T: (To Laura) do you want to do the six eighteenths? L: Yes. T: (To Jason) Think of the next one while you work. J: (After about three seconds) I got it. I got the next one! L: (Activates Parts, dials to 6 and clicks on each part of the 3/3-stick at the top of the screen. She then pulls six parts and labels it 6/18). T: Beautiful. (To Jason) you have another one? Tell us what it is. J: Seven twenty . . . . T: Seven twenty rsts! Before you do it, can you think of what will be the next one? L: I think, there will be eight in there, and eight in there, and eight in there (looking up and pointing with her nger three times as if seeing a 3/3-stick in her visualized imagination). Eight twenty fourths!! T: (To Jason) This is what you thought of? What will be the next one? L: (Again looking upwards as she points three times) nine, nine, nine. Nine twenty sevenths! T: (To Jason) I wanted Jason to say it. Ok, what will be the next one after nine twenty sevenths? J: Ten thirtieths. L: (Again points three times in the air as Jason is answering Ten thirtieths) eleven, eleven, eleven. Eleven thirty three! Laura went on in the same way, generating 12/36, 14/42, 15/45, 16/48, 17/51, 18/54, 19/57, and 20/60. She used her multiplicative computational algorithm to calculate those products (e.g., 3 17) that she could not quickly nd by using mental addition. Jason could not keep pace with her fast calculations and this is one of the rst times that she appeared to be the more powerful of the two. Jason denitely was aware of the sequence of fractions being calculated because he guessed 16/78 after Laura had said 15/45. He was aware that Laura could produce fractions of the sequence faster than he could, and appeared abashed that he could not keep up with her.
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It could be said that both Jason and Laura had established a scheme for producing a sequence of fractions each commensurate with one third. The operations of the scheme for Jason included recursive partitioning and the activity of the scheme was in part to calculate the numerosity of the parts produced by using the recursive partitioning operation. He did not use a standard multiplicative algorithm in calculation, but instead used progressive integration operations [e.g., 16 and 16 is 32, and 32 and 16 is 48]. The activity of Lauras scheme also was to calculate the numerosity of the three composite units produced by partitioning, but in doing so, she used her standard multiplicative algorithm mentally. Whether she engaged in recursive partitioning when partitioning the three parts is problematic because it was Jason who generated ve fteenths and three ninths to start the sequence. It was only then that Laura generated four twelfths. Her production of this fraction was based on her assimilation of Jasons language and actions using her units-coordinating scheme10 and her scheme for producing proper fractions. For example, when Jason generated three ninths, she also said three ninths in recognition of Jasons results. This recognition, when coupled with her production of four twelfths immediately afterwards, does indicate that she distributed partitioning into three parts across each one third and produced nine as the total number of parts (which is a units-coordination). But it does not necessarily indicate that she engaged in recursive partitioning because making that inference requires an independence of operating that she did not demonstrate. So, the teacher tested to nd if she could independently nd another fraction for two thirds. If she could, then a case could be made that she engaged in recursive partitioning in doing so. Protocol II: Production of fractions commensurate with two thirds. T: Copy the cake and put it into thirds. Make a three thirds stick. And ll it with different toppings, please (for the children, this meant to color the parts different colors). L: (Makes a copy of the stick in the Ruler, partitions it into thirds, and lls the two outer thirds with different colors.) ... J: (Fills the middle third with the same color as the rst third and pulls the rst two thirds from the stick as requested by the teacher.) T: Now comes the question. You gave me, like, twenty different thirds (referring to the children making fractions commensurate with one third). Can you give me now a different two thirds than you have here? A different two thirds of the cake. L: I know. (The teacher nods yes, so she continues. She partitions an extra copy of the stick she made into three parts and pulls out the last two parts!) T: Ok. Thats very good. But, can you give me another fraction. Can you give me a fraction that will be two thirds out of the whole, but with a different partitioning, a different number of pieces. (Both children sit quietly for approximately 20 seconds.) Can you nd a way to partition the cake so that you will be able to pull out two thirds? L: I know. J: (Following Laura) I know. T: (Encourages Laura to carry on.)
To coordinate three and four, for example, the composite unit, four, is inserted into each of the three units of one contained in the composite unit, three. This produces three composite units containing four units of one. The activity of the scheme is to calculate the numerosity of the units of one (c.f. Steffe, 1992). Using this scheme in the context of segments involves using the composite units as templates for partitioning.
10
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L: (Makes a copy using the stick in the Ruler. She partitions it into three parts and lls the outer two parts with the same color. She then partitions the middle part into two equal parts.) T: I want you to pull out two thirds. J: I know. T: (To Jason) Just wait a little. (To Laura) Thats a very good direction to start with. J: (Intervenes in spite of the teachers admonition to Just wait a little.) Put another one in here (partition the rst one third into two parts), and another one in here (the last one third), and then that would be two, two, and two and six in all (pointing appropriately to the screen.) T: Now, can you pull out the two thirds? L: Wait, wait, wait. (Partitions each of the two outer thirds into two equal parts, pulls the four parts she just made, and joins them together.) T: How much is it of the whole thing now that you joined it together? How much is it? J&L: (Together) four sixths! T: (To Jason) You want to make another one? Another one that will be two thirds? Start with a full cake and do it a different way. J: (Partitions an unmarked copy of the stick in the Ruler into twelve parts. He then colors the rst four parts.) T: How many are you going to take? J: Eight. T: Why eight? J: Because eight is two thirds of twelve!! Although Laura partitioned each of the two outer thirds into two equal parts and pulled out the four parts she just made after the teacher asked Now, can you pull out the two thirds? she did so only after Jason directed her to partition the two outer thirds as well as the middle third. Why she partitioned only the middle third of the stick into two parts can be explained when considering that her successful mathematical activity in the two continuations of Protocol I was based on her rst partitioning one of the three parts. She simply repeated what worked for her in the case of nding another fraction for one third. Although in the continuations of Protocol I, her multiplying activity symbolized partitioning the other two parts, she apparently did not anticipate partitioning the other two parts into two parts each in Protocol II. Jason, on the other hand, rst conceptually partitioned each of the three parts and only then pulled out the appropriate parts to establish a fraction commensurate with two thirds. His partitioning of an unmarked copy of the stick in the Ruler into twelve parts when it was his intention to make another one that will be two thirds warrants this claim. The teacher did encourage Jason to Start with a full cake and do it a different way. and this statement obviously oriented Jason to nd a different way. However, the teachers statement cannot be used to explain Jasons subsequent mathematical activity when he partitioned the stick into twelve pieces because the teacher did not mention twelve. Jasons partitioning act, along with his explanation Because eight is two thirds of twelve. corroborates the claim that Jason could indeed engage in recursive partitioning. However, I could not impute recursive partitioning to Laura. 3. Lauras explanations in the context of fractional compositions Fortunately, Jason was absent from the teaching episode held on 10 January 1994 because it permitted Laura to be the primary actor in solving tasks posed by the teacher. Even though Laura assimilated Jasons
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language and actions in Protocols I and II and thereafter acted as if she had constructed a commensurate fractional scheme, she did not solve commensurate fractional tasks independently of Jasons solutions. Jasons absence in this teaching episode forced the teacher to confront the lacuna in Lauras reasoning. His strategy was to bring forth Lauras establishment of one half of one forth, and then measure the stick using Measure. Of course, 1/8 appeared in the Number Box, and Laura was asked to explain why one half of one fourth could be one eighth. Protocol III: Lauras explanation for why one half of one fourth is one eighth. T: Now we will start with a four-fourths stick. Do you want to prepare one, a four-fourths stick? L: (Dials Parts to 4 and clicks on a stick that she had drawn.) T: First, can you pull out one fourth of the stick? L: (Pulls out the third one fourth of the stick, presumably because she liked its color, purple.) T: Ok, now here comes the surprise. (Using Cover, covers the last three parts of the 4/4-stick, leaving the rst part visible. He then establishes that Laura knew that the visible part was one fourth of the stick as well as the part she pulled.) Now we have two children who have to share the one-fourth pizza. Lets say that both of us have to share it, Ok? Show me your share and tell me how much it will be of the whole pizza. L: Just that one piece (points to the 1/4-stick she pulled out)? T: You can use whatever you want. You will have to show me, we will have to share one fourth of the pizza. L: (Repeats the 1/4-stick to make a 4/4-stick. She then lls the rst two parts) two fourths of the Pizza will be one child. T: All right. Ill repeat the question because I can see it was my mistake. We can only share the one fourth. Take this away (the 4/4-stick she just made) because we dont have a whole pizza to share. (After Laura trashes the 4/4-stick, he asks her to pull the visible part out of the partially covered 4/4-stick.) here is the question. Its only you and me, and we have only the one fourth. We have to share this one (the 1/4-stick). Can you show me your part, and tell me how much will it be of the whole pizza? L: (Dials Parts to 2 and clicks on the 1/4-stick.) T: Now, what is your share? L: Umm, umm (lls the rst part with a color different than the second). T: What type of a pizza is that one? L: One half of a fourth. T: So, how much is it of the whole pizza? That is very good. L: Umm (after about ten seconds) three and a half!! T: Three and a half what? L: Well, thats one half, and then theres the whole one (the three covered parts and the one half of one fourth). T: I see, umm, how much is that piece (points to the 2/8-stick Laura made by partitioning the 1/4-stick into two parts) of the whole pizza? L: One fourth. T: One fourth. And you took one half of the one fourth. You said its one half of one fourth. Can you think of a fractional name for that piece?
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L: T: L: T:
L: T: L: T: L: T: L: T: L: T: L: T: L:
Four and a half! Four and a half? Cause there will be four of them and then one half of it. I dont think I see what you are saying. That is why I am asking questions. You want to use that one (the stick in the Ruler). Do you want to use that one (the stick in the Ruler) and show me what you are saying? I dont know. Can you use that one (the partially covered 4/4-stick) to show me what you mean? (Shakes her head no). Can you pull out your part? (Pulls out one of the two parts of the stick she refers to as one half of one fourth.) Well, how much is this of the whole pizza? It would be half of one fourth. Can you think of a way to nd out how much it is of the whole pizza? I can measure it! Go ahead! (Measures and 1/8 appears in the Number Box.) Can you explain to me why? Yeah. Because if you would put half on all of them, on all of, umm, and then if youll half them all, then they would be one eighth because there are eight pieces!
As this teaching episode was held on 10 January 1994, there was no indication whatsoever that Laura had constructed recursive partitioning over Christmas vacation. In fact, Laura interpreted the teachers comment, You will have to show me, we will have to share one fourth of the pizza, by repeating the stick into a 4/4-stick and then pulling the rst two parts. Her comment, two fourths of the pizza will be one child, when coupled with repeating the 1/4-stick four times to make a 4/4-stick, solidly indicates that she interpreted the teachers comments as if she had constructed a partitive fractional scheme. That is, her goal was to make two out of four equal shares of the whole pizza for one of the children and two fourths for the other. After the teacher attempted to clarify the question, Laura partitioned the 1/4-stick into two equal parts and said that her share would be one half of a fourth. This production of fractional language indicates that she took one out of four parts of the stick as input for further partitioning. Moreover, her surprising answer of Four and a half as a fractional name for one half of one fourth and her rationale, Cause there will be four of them, and then one half of it. indicates an awareness of all four parts of the stick. This awareness is corroborated when she explained why the 1/8 appeared in the Number Box after she measured the stick that was one half of one fourth of the whole stick Yeah. Because if you would put half on all of them, on all of, umm, and then if youll half them all, then they would be one eighth because there are eight pieces. She denitely distributed the operation of partitioning into one half across the four parts of the 4/4-stick because three of the four parts were not visible. It would be necessary for her to operate on a re-presented 4/4-stick. Had she independently produced one eighth without rst measuring the stick she purported to be one half of one fourth and four and a half of the whole stick, then the inference that she made a recursive partition would be indeed strong. As it is, all that can be said at this point in the teaching episode is that she distributed the operation of partitioning into halves across the parts of a re-presented 4/4-stick when it was her goal to explain why one half of one fourth was
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one eighth of the whole stick. Her explanation was encouraging, so the teacher presented the situation of Protocol IV to her.
Protocol IV: Lauras production of one twelfth as how much one of three shares of one fourth of a pizza is of the pizza. T: (After Laura had erased the mark on the visible 1/4-stick) Lets say we were lucky the rst time because we were only two. Now, we are not that lucky anymore. We are three people all together; its you and me and Mr. Olive. He would also like to get some pizza. L: (Takes the mouse and starts to make another copy of the stick in the Ruler.) T: Oh, no, no, no. We have only one fourth of the pizza. All the rest is out. Can you show me your share, my share, and Mr. Olives share, and tell me how much of the whole pizza is your share? L: Out of that one piece right there (points at the visible part of the partially covered stick)? T: Yeah. Only on that one fourth of the whole. L: (Dials Parts to 3 and clicks on the visible one fourth of the partially covered stick. She then lls the left most part she made purple, which is her preferred color, and the middle part green.) Ok (Looks at the teacher with condence). T: Which one is yours? L: The purple. T: So, how much is your share, whatever type it is, out of the whole pizza? L: Ok. Umm, one twelfth! T: One twelfth!! How come? Why? L: Because there are four (puts up four ngers) spots, and you put three in each one, and uh, four times three is twelve! T: Did you say four spots? I was not sure I heard you right. L: Yeah. (Re-explains) well, there are four pieces of pizza, and then there are three pieces in each, and then, and then three and four makes twelve. T: I see. Thats very nice, so what is my share? L: One twelfth. T: And what about Mr. Olive? L: One twelfth. T: All right. So, how much is the one fourth in terms of twelfths? For all the three of us together? L: Three twelfths. T: Three twelfths. Thats very good. Can we go back to the one that we had before, when only two of us shared, you and me? If I had one and you had one, how much was it? L: Two twelfths! T: Can you tell me in terms of twelfths, how much is the part that is covered of the whole, how much is it of the whole pizza? L: (After about ten seconds) twelve twelfths (looking uncertain)? T: Is it twelve twelfths? L: Or four twelfths? T: Do you want to think about it a little bit more? Why twelve twelfths? Or why four twelfths? L: Cause, if you put three in each one, that would make twelve, and its twelve twelfths.
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T: Ok, so you have twelve. But Im asking only of these that are covered. How many threes can you put there? L: Nine. T: Only nine? Why nine? L: Cause three ts in each one. The explanation that Laura gave for why she said one twelfth Because there are four (simultaneously puts up four ngers) spots, and you put three in each one, and uh, four times three is twelve. indicates that she may have recursively partitioned the 4/4-stick when it was her goal to nd how much her share of one fourth of the pizza was of the whole pizza. The comment, Because there are four spots, when coupled with simultaneously putting up four ngers, indicates that she visualized four spaces. Her comment, you put three in each one further indicates that she inserted a unit of three into each of these spaces (one can also think of her inserting the operation of partitioning into three parts into each of the spaces). In that these operations were carried out to serve the goal of nding how much of the whole stick one third of one fourth constituted, this is the rst indication that she engaged in recursive partitioning operations (recursive partitioning always involves a units-coordination). The teacher was encouraged, so he specically asked her how much the one fourth is in terms of twelfths. Although this was a quite specic question, Lauras appropriate answer, three twelfths, indicates that she at least maintained an awareness of the partitioning she just made when she produced one twelfth. In that she also answered two twelfths when asked about the one we had before, she apparently did not regenerate her experience of the immediately prior partitioning. Her lack of regenerating the immediately prior partitioning when coupled with her difculty in nding how much the covered portion of the stick was of the whole pizza in terms of twelfths indicates that her way of operating to produce one twelfth was novel in the situation. Her answer twelve twelfths was based on putting three in each one, that would make twelve, and its twelve twelfths indicates that she was consumed by operating and did not make a distinction between putting three in each of the covered parts and putting three in all four of the parts. One could claim that disembedding the complement of one fourth in twelve twelfths was not an operation that she could currently perform, and hence a lacuna appeared in her reasoning. If disembedding three units of three from the four units of three produced by partitioning was not available to her, this would be a contraindication of her construction of recursive partitioning because it would indicate that she did not take a unit of units of units as a given in further operating. Laura denitely formed the goal of nding how much her part (one twelfth) was of the whole stick, but in doing so, nding one third of one fourth was only implicit in her activity. There was no indication that she explicitly made one third of one fourth because she shared one fourth of the stick among three people. This sharing activity would be sufcient to evoke sharing each of the remaining three covered parts. In this case, she would not need to intentionally engage in the operations of nding one third of one fourth and then ask herself how much that piece was of the whole stick. Rather, she could go directly to nding how much her part was of the whole stick without explicit consideration of one third of one fourth. By-passing this step was productive for her as she did produce one twelfth and the operations on which it was based. However, when she said three twelfths for how much the three of them together had of the whole pizza, she had just said one twelfth to indicate how much each share was of the whole pizza, so to answer three twelfths, all she needed to do was to unite the three parts together and use her partwhole fractional
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scheme to produce the answer. She could then use this way of operating to answer the question concerning the share of three people in terms of twelfths. For his reason, I could not impute a commensurate fractional scheme to her at this point in the teaching experiment even though she acted as if she had constructed the operations necessary to produce three twelfths as commensurate with one fourth. Moreover, because she shared one fourth of the stick among three people prior to saying her piece was one twelfth of the pizza, whether she engaged in recursive partitioning remains ambiguous because she had already formed a partitioning goal. Laura independently decided to share the visible one fourth of the stick among four people after she had completed the solving activity in Protocol IV. Her interactions with the teacher after partitioning the visible one fourth of the stick constitute further contraindication that she had constructed recursive partitioning. After using Parts to make the partition and Fill to ll the parts different colors, the teacher posed the opening question of Protocol V. Protocol V: Lauras conation of one sixteenth and four sixteenths. T: Ok, and here comes the question. What is your share, or my share, or Mr. Olives share of the whole? L: Four sixteenths. T: Is that my share? L: No, thats my share. T: Umm, can you tell me why? L: Because four times four is sixteen. T: Ok. That tells me that you have sixteen of them over here (points at the whole stick). But do you have four of them? L: No, but there are four pieces of pizza in all (points at the four visible parts of the stick). T: So, how much do you get? Do you get all of the four sixteenths? L: No. T: How much do you have? L: One piece of pizza. T: How much is your piece out of the whole pizza? L: One sixteenth. T: When you said four sixteenths, what did you mean? Did you think of something else? L: Yes, of something else. T: Of what? L: I dont know. T: How much is yours and mine? L: Two sixteenths. T: How much is yours, mine, and Dr. Olives? L: Three sixteenths. The way in which the teacher asked the question may have oriented Laura to interpret the question as pertaining to all four people rather than to each individual.11 In any event, her answer four sixteenths again indicates that sharing one of the four parts of the stick evoked sharing the three covered parts. It also indicates that she focused her attention on nding the fractional part that four shares of one fourth
11
The fourth person was left unnamed in the teachers question.
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of the stick was of the whole stick rather than on how much one fourth of one fourth of the stick was of the whole stick. For this reason, I still could not impute the operation of recursive partitioning to her nor could I impute a commensurate fractional scheme to her. There was good reason to believe that her partwhole fractional scheme was a reversible scheme because she formed the goal of nding how much the four parts of one fourth of the stick was of the whole stick.12 She also embedded the activity of units-coordinating within this reversible scheme in the sense that sharing one of four parts of a stick into four parts evoked sharing the three other parts of the stick into four parts. Lauras activity in the very next situation of learning posed following Protocol V contains corroboration that her partwhole fractional scheme was a reversible scheme and that she had embedded units-coordinating in that scheme. The teacher told her that her share was one thirty seconds, and asked her to gure out how many people would have to share the visible one fourth of the partially covered stick in order that she could get one thirty second. She immediately dialed Parts to 8 and clicked on the visible part. In answering the teachers question concerning why she knew how to do that, she said, Because eight times four is thirty-two. In other words, she could produce the partitioning operation, eight, given a result, one thirty seconds, of the units coordination. The corroboration of embeddedness is found in her explanation because it indicated that she used the inverse of her units-coordinating scheme to produce 8. Reversibility was involved in that one thirty seconds meant that the stick was partitioned into thirty-two parts. After she produced eight as the partitioning operation, the most signicant event of the teaching episode occurred. The teacher asked her how much three fourths is in terms of thirty seconds, and she answered, twenty four thirty seconds because eight times three is twenty-four. The consequences of this unexpected answer remain to be explored further in subsequent teaching episodes.
4. Lauras apparent construction of a fractional composition scheme Of interest in the teaching episode held on 8 February 1994 is whether Lauras production that one of three equal shares of one fourth of a stick is one twelfth of the stick meant that she could engage in the productive thinking that would be an indication of a fractional composition scheme. That is, was a fractional composition scheme in her zone of potential construction? To begin the investigation, after Laura had drawn a stick the length of the screen, the teacher asked Jason to make two halves in the stick and Jason partitioned the stick into two parts using Parts. Protocol VI: Lauras enactment of one half of one half. T: Lets say this is Jasons part (pointing to the left most one half of the stick), you see that this one (the whole stick) is the whole stick, and you took half of it. Now, you are going to take half of Jasons part. L: Right now? What do I do? T: Yeah, right now. Jason, pull that one out (points to the right most one half) and label it, please. J: (Pulls the right most one half out of the 2/2-stick and labels it 1/2.)
12 Laura did form the goal of nding how much one half of one fourth of a stick was of the whole stick in Protocol III, which is also an indication of reversibility of her scheme for making proper fractions.
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T: Laura, now you have to take one half of this one half (points to the left most one half of the stick.) L: Half of this half (picks the mouse up). Half of that half, half of that half . . . . Ok. (Clicks on Parts and 2 is already showing, so she clicks on the left most half of the stick. After coloring each of the two one fourth parts she made, pulls out one of the two parts.) T: (Points to the part Laura pulled out) You could label it in terms of the w-h-o-l-e stick (runs his nger along the whole stick)? J: (After a few seconds) I know (smiling). L: (After approximately tens seconds) a half of one half. T: Thats right. Thats a good one. So how much is it of the whole? J: I know it! L: I dont know! T: Can you use the computer to tell you? L: Measure it. (Clicks on Measure and then on the 1/4-stick, and 1/4 appears in the number box). T: Why is it (one fourth)? L: Because if you had all, if you had halved this one (points to the right most one half of the original 2/2-stick), this one would be one fourth (pointing to the 1/4-stick she pulled out). Half of that half, half of that half . . . . Ok. (Clicks on Parts and 2 is already showing, so she again clicks on the left most half of the stick and then drags the 1/4-stick underneath the left most one fourth of the original stick and then underneath the next one fourth.) After reenacting the teachers language Half of that half, half of that half . . . , it is not surprising that Laura partitioned the left most part of the 2/2-stick into two equal parts. Laura could obviously give meaning to Half of that half, at least enactively. However, she could not say how much it was of the whole stick. Nevertheless, she could explain (but not produce) why one half of one half is one fourth after she measured the stick that was one half of a 1/2-stick: Because if you had all, if you had halved this one (the right most one half of the original 2/2-stick), this one would be one fourth (pointing to the 1/4-stick she pulled out). This comment seems to indicate that she at least completed partitioning the 2/2-stick in her visual eld into a 4/4-stick. There is a crucial difference between explaining why one half of one half is one fourth after measuring the stick that was created by taking one half of a 1/2-stick, and in producing one fourth as referring to the measure of that stick prior to measuring it as did Jason when he said he knew the answer prior to measuring. After she knew that one half of one half is one fourth, only then did Laura partition the original stick into four parts. The difference seems to reside in the availability for Jason of the operations of recursive partitioning. When it was Lauras goal to explain why one half of one half is one fourth, she used her units-coordinating scheme in the context of connected numbers, which to the observer produced a composite unit containing two composite units of two. But whether she structured the results of using her scheme in this way is equivocal even though she did seem to be explicitly aware of two units of two after she measured one half of one half of the stick and found that it was one fourth of the stick. In any event, making one half of one half did not evoke her units-coordinating scheme, which is contraindication that she had constructed recursive partitioning. But it cannot be said that Laura was incapable of abstracting the operations she uses as indicated in Protocol VII.
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Protocol VII: Laura nding how much one half of one fourth is of the original stick: A contextual solution. T: Take half of this piece (points to the left most one fourth of the original 2/2-stick. By this time, the left most one half of the original 2/2-stick was marked into two parts and the right most one half was blank.) L: Lets see, that would be . . . one, two (in synchrony with moving her left hand and then her right hand.) And that one will be (eyes upward, mumbling to herself. She then turns and points to the teacher) I know what yours would be. (Sits quietly for approximately 80 seconds while the teacher and Jason interact concerning the situation.) T: (To Laura) Do you know? Do you want to say? L: (Puts two ngers up and moves them in synchrony with uttering) two, four, six, eight (gesturing toward the stick with her two ngers.) It would be one eighth. T: (Again, after interacting with Jason for approximately 50 seconds) Laura, how did you come to know it will be one eighth? L: (Leans toward the screen enthusiastically and refers to an 8/8-sick Jason had made during the approximately 50 seconds she sat idly) Because if you have, if you had just that one whole piece (points to the left most 2/8 of the 8/8-stick placing her right index nger on the left endpoint of the stick and her right thumb on the mark at the end of the second one eighth of the stick) you can just copy it (moves her extended right index nger and thumb along the 8/8-stick as if she is making copies of initial 2/8-stick. When moving, she places her right index nger and thumb so that they span each successive 2/8-stick.). I mean four pieces, and you halved it, so you have two in each, and two times, so two and four are . . . . Lauras goal was to nd how much one half of one fourth was of the original stick. Her comment, Because if you have, if you had just that one whole piece . . . you can just copy it. I mean four pieces, and you halved it, so you have two in each, and two times . . . does indicate that she viewed the whole stick on which she was operating as a 4/4-stick, and that she halved each fourth. It also indicates that she iterated the 2/8-stick to complete an 8/8-stick. Iteration was emerging in her partwhole fractional scheme, and she seemed to be in the process of transforming it into a partitive fractional scheme. Because she iterated the unit of two four times, the iteration emerged as an enactment of coordinating the units of four and two. Putting up two ngers up and moving them in synchrony with uttering 2, 4, 6, 8 while gesturing toward the stick with her two ngers and moving her extended right index nger and thumb along the 8/8-stick as if she is making copies of initial 2/8-stick, are both enactments of a units-coordination of four and two. Both completed the production of a connected number consisting of four units of two.13 But, to transform her partwhole scheme into a partitive fractional scheme, her iterative operation would need to emerge for unit fractions. Lauras operating occurred after she had explained why one half of one half is one fourth in Protocol VI, so the operations she used to partition each fourth into halves were still in a state of activation. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that such a re-enactment of immediate past operating in a new but highly related task would engender the construction of recursive partitioning in the context of nding a fraction of a fraction. So, the teacher continued on, exploring whether she could nd one half of one eighth.
13 In the case of counting by two, the results of the counting activity symbolized such a connected number as indicated by her moving her right index nger and thumb along the 8/8-stick.
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Protocol VII: (Cont.) T: That is so nice. So, what do you think will be your next step, after he labels it (Jason was trying to use Label to label the piece 1/8). L: Ah, half on that one (points at the rst part of the 8/8-stick)? T: Good, very good (raises thumbs up. Jason engages in extraneous activity for approximately 50 seconds in an attempt to label a one eighth part of the original 2/2-stick. At the completion of this activity, the teacher returns to Laura.) Can you tell me what will be the label, how much will it be out of the whole stick (one half of one eighth)? L: It will be, hold on, hold on. Lets see (after about ten seconds during which she touches each part of the 8/8-stick with the cursor) one sixteenth. T: (To Jason) What do you think? L: I know how to explain it. T: (To Laura) You just wait thats good (laughing). J: One eighteenth. T: One eighteenth? Ok, Laura, you explain, and then Jason, because you have a disagreement, . . . (intends for the children to work it out between the two of them). L: Because, that will be one eighth, ah, the pieces. All right, right there, since you halved it in there (points to the rst part of the 8/8-stick), theres eight pieces and you halved them so theres two, and two times eight is sixteen. T: (To Jason) How did you get eighteen? J: (While Laura is explaining, he pulls out a 1/8-stick and partitions it into two parts. He then repeats the 2/16-stick he made to produce a 16/16-stick) two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen. (He then counts each part of the 16/16-stick) I miscounted them (in consternation). Laura independently enacted distributing partitioning into two parts across each part of the 8/8-stick by touching each part with the cursor. Afterwards, her comment I know how to explain it indicated that the result of her activity was meaningful. So, her goal of nding how much one half of one eighth was of the original stick evoked the operation of distributing partitioning into two parts across the parts of the 8/8-stick, which is what units-coordinating means in the context of connected numbers. Coordinating the operations of partitioning into eight parts and partitioning into two parts was at least partially achieved in that, given the results of the rst partitioning, she could carry out the second partitioning to achieve the goal of nding one half of one eighth. This constitutes progress in that she now seemed more aware of the operation of units coordinating than previously. She had denitely abstracted a way of operating in the case of nding one half of one fourth, one eighth, or one sixteenth. Jason was caught up in the operations of TIMA: Sticks and, as a result, he had to extract himself from the experience of labeling, attempting to separate a label from the stick to which it was afxed, etc., in order to produce one sixteenth as the result of taking one half of one eighth. In fact, he actually partitioned a 1/8-stick into two parts and iterated it to produce a 16/16-stick while counting by twos when he reinitialized his solving activity to check his answer. This can be considered as an enactment of the mental operation of recursive partitioning that led to his answer, one eighteenth. Although this is one of those cases where his fascination with operating in TIMA: Sticks substantially interfered with using his fractional composition scheme at the level of re-presentation, when he found out that one eighteenth was not correct, he independently reinitiated his solving activity to eliminate his error rather than simply
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accept one sixteenth as the answer. His condence that his way of operating would produce the correct results and his engagement in independent self-corrections and verications was characteristic of his mathematical activity. In the very next task following the continuation of Protocol VII, the teacher intended to asked Laura to nd what one half of one sixteenth would be, but instead, inadvertently ask her to make half of a 1/8-stick. This unintended question opens the way for making an evaluation of Lauras ways of operating when nding one half of one eighth. Protocol VIII: Laura nding one half of one eighth for the second time. T: All right, its your turn to make it. Half of this one sixteenth, and then make it and label it (points to the rst one eighth part of the 8/8-stick. By this time, the 16/16-stick Jason made was moved to the Trash, but the 8/8-stick was directly below the original 2/2-stick, so that the rst parts of the two sticks were in almost perfect alignment). L: (Makes a copy of that part of the 8/8-stick to which the teacher pointed. She then partitions it into two parts using Parts and pulls out one of the two parts. She then repeats this stick into a 16/16-stick. She then labels the last part of the 16/16-stick 1/16 using Label.) In that Laura proceeded without comment, it is not certain that she knew that one half of one eighth was one sixteenth prior to iterating the part she pulled out sixteen times. If she did engage in iteration of the part to nd what fraction it was of the whole stick, this corroborates the inference that she had constructed a partitive fractional scheme as a result of her activity in Protocol VII and its continuation. But it would indicate more because it would imply that iteration had become part of the activity of a fractional composition scheme. If she already knew that the stick that was one half of the 1/8-stick was one sixteenth of the whole stick prior to iterating, then the iterative activity would be carried out in verication of the result of partitioning each of the eight parts into two parts. The latter seemed to be the case, because Jason pulled one part out of the 16/16-stick that Laura made in Protocol VIII and partitioned it into halves. After only ve seconds Laura repeatedly said, I know, I know, . . . . Moreover, she quickly calculated that one half of one thirty seconds would be one sixty fourths. In fact, she abstracted a pattern in a review of her activity. In explanation of how she found one sixty fourths, she commented, Because, right here all you had was two (the 2/2-stick) and you added two more and thats four. And four more would be eight, and eight more would be sixteen, and sixteen more would be thirty-two, and thirty-two more would be sixty-four. This pattern had to be constructed, and it was the result of using the results of prior operating in further operating. Abstracting this pattern establishes Lauras abstractive potential, but it occurred in the context of a regularity of operating using her units-coordinating scheme. Whether Laura had constructed recursive partitioning operations turns on whether she had constructed partitioning as a symbolic operation.
5. On the symbolic nature of Lauras partitioning operations A primary issue in attributing a fractional composition scheme to a child is whether partitioning one fourth of a stick into two equal parts symbolizes partitioning each of the other three fourths into two parts. That is, a key to the establishment of partitioning operations as recursive operations is to establish them as symbolic operations. Based on the above analysis of Lauras attempts to nd one half of one fourth, one eight, etc., was of the whole stick, it was apparent that her units-coordinating operations were symbolic operations. But this is not to say that taking a half of, say, one third would symbolize taking a
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half of each of three thirds. We have seen that Laura abstracted how to operate when partitioning each fourth, each eighth, etc., into halves. Whether similar anticipatory operating would emerge in the absence of immediate past experience was tested in a teaching episode that was held on 22 February 1994. The teacher introduced TIMA: Bars to the children in a teaching episode held on 15 February 1994, so in the current teaching episode, Laura was facile with the operations of this computer tool. Jason was absent, so it is possible to focus solely on Laura. The teacher started by drawing a bar and then copying the bar so that the two bars were side-by-side. Protocol IX: Laura attempting to nd a half of a half of a half. T: All right. Lets say we take turns like we did last week. Jason is not here, but lets say that he was here and he would have the rst turn of halving. Then you do the second one, and then Ill be the third one. After I nish mine, how much would you have here? How much would you have out of the whole (Laura was to use the copied bar)? L: (Sits silently for approximately 33 seconds) um, I am not sure. T: What were you thinking of. Before you do it, what were you thinking of? L: Can I do it? Well, and halving, and . . . one tiny little piece. T: Do you have a guess for how much it would be out of the whole? L: (Shakes her head no.) T: Ok, go ahead and see what happens. L: (Dials Parts to horizontal 2 and clicks on the bar. She then breaks the bar after the teacher made Break available and colors the top one half purple. She then interchanges the top and the bottom parts.) T: Now, that was Jasons turn. Now it will be your turn and then it will be mine. Will you be able to say now what will be my share? L: (Activates vertical Parts and moves the cursor to the lower half. Parts is still dialed to 2). Half will be there (points the cursor at the lower one half). Will it be one eighth? T: Wow! How did you know that? L: (Takes the mouse, points the cursor to the purple half) because if you halved that one, and then you would halve that one (the top one half), that would be four pieces. And then if you halved that one, then that will be eight! As Laura sat for approximately 33 seconds, the inference that she was in a state of perturbation is solid because when the teacher asked her what she was thinking of, she said, Can I do it? Well, and halving, and . . . one tiny little piece. This comment indicates that she was aware of a result of halving which was one tiny little piece. So, the inference that she was aware of a discrepancy between a situation that she visually experienced and this one tiny little piece that she anticipated making is corroborated by her saying, Well, and halving. That is, she knew that she needed engage in halving to produce this one tiny little piece, but she seemed unable to imagine herself engaging in successive halving operations in such a way that she could take the results of a current operation as input for the subsequent operation. Once Laura broke the bar into halves, she partitioned one of the two pieces into halves and then apparently imagined partitioning one of the four imagined pieces into halves. All she needed to do to make the second partition was to imagine partitioning the two visible halves produced by the rst partition of the bar into two parts each. However, to make the third partition, she seemed to at least generate an image of the results of making one half of one half and imagine herself partitioning this part of the bar into halves. To produce eight parts as quickly as she did, partitioning one half of one half into two parts
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would need to symbolize partitioning the three other imagined parts. That is, to account for how she knew that halving one of the four parts would produce eight parts And then if you halved that one, then that will be eight! the specic act of halving one fourth would need to symbolize partitioning each of the other three fourths. But there was an important restriction on her symbolizing activity as indicated in the continuation of Protocol IX. Protocol IX: (Cont.) T: Can you think what would be the fth persons share? Lets say that Jason is the fourth, and you will be the fth. What will be yours? L: (After about only ve seconds) one twelfth. T: One twelfth? L: Can I show you? T: Ok, go ahead. Do what ever you want. L: (After a pause) can I go a little bit further? (Horizontally partitions the bottom one half of the copied bar into two parts and breaks the partitioned bar. She then drags one part and places it directly over the original bar, tting it into the bottom of the bar. She then drags the second part and places it directly over the rst part so that two parts cover the bottom one half of the original bar. She then moves the cursor for about eight seconds over the original bar as if trying to count parts of the bar that she imagines.) That will be one sixteenth. T: One sixteenth. L: Sixteen, sixteen pieces. T: The fth person? Can you explain to me why? L: Because if you do twelve, you have to cut these into threes (each fourth), and so you cant cut it into threes. And so you have to cut it into fourths. In her partitioning activity in the continuation of Protocol IX, Laura did not start with one eighth, the results of her prior partitioning activity in Protocol IX. This suggests that it was necessary for her to again engage in imagining partitioning the bottom one half of the bar into two parts and then imagine partitioning the top half of the bar likewise. That is, she needed the presence of the visible bars in order to operate. In fact, she structured the original bar into fourths when placing the one fourth of the bar she made from the copy at the bottom of the original bar in that she knew that four of these parts she placed at the bottom of the bar would cover the bar. She then somehow partitioned each of these imagined parts into four parts to produce one sixteenth. Laura explained that, to produce one twelfth, she partitioned each of the four parts into three parts.14 After the teacher cast doubt on her answer, it is important to note that she was successful in producing sixteenths as a result of operating using the bars. She placed the two fourths that she made over the original bar and then imagined partitioning the whole bar using these parts as a guide. The most plausible explanation of how she operated is that she partitioned the bottom most fourth into two parts because that is what she had already done in the case of three people in Protocol IX, and then partitioned each of these two parts into two parts again, for a total of four parts.15 She then counted by fours four times to produce sixteen. In that she said one sixteenth rather than sixteen indicates she imagined herself pulling one of the sixteen parts from the whole bar.
14 15
Laura made only four partitions even though the teacher asked her to make ve. This interpretation is consistent with how she operated in Protocol X that follows.
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So, given the results of taking one half of one half of the bar (a 1/4-bar), Laura was quite able to imagine partitioning this 1/4-bar into two parts and then each of these imagined parts into two parts again. In doing so, her partitioning operations were carried out using the bars in her visual eld. Nevertheless, imagining partitioning the 1/4-bar into two parts and then each of these two parts into two parts again for a total of four parts referred to partitioning each of the three other fourths she knew would t on the original bar, and in that sense partitioning was symbolic. One could claim that she lifted the results of partitioning the 1/4-bar into four parts from the activity and then projected them into the three other parts of the original bar. Laura seemed constrained to imagining herself making only two successive partitions because she actually made the rst of the two partitions and then proceeded to imagine herself making two more partitions. Even though imagining herself partitioning each part of a two-partition of a 1/4-bar into two parts produced results [four parts] that were transferable to the other three fourths (so it can be said they symbolized partitioning the other three parts), she actually engaged in distributing the four parts over the other three parts [fourths] in visualized imagination [she moved the cursor over the original bar as if trying to count the parts of the bar that she imagines]. So, symbolically here doesnt mean that the actual activity of partitioning was symbolized by, say, the phrase four times four. Rather, it means that the conceptual material produced by partitioning was projected into the other three parts of the bar and served as material for making countable parts of the bars. It was only then that number words became involved. Corroboration that Lauras way of operating in Protocol IX was established by her as more or less permanent is contained her activity in Protocol X. The teacher and Laura were now to make thirds rather than halves, and Laura made a copy of the bar and partitioned it horizontally into thirds. The teacher then asked her if she had any idea of how much the one part of the second thirding would be of the whole bar, and Laura answered, one sixth. In an enactive explanation of her answer, she dialed Parts to 2 and clicked on each of three parts that she had covered the original bar with, apparently repeating what she had just done in the previous situation. The teacher decided to accept her partitioning activity without further comment, and asked her to show him what would be 1/6 of the whole bar. Laura pulled out one of the two parts of the lowest of the three bars that covered the original bar, which was indeed one sixth of the whole bar. She then organized the bars on the screen as shown in Fig. 1. In the organization, a 1/6-bar remained at the bottom of the original bar (the left-most rectangular region in Fig. 1), and three equal parts of the copied bar were arranged in a rectangular region, the lowest of which was partitioned into two parts (the right-most rectangular region in Fig. 1). The teacher then told Laura that he was going to third the sixth while pointing to the lowest part of the right most rectangular region.
Fig. 1. The situation of Protocol X.
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Protocol X: Laura nding one third of one eighteenth. T: Now, before you do it, can you tell me how much it will be of the whole bar? L: (Tries to drag the 1/6-bar at the bottom of the original bar upward along the original, and then asks if she can repeat it. She then repeats the 1/6-bar into a 6/6-bar using Repeat. The 6/6-bar now covers the original bar.) Theres going to be one eighteenth! T: One eighteenth?! How did you know that? L: You split them into three pieces, and they are six. So, three times six is eighteen. T: (Points to the lowest part of the right bar in Fig. 1) So, if you would do it with that one, if you would split that one into sixths, would this still be one eighteenth? L: (Makes a copy of the indicated part and partitions it into three vertical parts without answering the teacher, indicating how she made one eighteenth.) T: Now it will be your turn. You will do halving of the one eighteenth. L: Can we do it this way (indicating a horizontal direction with the mouse)? T: Yeah. But you want to think how much it will be before you do it. L: (Instead of halving, Laura engages in thirding. She makes another copy of the indicated 1/6-bar of the right bar in Fig. 1 and partitions it into three horizontal parts. She then tries to mentally partition the lowest part of the 6/6-bar that covers the original bar into thirds and then each one of these thirds into thirds while counting the results of these two mentally co-occurring partitions. But she stops and drags the partitioned part the three part 1/6-bar over the lowest part of the 6/6-bar, presumably nding it too difcult. She then positions the cursor successively three times on each part of the 6/6-bar counting by three from the bottom most part to the upper most part while subvocally uttering number words.) One fty fourth!! T: One fty fourth! How did you know that? L: Because you divide these into three pieces, and theres six of those, and theres three inside of those (pointing with the mouse to indicate three pieces in each one eighteenth.) So, I just counted three into each one of them. When Laura engaged in thirding, she tried to mentally partition the lowest part of the 6/6-bar into three parts and then partition each of the resulting three parts into three parts and count these latter results, 3, 6, 9. However, nding this too difcult, she simplied her way of operating. She moved the 1/6-bar that she partitioned horizontally into three parts over the lowest part of the 6/6-bar. This partitioned part then seemed to symbolize each of the other parts being similarly partitioned because she took each part of the 6/6-bar being further partitioned into three parts as given. That simplied the process considerably, because she now enacted mentally partitioning each of the three parts of each 1/6-bar into three parts, as indicated by successively pointing at three places on each of the six parts. She also apparently counted the parts she produced, three, six, nine, twelve, fteen, eighteen; . . . ; forty eight, fty one, fty four. That she mentally enacted partitioning each of the three parts of each 1/6-bar into three parts is solidly indicated by her comment, So, I just counted three into each one of them. Apparently, Laura was yet unable to partition a given bar in her perceptual eld into three parts, take the results of those operations as input for partitioning each of the three parts into three further parts, and then compound each trio of parts together into a unit of three units each of which contains three units, and use this composite unit of numerosity nine as input for her counting scheme. First partitioning the bottom most one sixth into three parts and then each one of these three parts into three parts to produce nine
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parts that she could then distribute across the parts of the 6/6-bar would seem to have been ready-at-hand for Laura. However, she seemed unable to switch between using three as a partitioning operation and as a result of this operation and then use the results as input for again partitioning the units produced into threes. That is, partitioning into three did not seem to be a recursive partitioning operation even though she could operate as if the operation was recursive when using visual material.
6. Further progress in partitioning the results of a prior partition The teachers goal in the 1 March 1994 Teaching Episode was to induce a functional accommodation in how Laura operated in Protocol X by progressing to a situation where it would be impractical for Laura to count as she did in the case of the 6/6-bar (she counted by threes three times for each sixth of the 6/6-bar). In the case of partitioning the 1/6-bar into three parts, Laura did use her knowledge of multiplication facts to produce eighteen, the number of parts produced by partitioning each sixth into thirds. The question of the teacher now was whether Laura would abstract the structure of her operating in situations like that of making thirds of eighteenths. Jason was present for this teaching episode, and so it became the goal of the teacher to explore how Jason would operate in these rather complex partitioning situations as a contrast to how Laura operated. Given that he had constructed a fractional composition scheme, the question of the teacher was whether he would take the results of partitioning a partition as a given. That is, would he use, say, nine as a symbol for the results of partitioning one ninth of a 9/9-bar into three parts and then each of these three parts into three parts? The situation of Protocol XI was based on the children having already made a bar and a copy of the bar, and then partitioning the copy into thirds and breaking the partitioned bar. The teacher then asked the children how much one third of the 1/3-bar would be of the whole bar. He asked the children before they began to work further, Now, before you do it, how much do you think the partition will be after you nish? When you nish breaking it and you get one piece? Both children knew that it would be one ninth and Jason explained, You break them in pieces, in three, each one of those boxes, and then another box there will be six, and another one will be nine. He then broke the upper most 1/3-bar into three pieces as in Fig. 2. Protocol XI: Finding one third of one ninth. T: OK, Laura, now it is your turn. But before you do anything (in the microworld), the next turn is going to be thirding the one ninth. How much of the whole will you have after you nish?
Fig. 2. The situation of Protocol XI.
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J: (Almost immediately) one eighteenth! L: (Takes the mouse) (Points to each of the 1/9-bars from the top down with the mouse cursor while subvocally uttering number words) three, six, nine. (She then touches the cursor to the middle 1/3-bar) twelve. (She then starts over after Jason says one eighteenth, counting by three until she reaches twelve, and then starts over once again touching each 1/9-bar with the mouse cursor) three, six, nine (touches the middle 1/3-bar with the mouse cursor) twelve. (She then puts up three ngers on her partially visible left hand while subvocally uttering number words) fteen. (She continues on in this way until she has covered each 1/3-bar with three placements of the mouse cursor. She then points to the lower most 1/9-bar, pauses and then points with the mouse cursor as described.) One twenty seventh! T: One twenty seventh. (To Jason) and you said one eighteenth. All right, lets see . . . Do you want to explain rst? J: Ok, ah, I counted two boxes (points to the middle 1/3-bar). T: Ok, thats sound. Very good. So, explain to me what you have done, and then explain what was the problem. J: Ah, I thought, in my mind, I made three small, three pieces (pointing at the 1/9-bars as diagrammed in Fig. 2), and um, and then three here and three there (points at the bottom two 1/9-bars), and thats nine. And then nine plus, ah, two is eighteen, because theres nine in here (points to the top three 1/9-bars), so theres supposed to be nine in here (points at the middle 1/3-bar). So, I thought it was eighteen. One twenty seventh. T: Why is it one twenty seventh? J: Because there are three boxes. And I thought there were only two. I counted two of them. T: So you counted only these (points to the two unpartitioned 1/3-bars)? J: Um Hmm. (Yes). T: Alright, Laura. How did you come to one twenty seventh? L: I had three (points with the mouse cursor to the upper most 1/9-bar), so it is one, two, three, four, ve, six, seven, eight, nine (pointing to each 1/9-bar), and to each box like that (points to the middle 1/3-bar), till I come up with the answer. Even though Jason said one eighteenth rather than one twenty seventh, it is clearly indicated from his explanation that he took the result of partitioning each of the three 1/9-bars into three parts each, which is nine, as a given Ah, I thought, in my mind, I made three small, three pieces (pointing at the 1/9-bars as diagrammed in Fig. 2), and um, and then three here and three there (points at the bottom two 1/9-bars), and thats nine. It is also clearly indicated that he projected nine into the two unpartitioned 1/3-bars And then nine plus, ah, two is eighteen, because theres nine in here (points to the top three 1/9-bars), so theres supposed to be nine in here (points at the middle 1/3-bar). So, I thought it was eighteen. Upon further questioning by the teacher, Jason agreed that eighteen referred to how many of these small pieces were in the two unpartitioned 1/3-bars. Changing his answer to one twenty seventh was done, not simply to agree with Laura, but rather as a logical necessity once he realized that he was to nd what part one of the small pieces was of the whole of the three 1/3-bars. So, Jason operated in a manner that is compatible with what one would expect of a child who has constructed recursive partitioning. Laura, on the other hand, did not take nine, the results of counting the parts produced by partitioning each 1/9-bar into three parts, as a given and project it into each of the other 1/3-bars. Rather, she seemed to mentally partition each 1/3-bar into three parts and then each
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one of these imagined parts into three parts before counting the results of this partitioning activity by three. Presumably, because she didnt know the number word sequence three, six, nine, twelve, fteen, eighteen, twenty one, twenty four, twenty seven, she resorted to counting by one to generate the next number word of the sequence past nine. It could be also argued that she took the structure of partitioning each of the three 1/9-bars into three parts each as a given, and projected that structure into each 1/3-bar rather than mentally partitioning each 1/3-bar into three parts. The argument is based on an indication that she was aware of three composite units of three elements each. The indication is that when she counted by three over the two 1/3-bars, she placed the mouse cursor at three distinct locations on each 1/3-bar from the top and proceeding to the bottom of each bar. Because her counting activity was interiorized at the third level of interiorization, it is quite possible that the results of counting {(10, 11, 12), (13, 14, 15), (16, 17, 18)} and {(19, 20, 21), (22, 23, 24), (25, 23, 27)} were recorded at this level of interiorization. It is a possibility because, when partitioning a 1/3-bar into three 1/9-bars and then each 1/9/bar into three parts, she was not simply operating on perceptual material. She placed the mouse cursor at a specic place and then mentally partitioned the indicated part of the bar into three parts. What this means is that she projected three equal parts into the 1/3-bar, which in turn means that the 1/3-bar embodied her numerical concept, three. That is, she made the connected number, three, and maintained its units as material for further partitioning. So, the units of the connected number, three, that she made in her visual eld were not simply perceptual unit items. Rather, they were implementations of her arithmetical unit items contained in her numerical concept, three. So, the counting activity in which she engaged possibly could serve as an occasion for her to interiorize making a partition using the results of a preceding partition. It is a distinct possibility because operating at the third level of interiorization means that she could make units of units of units in operating. In the following continuation of Protocol XI, initially it was Lauras intention to make twenty-seven 1/27-bars. Protocol XI: (Cont.) T: (To Laura) All right. Do you want to make them? L: (Makes a copy of the lower most 1/9-bar and drags it to the bottom of the original bar. She then repeats it upward nine times so that the resulting 9/9-bar exactly covers the original bar. She then tries to partition each 1/9-bar of the 9/9-bar into three horizontal parts using Parts, but Parts was not designed to partition the individual elements of a prior partition unlike Parts in TIMA: Sticks. After making three attempts) why isnt it doing it again? T: Do you have any suggestions, Jason? L: (Immediately after the teachers comment) Because all of them are going this way (moves her hand horizontally back and forth across the 9/9-bar). T: So? L: I can do them up and down! T: Al right. L: All I have to do is to (Activates vertical Parts which is already dialed to 3. She then clicks on the 9/9-bar. The results were as pictured in Fig. 3.) T: (Surprised) what have you done here? . . . explain to me right now. You showed me something, but Im not sure what. L: (Tries to repartition the 27/27-bar, rst with three horizontal and then three vertical parts. However, the partitioning segments were a part of the horizontal and vertical segments already on the bar. She moves the 27/27-bar around in apparent frustration.)
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Fig. 3. Lauras introduction of vertical parts.
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So, how many pieces do you have here altogether (the 27/27-bar). Twenty-seven. (Nods her head yes.) (To Laura) Pullout. (Tires to pull a 1/27-bar from the 27/27-bar, but she is unsuccessful.) (Eventually) why dont you go and use his one (points to the uppermost 1/9-bar of the copy)? Do the thirding on that one, on the yellow one. (Using horizontal Parts, clicks on the uppermost 1/9-sick of the copy, breaks the result into three parts and drags the lower part to the bottom of the screen as shown in Fig. 4.) So, this (the lowest 1/27-bar) is how much of the whole? One twenty seventh. One twenty seventh. Ok (to Jason) now its going to be your turn. You have to third, to do the thirding of the one twenty-seventh. Think how much are you going to get after you nish. (Puts his head in his hands in deep concentration.) (Looks intently at the screen and points to it in synchrony with subvocally uttering number words) one, two, three, four, ve, six. (Looks away from the screen, whispers) Three, twenty-seven. (Moves a nger in the air as if she is using her computational algorithm. She abruptly looks downward and ceases to move her nger, but now whispers) three times seven is twenty-one; two, three times two is six. Add the two, so its twenty-one and sixty. I know. (To Jason) You dont know?
Fig. 4. The result of partitioning one ninth into thirds.
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I dont know. What did you say (Turns to L)? One eighty-one. How did you know that? Because all I had to do is twenty-seven divided by, I mean times three. How did you know to do that? That is very nice. Because if you put these three together (points ambiguously to the three long, narrow horizontal 1/27-bars made by breaking the uppermost 1/9-bar of the copy into three parts) they are equal to one of those (pointing at the bottom most vertically partitioned 1/9-bar) and there are twenty-seven of those!
At the beginning of the continuation of Protocol XI down to Fig. 3, Laura enacted making a 9/9-bar. Moreover, she attempted to partition each of the nine parts of the 9/9-bar she made into three parts each. After her attempts were blocked, she introduced vertical Parts and partitioned the 9/9-bar into a 27/27-bar. This partitioning activity provided an occasion for Laura to demonstrate that she understood that a 1/27-bar was indeed a 1/27-bar regardless of whether it was one of the twenty-seven parts produced by horizontally partitioning each of the nine horizontal parts, or by vertically partitioning all of the nine parts simultaneously. When she explained how she arrived at one eighty-one, she combined the three 1/27-bars together she produced by horizontally partitioning one of the 1/9-bars of the copy and equated these three parts with one of the twenty-seven parts she produced by vertically partitioning 1/9-bar. This is a very important nding because it indicates that it was a logical necessity that the two rectangular regions were of equal area even though they were of different dimensions because they each were one of twenty-seven equal parts of identical rectangular regions. She then proceeded to count how many parts she would produce if she continued on partitioning each one of the three parts produced by partitioning a 1/27-bar. The action of counting by three and the anticipation of performing this counting action twenty-seven times led to the activation of her computational algorithm for multiplication, which she executed mentally while looking away from the computer screen. At the point in the continuation of Protocol XI where she changed from counting by threes to calculating using her computational multiplying algorithm, a case can be made that she abstracted coordinating the elements of the two composite units twenty-seven and three. That is, she abstracted projecting each unit of three into the units of twenty-seven, and ran through the coordinating process in thought, producing twenty-seven threes. This mental activity is indicated by her comment, Because all I had to do is twenty-seven divided by, I mean times three. Her changing from counting in modules of three to calculating also indicates it. Recognizing the situation as a multiplicative situation and then using her computational algorithm indicates that her computational algorithm stood in for the results of counting by three twenty-seven times. But it also indicates that Laura was using her units-coordinating scheme to operate. Whether her curtailment of counting by three indicated recursive partitioning remained an open question. In contrast to Laura, who recognized the situation as one in which she could multiply as she had in the past, Jason seemed to regard the situation as novel, as one that he had not solved in the past. This would explain why he sat in deep concentration and eventually said, I dont know when the teacher asked if he knew. Subsequent exploration by the teacher revealed that the block in Jasons use of recursive partitioning resided in his not equating partitioning the 1/27-bar of the copy to partitioning a 1/27-bar of the 27/27-bar covering the original.
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7. Finding the sum of one third and one fourth One of the basic reasons for concentrating on bringing forth fractional composition and commensurate fractional schemes in the children is that they are seemingly essential in the construction of a fractional adding scheme. For example, Jason could partition a 1/4-bar into three parts and nd the fractional part of the unit bar constituted by one of these three parts. Moreover, he could partition a 1/3-bar into four parts and nd the fractional part of the unit bar constituted by one of these four parts. However, if the goal was to nd the fractional part of the unit bar comprised by the join of a 1/3-bar and a 1/4-bar, he would need to use his ways of operating in the service of a goal different than the goals his fractional composition and commensurate fractional schemes previously served. Consequently, at this point in the teaching episode, it was not known how these two schemes might be used in the construction of a fractional adding scheme nor was it known what other schemes might be involved in such a construction. So, to explore these questions, in the 8 March 1994 Teaching Episode the teacher introduced the children to the task of nding the fractional part of a unit bar that one fourth of the bar and one third of the bar together comprise to explore if they could construct a fractional adding scheme. To start the teaching episode, Jason partitioned a copy of a unit bar into three parts upon the teachers request, and Laura then partitioned the lower most of the three parts into four parts and pulled out one of these parts. Laura said that one of the parts she made would be one twelfth of the unit bar and Jason agreed, explaining, Cause there are four in one box, and there are three boxes, and three times four is twelve. Laura then made two copies of the 4/12-bar she made and covered the unit bar with this 4/12-bar and the two copies. Jason then dragged one of these 4/12-bars back under the two 1/3-bars of the copy and produced the conguration shown in Fig. 5. The teacher then asked the children how much the two 4/12-bars were of the whole bar. Protocol XII: Establishing that four twelfths and four twelfths is eight twelfths, and that eight twelfths and two thirds are commensurate fractions. T: Could you tell me how much these are of the whole (pointing at the two 4/12-bars)? J: Ahh, one twelfths. T: These two pieces together (surrounding the bars with his ngers). If you join them together. J: Oh, eight twelfths!
Fig. 5. The situation of Protocol XII.
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I know how much. (To Laura) what did you say? Ahh, eight twelfths. Eight twelfths. Why is it? Because there are eight pieces and there were twelve. Is there another fraction that you can think about, another fraction name? (Immediately) one third I mean two thirds. Two thirds? (To Laura) What do you say? Two thirds. Why is that? Because there are two blocks . . . . (With Laura) Because there are two big pieces and theres three in all. Yeah.
Protocol XII is presented to establish that the question, Could you tell me how much these are of the whole (pointing at the two 4/12-bars)? was interpreted appropriately by both children and, moreover, that they could produce eight twelfths as a result of combining the two 4/12-bars together. It is presented also to establish that both children could produce four twelfths and one third as commensurate fractions. The teacher then presented the task of Protocol XIII. A unit bar and a copy of the unit bar were on the screen. Protocol XIII: T: J: T: J: T: L: J: L: T: J: T: J: L: Finding what fractional part a 1/4-bar and a 1/3-bar together make of a unit bar. (To Jason) Ok, now you are the thirder. Take one third of that bar (the unit bar). One third of that (pointing to the unit bar)? Yeah. (Partitions the unit bar into three parts using horizontal Parts and pulls one part out using Pull Out, and then places it on the lower of two mats). Laura, could you use that one (the copy of the unit bar) to take your fourth? (Drags the copy of the unit bar over the unit bar, partitions it into four parts using horizontal Parts, and tries to pull one part out.) I got a bigger piece (trying to tease Laura)! (Finishes pulling out one of the four parts she made, drags the 1/3-bar Jason made to the upper mat and places hers on the lower mat.) Ok, now, if we take both of your shares, the one third and the one fourth, how much of the whole do we get? (Immediately) One seventh. Wait . . . . Oh, out of that (pointing his nger toward the screen, but it is not possible to tell what he was referring to). Of the unit. Yeah, out of the whole. Both of your shares together. One seventh, oh, two sevenths . . . . Oh no (looks disconcerted). (Pulls out another one third from the 3/3-bar Jason made and another one fourth of the 4/4-bar she made, and then places them on the unit bar with the 1/4-bar directly above the 1/3-bar as shown in the middle rectangle of Fig. 6). That much!!
The teachers question, Ok, now, if we take both of your shares, the one third and the one fourth, how much of the whole do we get? was meaningful for both Jason and Laura. Jasons answer, One
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Fig. 6. Laura comparing one fourth and one third of the unit bar to the unit bar.
seventh was immediate, and although it could be regarded as indicating that the teachers question was not meaningful for him, he knew immediately that one seventh was not right, as indicated by his saying, Wait . . . . Oh, out of that. He also rejected the other possibility found by adding one and one, and three and four. These two self-regulations crucially indicate that Jason compared the two parts together to the whole and rejected two sevenths as tting that comparison. It would seem that it was intuitive for him that two sevenths of the unit bar was a smaller part of the unit bar than the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar together, so the latter two bars together could not be two sevenths of the bar. His rejection that one fourth and one third was neither one seventh nor two sevenths was gratifying, because it implies that there is no reason for children to assimilate the observers fractional addition situations using their schemes for nding the sum of whole numbers without inducing discrepancies between the results of the assimilation (one seventh) and the results expected through the use of their fractional schemes (comparing the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar together with the 3/3 unit-bar). Lauras placing a copy of each bar on the unit bar and declaring, That much!! demonstrates the use of her reversible partitive fractional scheme. What is different in the actions of the two children is that Laura did not assimilate the situation using her adding scheme for whole numbers. Rather, she operated directly with the gurative material rather than attempt to generate a fractional number word. Laura did eventually generate seven twenty-fourths and Jason eight twelfths as explained in the rst continuation of Protocol XIII, but how they did it was made possible by the conguration in Fig. 6. Without this conguration and without the guidance of the teacher, they could not have produced these fractional number words. Nevertheless, the operations of mentally joining two fractional parts of a connected number together and then comparing the joined parts to the connected number were available to the children. As these are operations of a fractional adding scheme, it can be said that both children could establish situations of a possible fractional adding scheme but had no activity that they could use to calculate the fractional part of the whole comprised by the joined parts. I now turn to the further activity of establishing possible activity of a fractional adding scheme in the rst continuation of Protocol XIII. Protocol XIII: T: L: T: L: T: L: (First Cont.) (Smiles) How much is it out of the whole? Thats right. Well, I can measure it! Well, before your measure it . . . . One . . . one . . . one and one third. One and one third, what do you mean by that? I dont get the idea. Well, there are three pieces in here (accurately estimating that the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar in the middle rectangle of Fig. 6 would t three times in the 1/4-bar!).
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Then, there is one whole piece in the bottom (meaning the bottom 1/3-bar), and if you put, like, ah, I have to see something . . . . How much do you think this tiny little piece is (the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar)? One half? One? That little piece right there? Out of the whole thing? Well, one um, one twenty-fourth. One twenty-fourth? (To Jason) Now, what do you say? One twelfth! One eighth. (To Jason) One twelfth. (To Laura) One eighth. Now, you have three numbers. Do you want to work and see why one twenty fourth and why one twelfth? Wait . . . Four, eight . . . . Hey, let me see. (Points excitedly at the screen) The little one over there (the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar) ts into this (referring to a 1/3-bar) four times! So, four and the other ones .... Well, there will be four pieces in that little square (Points with the mouse cursor to the middle 1/3-bar), and four pieces in that one (the top 1/3-bar), and four pieces in that one (the bottom 1/3-bar). Theyre twelve, and that makes it one twelfth of the whole! I see. So you said this one is one twelfth because it goes four here, four here, and four here. (To Laura) What do you say? Yeah, that part, but I thought you said out of two of them (the unit bar and its copy). Oh, I see!!! Ok, so you gured out that this one is one twelfth out of the whole. But you still did not answer the question of how much this one and this one together are out of the whole. Oh. Ahh, eight twelfths! (Points to the screen subvocally uttering number words) I still think one and one third. Which I dont understand. So, would you please explain? Because that right there is one whole piece (points to the lowest 1/3-bar), and then four of these t in here (referring to the middle 1/3-bar and to the outlined 1/12-bar). So, that will be one whole (the bottom most 1/3-bar) and three pieces will go in there (the 1/4-bar), so it will be one whole and one third. Oh, so you think of that as one (pointing at the lower 1/3-bar and looking at Laura). (Immediately) No, wait, that would be one and three fourths (again using the lower 1/3-bar as a unit bar). I see. Ok, but the question that I asked was how much are these two out of the whole (points to the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar) in one fraction. (To Jason) And you came up with eight twelfths. (To Laura) Can you think if Jasons right or wrong? Or do you think it is something else, because that was very nice (her analysis of one and three fourths). (Looks intently at the screen, and subvocally utters number words). See, I want to do something. (Makes a copy of the 1/4-bar and partitions it into three parts using Parts. He then moves it over the 1/4-bar in the middle rectangle of Fig. 6. As a result, the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar which had been placed on top of the 3/3-bar are
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now hidden behind the 3/3-bar so that the partitioned 1/4-bar is the only bar on top of the 3/3-bar.16 ) See, there are one, two, three, four (counting the three parts he sees in the 1/4-bar and the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar). And then, put that right there (drags the partitioned 1/4-bar down over the bottom most section of the lowest 1/3-bar) one, two, three, four (again counting the parts). And then, put that right up there (drags the partitioned 1/4-bar to the top most 1/3-bar and places it over the bottom most section) and there are one, two, three, four. So, there are twelve (parts) and then you asked for that one and that one (pointing to the lower two 1/3-bars). And that one is eight twelfths. (In the middle of Jasons activity) twelve twenty fourths. I asked for that one (places the partitioned 1/4-bar back on top of the middle 1/3-bar) and that one (the lower 1/3-bar), all together. So, do you have eight over there? Um hum (yes). I said twelve . . . . You said twelve twenty fourths. Why was that? Um, no (moves the mouse cursor over the two bars). Its seven out of twenty-four. Seven twenty fourths. Why is that? Cause four of those, (moves the cursor over the four parts she sees in the middle of the 3/3-bar) those right there can t in here one time (the lower 1/3-bar). And theres three, so thats seven, so it is seven out of twenty-four, thats seven twenty fourths.
This is the rst attempt that Jason and Laura made to construct operations that they could use to nd the fractional part of the unit bar comprised by the join of the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar. Lauras decision to measure it was surprising, and had the teacher allowed her to measure, it would have eliminated the perturbation induced by the expectation that the fractional part the union of the two bars was of the unit bar could be found. That is, she would have no reason to try to nd a way of operating what would lead her to her goal. Her answer, One . . . one . . . one and one third was her rst attempt to nd a fraction for the union of the two bars, and the teacher could nd no rational basis for it. His comment, I dont get the idea was not offered simply because he wanted to provoke Laura in further explore why she said one and one third, but it was offered so he might understanding her reasoning. Her comment, Well, there are three pieces in here (the 1/4-bar) was again surprising because it indicates that she mentally segmented the 1/4-bar using the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar as shown in Fig. 6. The teacher asked her how much the tiny little piece was of the unit bar, and Laura said one twenty fourth and Jason said one twelfth. Both of these answers were rational. Lauras was based on her segmenting both the unit bar and the copy into twelve parts each and Jasons was based on mentally segmenting each 1/3-bar into four parts each: Well, there will be four pieces in that little square (Points with the mouse cursor to the middle 1/3-bar), and four pieces in that one (the top 1/3-bar), and four pieces in that one (the bottom 1/3-bar). Theyre twelve, and that makes it one twelfth of the whole! Laura also mentally segmented the three 1/3-bars: (Points excitedly at the screen) The little one over there ts into this (referring to a 1/3-bar) four times! So, four and the other ones. . . . The decisions of the children to use the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar was based on Lauras initial attempt to nd how much the two bars together were of the unit bar. Her observation that Well, there are three pieces in here was denitely the result of her visually projecting the region outlined by
16 Clicking on a bar with the mouse cursor hides any part of another bar resting on the bar behind the bar. Jason inadvertently clicked on the 3/3-bar when placing the 1/4-bar on top of it, thus hiding the 1/3-bar and the 1/4-bar behind the 2/3-bar.
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Fig. 7. Laura mentally segmented the unsegmented part.
the complement of the 1/4-bar in the middle 1/3-bar. One might say that Fig. 7, formed by part of Fig. 6, was incomplete for her, and to complete it she mentally segmented the unsegmented part. She was yet to segment the 1/3-bar below this middle 1/3-bar, and it wasnt until she excitedly pointed at the screen while saying, The little one over there ts into this four times is there solid indication that she explicitly segmented all three of the 1/3-bars. Her answer of one twenty fourth did occur prior to this explanation, and it can be explained if it is assumed that partitioning the middle 1/3-bar symbolized partitioning the others. This would leave open the possibility that the experience of mentally partitioning what was only symbolized would induce a state of mental excitement. It cannot be said whether Jasons segmenting activity was initiated independently of Lauras explanation for why she said, one and one third. But his subsequent segmentation of the three 1/3-bars into four parts each was self-initiated and it served to eliminate the perturbation induced by the teachers question, How much is it out of the whole? Jason answered eight twelfths. In joining the two lower 1/3-bars together when producing eight twelfths, Jason conated the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar on which it was placed in his explanation for his answer. When placing the partitioned copy of the 1/4-bar on top of each 1/3-bar, he counted the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar as if it was also a part of the partitioned 1/4-bar. This conation indicates that it was not his explicit goal to nd the fractional part the two bars (the 1/3- and the 1/4-bar) together was of the unit bar because he could easily disembed a part of a connected number from the connected number. Rather, the goal he established was to nd another fraction for two thirds. As a result of partitioning each 1/3-bar into four parts, Laura eventually said that the two bars together made one and three fourths. In this answer, she took a 1/3-bar as a unit bar, so her answer was still based on an internally consistent if eeting way of operating. After the teacher asked her to think if Jason was right or wrong, she changed her unit bar to be the unit bar and its copy, and answered twelve twenty fourths. The teacher again intervened and asked her, Why was that? and Laura then disembedded seven out of twenty-four and said, thats seven twenty fourths. The discussion of the rst continuation of Protocol XIII illustrates the crucial role of the teachers interventions in the childrens interpretation of the computer graphics. In that each child produced a different answer to what to an observer was the same situation, Jason, eight twelfths and Laura, seven twenty fourths, the role that assimilation plays in the production of these answers is incontestable. The childrens varied interpretations were cause for the teacher to forge ahead in an attempt to induce a way of interpreting each situation so that the children would produce the same fractional number word. In subsequent interactions with Laura, by placing three copies of the partitioned 1/4-bar on the 3/3-bar, Laura nally realized that the segmentation in which she engaged produced twelve rather than twenty-four parts. The children then engaged in mathematical argumentation induced by the teacher. Protocol XIII: (Second Cont.) L: Theyd be seven out of twelve, seven twelfths. Because three of these, three of these go right there (puts the 3/12-bar over the middle 1/3-bar), and four can t right there (points with the mouse cursor to the 1/3-bar).
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J: Wouldnt we have to count also the one over there too (the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar in Fig. 6). Thats what I think. T: Why? J: Because, um, because I dont understand three just being on the top and four on the bottom. L: It would have to be, because you just said out of this one (moves the 1/4-bar below the 3/3-bar), and that one (moves the 1/3-bar on the bottom most 1/3-bar of the 3/3-bar, and places it back on the bottom most 1/3-bar). And they would be four tting in that one (points the mouse cursor to the 1/3-bar) and three in that one (points the mouse cursor to the 1/4-bar), and that back of that whole unit bar. T: (To Jason) Can you see what she is saying? J: No. T: (To Laura) Can you explain it again? L: (Partitions the lower 1/3-bar into four parts) Theres four pieces in there and three pieces in there (the partitioned 1/4-bar), and three and the four are seven (she pulls the two bars to the bottom of the 3/3-bar). J: I know, I know. But I dont understand why there are three on that one and not four like on that one. T: (Asks Laura to explain in a different way). L: Drags the two bars back onto the 3/3-bar as they were placed before and clicks on the 3/3-unit bar. The two bars then disappear behind the 3/3-unit bar. There are three here and there will be one left over here (pointing to the middle 1/3-bar of the 3/3-unit bar). But thats just back of the unit bar. J: What do you mean, back of the unit bar? After about two more minutes of extensive interaction, Jason nally separated the outlined region that both children established as one twelfth of the unit bar. After explaining, he said, I said eight, but it is seven twelfths. This is one of the rst times that Laura engaged in explaining something to Jason that he at least momentarily did not understand.
8. Jason nding the sum of two unit fractions In spite of the rather creative and productive thinking that emerged in the 8 March 1994 Teaching Episode, neither of Jason nor Laura could be said to have constructed an ensemble of operations for nding the fractional part of a unit bar constituted by the join of two unit fractional parts of the bars. Finding that a 1/4-bar joined to a 1/3-bar was a 7/12-bar proceeded by means of a sequence of interlocked interactions. There was no apparent foresight on the part of either child that they needed to nd a fractional unit for which one fourth and one third were multiples. It was possible, however, in some cases to claim insight in the context of on-going activity (e.g., when Laura segmented the 1/4-bar into three parts and when Jason said that the little piece was one twelfth of the unit bar in Protocol XIII). However, even after the children found that seven twelfths was the fractional part that the two bars together was of the unit bar, there was no indication that they asked themselves how they found seven twelfths and why twelfths worked and not some other fraction. That is, there is no indication that they reviewed their activity and produced new insights that might be regarded as hindsights. The children did engage in purposeful
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mathematical activity in that they were trying to nd how much the two bars together were of the unit bar. But a current interaction always depended on a preceding interaction and it would not have occurred without the preceding interaction occurring. Nevertheless, given the childrens insights and given that they did in fact nd that the two bars together was a 7/12-bar, the hypothesis emerges that the construction of a fractional adding scheme was in the childrens zones of potential construction. Unfortunately, Laura was absent for the teaching episode held on 5 April 1994, so the hypothesis was tested only for Jason. To start the teaching episode, the teacher asked Jason to partition a bar into twelve parts in several different ways. The goal of the teacher was to ensure that Jason knew how to make both the vertical and horizontal parts. Jason seemed predisposed to making either horizontal or vertical parts but not both. In fact, he tried to partition a bar into two horizontal parts and then each of these two parts into four parts, but Parts in TIMA: Bars was not programmed in the way TIMA: Sticks was programmed to enact recursive partitioning. So, the teacher demonstrated to him how to make a horizontal partition and then a vertical partition using horizontal Parts: 2 and vertical Parts: 2. Subsequent to this, Jason tried to make a 12-part bar by using horizontal and vertical parts, but repeatedly made a 16-part bar by using horizontal Parts: 4 and vertical Parts: 4. His intention seemed to be to use vertical Parts: 3, and nally realized that he was using vertical Parts: 4 rather than vertical Parts: 3 after the teacher asked him how many he would have to use to get twelve if he started with horizontal Parts: 4. He answered three and thereafter used two horizontal parts and six vertical parts to make a 12-part bar. All of this was preliminary to the problem the teacher posed for Protocol XIV and was done to encourage the use of cross partitioning in constructing meaning for making a partition of a partition. However, it had no relevance for Jason. Protocol XIV: The construction of a common partition for two fractions. T: OK. Now here comes a question. Since Laura is not here, lets pretend she is here. You need to get one third of that unit bar and she needs to get one half of that unit bar. . . . Put one mat for yourself and one mat for Laura (Jason had already made a unit bar). J: (Draws two mats beneath the unit bar). T: All right. You will need to get one third of the unit bar and put it on your mat. Laura, if she were here, would like to get a half of the unit bar and put it on her mat. Now, you can take these shares only by making one partition of the bar. You start with one partition of the bar and then you want to be able to give yourself one third and her one half of the bar. J: (Activates horizontal Parts, dials to 2, and clicks on the unit bar. He then starts to pull out one of the two parts.) T: Are you going to be able to take one half and one third now? J: Oh, one half and one third. T: After you make the partition, you cannot touch the bar anymore. You need to be able to take all of the parts after you nish the partition. J: Oh, let me see . . . (sits in deep concentration for approximately twenty-ve seconds) Oh, I dont know (erases the horizontal segment he put on the bar). T: (Reposes the problem). J: Oh, Ok. (Dials horizontal Parts to 5 and clicks on the unit bar. After sitting silently for approximately twenty seconds, he erases the four horizontal segments and again sits silently in deep concentration for approximately 50 seconds. He then dials horizontal Parts 6, then changes it to 3, and then changes it again to 2 and clicks on the bar. After approximately ten more seconds) Ok, I want one third?
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T: What would you take right now? J: Oh, I cant take, I did it wrong (while talking, he erases the horizontal segment he put on the bar) I just want one third? W: And Laura wants one half. T: If you leave it that way, that you made two parts here, would you be able to take your share? J: (After about ten seconds) No. T: Would you be able to take Lauras? J: Uh Huh (yes). T: Ok, now could you nd out another number of parts so that you will be able to take yours? Only yours? J: A ve? T: If you would put ve, will you be able to take one third? J: Yes (Pauses and sits in deep concentration for approximately seven seconds). Wait!! I know how to get both of them in one!! (Dials horizontal Parts to 6 and clicks on the bar.) T: Can you take them? J: (Pulls out a 3/6-bar for Laura and places it on her mat.) T: Now, how about your share? J: One third? (Sits in deep concentration for approximately ten seconds and then pulls out a 2/6-bar and places it on his mat). T: Great! That is very good! J: (Measures each of the bars he pulled out of the 6/6-unit bar upon the request of the teacher.) T: What was the problem there, in your mind, before you came up with six? J: Um, like I tried ve, but it didnt work. T: Ah, why did you try ve? What was the idea? J: I dont know. I was just trying . . . . T: So, how did you come up with the six? When you came with the six, it was not that you just tried, you had something in mind. J: Because, theres, ah, . . . if you went two, four, six, theres . . . no it . . . if theres half it, half of it there would be three, so I knew that, that would be, it would be three. T: (Nods yes) Mm hmm. J: And then, since there were two, four, six, I knew that, that would be one third. Although Jasons explanation for why he used six as the partition he used for pulling out one third and one half is somewhat garbled, the comment, if you went two, four, six, theres . . . no it . . . if theres half it, half of it would be three indicates two basic things. First, it indicates that he used two as an iterable unit and produced six by iterating two three times if you went two, four, six. Not only that, but once he produced six, it had to appear to him as a unit of which he was reectively aware because he continued to operate on it theres . . . no it . . . if theres half of it, half of it would be three. To operate in this way, it wouldnt be necessary that he maintained the structure of the unit of three units of two as that structure to which six referred. It is more likely that he switched to regarding six as a unit of six ones, and took half of those units. Apparently, he could do this while maintaining six as the result of iterating two three times.
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However, Jason wasnt explicitly aware that two would be the result of splitting six into three parts as a result of counting by two three times. He knew that six could be split into three equal parts, but interestingly enough, when he was asked to take one third of the 6/6-bar, it took him ten seconds to produce two as one third of six. Apparently, counting by two three times two, four, six produced a unit containing three units of two. But the three units of two had been combined together, so he had to actually carry out the operation of splitting six into three equal parts to realize the three units. But splitting alone did not produce two as the numerosity of one of these three units. He operated further to produce two as indicated by his saying, And then, since there were two, four, six, I knew that would be one third. I take this further operating as iterating two three times to produce six. Even if he posited two as the numerosity of the unit to be iterated without further experimentation, he had to actually check to be sure that two worked. So, I infer that Jason was in the process of constructing an equi-partitioning scheme for connected numbers (at least for six), and I now hypothesize that this equi-partitioning scheme is essentially a splitting scheme. What evoked Jasons production of six and what operations were available to Jason that made the evocation possible are crucial questions because there had to be a conuence of his experienced provocations and the evoked operations. The teachers interventions were indispensable in his production of six, but they cannot be said to have caused the production. For example, after Jason initially partitioned the unit bar into two parts and began to pull out one part, the teacher intervened and asked him if he was going to be able to take one half and one third now. Jason said, Oh, one half and one third but he still did not know what partition to make so he could, in his words, get both of them in one. He sat silently for approximately 25 seconds and declared, Oh, I dont know. So the teacher reposed the problem, and Jason dialed horizontal Parts to 5 and clicked on the unit bar. He again sat silently for approximately twenty seconds and then erased the partition on the unit bar. Why he erased the partition is indicated by his subsequent actions. He dialed horizontal parts to 6, then to 3, and then to 2 and clicked on the unit bar, partitioning it into two parts. He then said, Ok, I want one third. Partitioning the unit bar into ve parts indicates a goal that he was to create only one partition that would allow him to pull out one third of it and one half of it. So, apparently, the teachers intentional provocations (interventions) were effective in the sense that Jason formed this goal, a goal that was crucial in driving his subsequent actions. My current hypothesis is that Jason could form the goal because he could combine two and three together into an inclusive unit. He could partition the unit bar into two or three parts to take one half or one third, but to conceive of making one partition which allowed him to take either fractional part, he would need to conceive of and be aware of two and three as co-occurring parts of an encompassing unit. This explains why he initially chose ve he was aware of ve as containing two and three. In his words, Um, like I tried ve, and it didnt work. After ve didnt work, he partitioned the unit bar into two parts and commented, Ok, I want one third. It was at this point that he was searching for another way to combine two and three together in order to pull out one half and one third. He was aware that he couldnt pull one third out of the two partition, as indicated by his comment, Oh, I cant take, I did it wrong. That he was experiencing perturbation is solidly indicated by his erasing the horizontal segment that formed the two-partition and asking, I just want one third? Taking one third of the unit bar would serve to eliminate the perturbation he was experiencing, but a witness of the teaching episode conrmed to him that Laura wanted one half. This left him in a state of perturbation, and the teacher again intervened with the purpose of making explicit that partitioning the bar into two parts would enable him to take Lauras part, but not his, and to reestablish with him that he was looking for a number of parts that would allow him to take both childrens parts. Jason again produced ve as a possibility. But the teacher knew that Jason knew it wouldnt work, so at
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this point, the teacher asked, If you would put ve, will you be able to take one third? Although Jason said, yes, he sat in deep concentration for seven seconds prior to exclaiming, Wait!! I know how to get both of them in one! It was during this time that the only other way of combining two and three together that was ready-at-hand for him emerged, and that was to count by two three times. In that he partitioned the bar into six horizontal parts rather than into two horizontal and three vertical parts (or visa versa), there was no indication that he regarded a part of the bar he made as belonging simultaneously to both a 2-partition and a 3-partition. Rather, he partitioned the six parts rst into two units of three, and then into three units of two. This is consistent with his use of composite units as countable unit items. Double counting implies that a feedback system has been established between the countable and the counted items and that the childs number sequence is a reversible scheme. This feedback system implies that the child operates at least at two levels of interiorization, which permits the counting scheme to be taken as its own input. In fact, it permits the child to use the counting scheme as a truly anticipatory scheme in that the child can produce an image of countable items, and thus of counted items, prior to actually counting. In Jasons case, counting by two was denitely an anticipatory scheme, and so he could produce an image of countable items, and thus of counted twos prior to actually counting. This is what I take as enabling his creative insight indicated by the comment, Wait!! I know how to get both of them in one! which was to count by two three times. This is how he coordinated two and three together into a composite structure. The question that now arises is whether Jason could nd the fractional part of the unit bar constituted by the join of the 3/6-bar and the 2/6-bar. The following continuation of Protocol XIV is a record of what transpired. Protocol XIV: (Cont.) T: Ok, now how much do you and Laura now have all together? You have your one-third, she has her one-half, so how much do you have altogether? J: One fth? T: Is this one fth all together? J: Um hum (yes). T: Can you join them? J: (After some difculties with the computer action Join, joins the 2/6-bar and the 3/6-bar together). W: Now, before you measure, is that going to be one fth? Does it look like one fth? J: (Nods his head yes). W: What is one fth? J: No, its . . . oh yeah, one out of ve pieces. T: Is this one out of ve (points to the 5/6-bar)? Of the unit bar (points to the unit bar)? J: Of the unit bar? Ahh, oh, this is ve . . . . T: How much do you two have out of the unit bar? J: Oh, ve sixths! T: Five sixths. Why is this ve sixths? J: Because theres ve pieces out of six. However, essential it was for Jason to partition the unit bar into six parts in order to pull out one third and one sixth, he still did not seem to be able to operate with the 2/6-bar and the 3/6-bar as if they were the
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1/3-bar and the 1/2-bar. The teachers original question You have your 1/3, she has her 1/2, so how much do you have altogether? apparently oriented Jason in such a way that he resorted to nding the sum of three and two as he did when trying to nd a single partition in Protocol XIV. This is indication that he did not regard the 2/6-bar and the 1/3-bar as identical bars (as well as the 3/6-bar and the 1/2-bar). When asked explicitly how much the joined 2/6-bar and the 3/6-bar was of the unit bar, he did immediately reply ve sixths because theres ve pieces out of six. But this does not indicate that the operations he used to produce ve sixths as the fractional part of the unit bar constituted by the join of the 1/3-bar and the 1/2-bar provided him with a sense of logical necessity. The lacuna in his reasoning is indicated by the rather longish period of time (ten seconds) he sat in deep concentration before he pulled a 2/6-bar out of the 6/6-bar as 1/3 of the unit bar. The 2/6-bar was the result of operating, but as such, it did not seem to be identical to an unpartitioned 1/3-bar. To further explore Jasons sense of logical necessity (or lack thereof), the teacher posed another situation. Protocol XV: Making one partition for nding one third and one fourth of a unit bar. T: Lets say that you want to take one third of the bar, and Lauras share will be one fourth of the bar. Now, you can make only one partition of the bar. And then you should be able to take your share, as well as Lauras share. J: Ok, I get one third . . . (Looks at a paper on which he wrote the sum of 1/2 and 1/3 after the continuation of Protocol XIV). T: You can write it down, but you will still have one third and she will have one fourth. You can write it down if it helps you to remember. J: Mm hum. (Sits in deep concentration for approximately eight seconds. He then takes the mouse and dials horizontal Parts to 12 and clicks on the unit bar.) T: Before you go on, how did you know to go to twelve? J: Because three times four is, oh, you need three fours for to make twelve and you need four threes for, um for twelve. T: I see. You mean . . . we need to be able to count three pieces of four. J: Yeah, like four times three. T: Ok, that sounds very good. Go ahead and take your share. J: Can I color it? T: All right, try it. J: (Using Fill, lls the bottom most four pieces and then the top most four pieces of the 12/12-bar with a dark blue color.) Thats one third (pointing to the middle unlled four pieces). T: (The teacher proceeds as if Jason has not said, Thats one third. His intention apparently is to explore if Jason would also say four twelfths.) These four pieces (the bottom most four pieces), how much is it of the whole bar? J: (After some clarication which four pieces the teacher referred to) four twelfths. T: Ok, go ahead and take it. Thats yours (he had asked Jason whose share the four bars was, and Jason said it was his share). J: (Mistakenly pulls out only three of the four bottom most parts. He starts to pull out all of the four parts, but the teacher interrupts.) T: Could you use this one for your problem?
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J: (Drags the 3/12-bar he placed to the side of the screen beside the bottom four parts of the 12/12-bar.) T: Is this yours? J: Uh-huh (no) I didnt get that many (meaning he didnt pull enough bars out of the 12/12-bar to make his share). I only got three. T: And, . . . ? J: I need four. T: Could you use this one for the problem that you have? J: For, Lauras? T: Why? J: Thats right. It is right there (drags the 3/12-bar onto Lauras mat). T: Ok, so how much is it? J: Hmm, four three, no thats three . . . (peers at the screen and then uses Fill to ll bundles of three bars. In the midst of this activity) three fourths. I mean, wait . . . Three twelfths (points to the 3/12-bar he dragged to Lauras mat). ... T: What did I ask for? J: For me? T: No, for her. J: For her? One fourth. T: Is this one fourth (pointing to the 3/12-bar on Lauras mat)? J: Yes. T: Show why this is one fourth. J: (Measures the bar.) T: Is there another way to show me without measuring? J: (Uses Fill to ll the bottom most three bars red, the next three yellow, the next three green, and the top most three red). T: Ok, now you need to take yours. J: Hey, thats going to be easy. (Pulls the bottom most four bars out of the 12/12-bar and drags this 4/12-bar to his mat.) T: So how much do you have of the whole bar? J: Ah, four twelfths. T: Which is? J: One third. T: Ok, Now would you please write down how much you have and how much she has (Jason was using three columns on a piece of paper, one of which he was to make entries of his fractional part, another of which he was to make entries of Lauras fractional part, and the last of which he was to make entries of the fractional part of the two children together). J: Ok. (Writes down 1/3 in his column and 1/4 in Lauras column). T: So, how much do you have all together? J: (After clarication by the teacher that he was asking about the unit bar, joins the 3/12-bar and the 4/12-bar together) seven twelfths. T: Can you explain to me why? J: Seven pieces out of twelve. (Writes 7/12 in the appropriate column).
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Jasons comment, Because three times four is, oh, you need three fours for to make twelve and you need four threes for, um for twelve. when explaining why he said twelve, corroborates the analysis of the operations that he used to produce six in Protocol XIV. It was essential that he produce four threes and three fours in order to produce a single partition of the unit bar from which he could pull either one fourth or one third, respectively. From his point of view, he was trying to nd a composite unit which could be structured in two ways as four threes and three fours. So, the modication that he made in Protocol XIV was more or less permanent and I do consider it as an accommodation. After Jason mistakenly pulled out three rather than four parts of the 12/12-bar to make one third of the bar, the teacher decided to make a test of Jasons reective awareness in the sense of whether he could assign the bar he made for himself to Laura and make another for himself. This seemed to present no major difculties for him, which indicates that he indeed had formed a goal structure make a single partition of the unit bar that would allow him to take both one third and one fourth of the unit bar. This goal structure and the operations he assembled do meet the criteria to be regarded as operations, and I refer to them as common partitioning operations. In that Jason produced seven twelfths as the fractional part of the unit bar constituted by the join of the 1/3-bar and the 1/4-bar, I also claim that he was in the process of constructing a fractional adding scheme that I refer to the unit fractional adding scheme.
9. Constitutive aspects of the construction of fractional schemes At the outset of the paper, I commented that a learning trajectory that is abstracted from actually teaching children consists of an explanation of childrens initial schemes, an explanation of the observed changes in the entering schemes that the children produce as a result of interactive mathematical activity in situations of learning, and an analysis of the contribution of the interactive mathematical activity involved in the changes. I now turn to analyzing the observed changes in the childrens entering schemes and the contribution of the interactive mathematical activity that was involved to these observed changes. 9.1. Social interaction in the construction of a commensurate fractional scheme Some authors who work in a neo-Vygotskian perspective have claimed that the processes involved in learning are inherently social (Lerman, 1996; Wertsch & Toma, 1995). Such claims are not restricted to the neo-Vygotskians. Cobb (2001) has claimed that not only are the processes involved in learning social, but the products are social as well: [L]earning is not merely social in the sense that interactions with others serve as a catalyst for otherwise autonomous conceptual development. Instead, the products of learning, increasingly sophisticated ways of knowing, are also social through and through (Cobb, 2001).17 In an earlier publication (Steffe, 1999), I commented that the claims of these authors are quite interesting because they imply that not only is learning such things as the recursive partitioning operation found in social interaction, the operation of recursive partitioning is itself social through and through. I turn now to an analysis of these claims by considering Jasons construction of his commensurate fractional scheme.
17 Although there are important differences in the views of Cobb and Wertsch & Toma concerning learning, both emphasize social processes in learning (c.f. Confrey, 1995).
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9.1.1. Learning as a creative act set in motion by social interaction Prior to the 29 November 1993 Teaching Episode, Jason had produced a plurality of fractions each commensurate with one half (Steffe, in press). However, that did not imply that he had constructed a scheme that he could use to produce a plurality of fractions each commensurate with one third. He apparently had not abstracted the operations he used to make a plurality of fractions each commensurate with one half and generalized them to make fractions commensurate with other fractions because his production of ve fteenths as another fraction like one-third in Protocol I was a creative act. So, this event of learning is a particularly salient event in consideration of whether learning is inherently social and the sense in which his construction of a commensurate fractional scheme was social. Without the teachers request to partition the stick in another way so he could pull out one third, there would be little possibility that he would independently generate and solve such a situation. So, that social interaction served as a means for generating situations that brought forth his solving activity is indisputable. In a restatement of part of Cobbs assertion, social interaction served as a catalyst for his cognitive activity. My argument is, however, that the social interaction was not sufcient to explain his solving activity if for no other reason than there was nothing in what the teacher said or did that could be construed as indicating how Jason should proceed to nd another fraction like, but yet different than, one third. Jason had to establish meaning for the teachers request, and the indication that he did so was that he sat quietly for approximately twelve seconds before he choose ve to partition each third into ve parts. His recursive partitioning operations were instrumental in establishing meaning for the teachers request, and without them, he would not have known how to act independently. Why it took him twelve seconds to choose partitioning each third into ve parts can be understood when considering that he initially pulled out three rather than ve parts as another way to make a fraction that would be like one third there seemed to be a tension between the two numbers in his immediate awareness and the role these numbers should play in his solving activity. In that he did partition each third into ve parts, however, I infer that he deliberately chose which number to use to partition the stick. His deliberate choice, when coupled with partitioning each of the three parts into ve parts at the end of the period of deliberation, solidly indicates self-regulation of his interactions with the computer graphics. Because I dont consider his interactions with the computer graphics as social interaction, the operations that Jason used to partition each of the three parts into ve parts did not emerge in the immediate context of social interaction. That is, the social interaction was essential to set Jasons solving activity in motion, but it cant be used to explain the solving activity. So, I interpret the claim that learning is inherently social to mean that learning occurs in the context of interaction of some kind [or as the result of such interaction], but that it cannot be explained by appealing only to the interaction. The childs self-generative processes must be also considered (von Glasersfeld, 1995). After Jason pulled out three parts, his interactions with the teacher [Is that piece one third of the whole stick?] and with Laura [No, it is three fteenths!] at this point served in provoking a review of the results of his activity because, after about fteen seconds, he pulled out ve parts as one third of the whole stick. I consider that these social provocations led to a perturbation three fteenths is not one third that in turn led to a review of the results of his solving activity. Jasons review and his pulling out of ve parts as one third of the whole stick are solid indicators of self-regulation in interaction. So, there were two crucial roles that interaction [not only social interaction] played in Jasons solving activity. First, the teachers request to partition the stick in another way so he could pull out one third evoked assimilation on Jasons part and the eventual production of a commensurate fractional scheme.
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Second, Jasons interactions with the teacher and Laura were instrumental in his review of his solving activity, which I interpreted as self-regulated activity. But the review of solving activity occurred as Jason interacted with the computer graphics, not with the teacher nor with Laura. So, here again we meet the necessity to include nonverbal interactions with the computer graphics in an account of Jasons processes of learning, which also included assimilation and self-regulation. 9.1.2. Learning as a product of auto-regulation of constructs within the individual In the rst continuation of Protocol I, when Jason sat in deep concentration for approximately ten seconds before he partitioned each part of the 3/3-stick into three parts to make another fraction like, but yet different than, one third as requested by the teacher, I hypothesized that he was in a search mode. That he should partition each part into three parts seemed to appear to him rather suddenly in a way that is similar to how I interpret Wertheimers (1959) notion of insight. Given that his goal was to nd another fraction like one third, but yet different than one third, and given that he partitioned each third into three parts and pulled out the rst of these three parts and said three ninths, I assume that at least the following operations were in a state of activation as he sat in deep concentration: his recursive partitioning operations, the inverse of these operations [those operations that produce a unit of units of units], and the disembedding operation. Regulation of these operations would be essential during the time that he sat in deep concentration in order to organize them into a scheme of operations that were observed as a solution. Because I assume that he was not aware of these operations during the period of his search activity, I refer to the regulation of the operations as auto-regulation, which is another process of learning that emerges from within the child. Self-regulation and auto-regulation as I use them was inspired by Piattelli-Palmarini (1980), who made it clear that he regarded Piaget as a special kind of interactionist: These presuppositions lead to a core hypothesis, out of which the entire program of genetic epistemology has been developed. We read the following, italicized in the original text: Cognitive processes seem, then, to be at one and the same time the outcome of organic autoregulation, reecting its essential mechanisms, and the most highly differentiated organs of this regulation at the core of interactions with the environment. . . . This I take to be the hard core of the Piagetian program. (p. 4) I distinguish between Piagets regulation according to the two types of interaction, and use self-regulation in the case of regulation of individual-environment[including social] interaction and auto-regulation in the case of regulation of interaction of constructs within the child. In that I infer that Jason organized the recursive partitioning operation and its inverse operation [those operations that produce a unit of units of units] and the disembedding operation into a scheme of operations sufcient to produce three ninths as like but yet different than one third, I judged that the coordination of these operations produced an accommodation especially because he could reason productively in similar situations in subsequent teaching episodes. So, I nd that a second kind of interaction interaction of constructs within the child is necessary to account for learning, where learning is understood as a change that is produced in the organization of current operations or a change that is produced in current operations.18 This kind of interaction, although distinct from subjectenvironment interaction, is set in motion by subjectenvironment interaction and it is the kind of interaction that is essential in producing accommodation, or learning. The accommodation produced by Jason that led to his construction of a commensurate fractional scheme does not t with the basic tenet of a Vygotskian approach to education that individual learning
18
I do not equate coordination and accommodation [learning].
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is dependent on social interaction if the tenet is interpreted in its strong form: The thesis should be interpreted in its strongest possible form, proposing that the qualities of thinking are actually generated by the organizational features of social interaction (Van Oers, 1995, p. 93). Because there was nothing in the social interaction that preceded Jasons accommodation that could be interpreted as indicating what he should do that was apparent to an observer, there is a break in any causal chain purporting to link Jasons production of his commensurate fraction scheme to social interaction. A weaker form of the Vygotskian tenet that states that social interaction can set the processes of learning in motion is more compatible with Jasons constructive activity.19 The sense in which Jasons commensurate fractional scheme was social has two aspects, the rst of which I have already addressed in that there was nothing in Jasons interaction with the teacher or Laura that would indicate to Jason what to do. The second aspect is more difcult to address, and that concerns whether the operations of the scheme or the material on which they operated could be said to be social. Such things as his number words were necessarily constructed using self-generative activities in social interaction. In fact, Jason constructed all of his concepts, including his numerical concepts, using self-generative activities in interaction of some kind. But the cognitive instruments used in interaction should not be conated with the interaction. Operations such as unitizing, iterating, uniting, joining, partitioning, recursive partitioning, splitting, and units-coordinating that are constructed, used, and modied in interaction should not be equated with the interaction in which they are involved. 9.1.3. Internalization as assimilation The account of social interaction as the posing of situations that induced the internal processes of self-regulation, auto-regulation, and accommodation in Jason provides a basic role for social interaction in mathematical learning. However, it is not a complete account because the social interaction in which Laura engaged served a distinctly different function. In Protocol I and its rst continuation, Laura did not independently initiate any observable solving activity to the teachers request to nd another fraction that will be like one third as did Jason. However, after Jason pulled out three of the fteen parts he made, she said that the three parts were three fteenths rather than one third after the teacher asked whether that piece is one third of the whole stick. She assimilated Jasons actions and their results using her schemes and established the three parts as three fteenths even before the teacher asked his question. Because she did assimilate Jasons actions and their result, I assume that as she sat quietly with Jason for approximately twelve seconds prior to her assimilation, she was in a state of perturbation. I also assume that she had formed a goal that was similar to Jasons goal because she did assimilate Jasons actions in partitioning the three parts each into ve parts using her units-coordinating scheme. In the assimilating activity, there was no necessity for her to regulate the use of her schemes in establishing a new way of operating that would permit her to reach her goal. All that was needed was for her to use her units-coordinating scheme in a situation that involved connected numbers. So, the initial social interaction in which Laura engaged served her in assimilating Jasons actions and the rather minimal language that accompanied them. This function of social interaction is in contrast to the function of social interaction in Jasons case, which was to provoke those operations whose coordination led to insightful solutions. It ts with Vygotskys general genetic law of cultural development better than does Jasons learning.
Jasons accommodation can also be used in an interpretation of learning in Soviet activity theory, where learning is a qualitative change in an action, and an action is an attempt to change some material or mental object from one form into another form (Van Oers, 1995, pp. 9697).
19
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Any function in the childs cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First, it appears between people as an interpsychological category, then within the child as an intrapsychological category . . . . [I]t goes without saying that internalization transforms the process itself and changes its structure and functions. Social relations or relations among people genetically underlie all higher functions and their relationships. (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 163) Although we have seen in Jasons case of assimilation that it is too strong to say that social relations genetically underlie all higher mental functions, Lauras assimilation of Jasons language and actions does t with Vygotskys law of cultural development in that it provides a way of thinking about internalization. Needed in an account of internalization is a model where one does not assume that social interaction is necessarily linguistic interaction because, as Laura interacted with Jason, it was primarily with respect to his nonverbal actions in TIMA: Sticks. Because Jasons actions were primarily nonverbal, it is necessary to consider that it was Laura who attributed meaning to Jasons actions. So, in a model of internalization, it is appropriate to assume that it is the individual who constructs information. The most skeptical formulation of this assumption is caught by the question, [W]hy does what comes to be inside ever have to be outside in any form (Bickhard, 1995, p. 262)? From the perspective of an observer, whatever is outside must be assimilated by the individual: In order to derive information from an object . . . the use of an assimilatory apparatus is indispensable (Piaget, 1980, p. 90). An assimilatory apparatus for Piaget was endogenic: We understand by endogenous only those structures which are developed by means of the regulations and operations of the subject . . . . By serving as an assimilatory framework, then, these structures are added to the properties of external objects, but without being abstracted from them (p. 80). When interpreting Vygotskys idea of internalization using Piagets idea of assimilation, information is constructed using an assimilatory apparatus, and social interaction is regarded as an occasion for producing sensory material used in assimilating [such as Jasons actions]. In that Vygotsky did not consider that the intrapsychological plane is a direct copy of the interpsychological plane (Wertsch & Toma, 1995, p. 162), interpreting internalization using assimilation seems compatible with Vygotskys meaning of the concept. I also interpret internalization as an observers concept. That is, it was Vygotsky who posited an interpsychological plane as well as an intrapsychologial plane and relations between the two.20 9.1.4. Accommodation in the construction of an intrapsychological plane By itself, however, assimilation is insufcient to account for an intrapsychological plane because, after Laura engaged in assimilating the results of Jasons actions, the function of the social interaction changed from provoking assimilation to provoking regulation of the operations she used. In Protocol I, after Jason pulled out ve parts, the teacher asked the children if that was one third. Following upon the teachers question, Laura made an explanation that indicated that she engaged in the operations necessary to produce a connected number consisting of a unit of three units where each of the three units contained ve units, and that she conceptually disembedded one of these units of ve from the three others in establishing one third. In producing one third in this way, she would need to regulate her use of the involved operations. The social interaction engendered even more than regulation of operating. In the second continuation of Protocol I, both Laura and Jason abstracted their ways of operating and produced a sequence of
20 Interpreting internalization in the framework of assimilation and as an observers concept casts internalization as a useful concept in mathematics teaching.
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fractions each commensurate with one third. Laura proceeded to work symbolically and, one might say, independently, when producing the next number after, say, 16, to use in partitioning each of the three parts, and then in nding three times that number to produce number of parts of the partition. Because she had abstracted a way of operating, it was plausible that she had abstracted a scheme to produce fractions commensurate with one third. In that she recognized the situation as one in which she could use her multiplying algorithm, a retrospective modication in her use of her units-coordinating scheme occurred that permitted her to produce the sequence of fractions each commensurate with one third. Because of Lauras reliance on Jasons actions in the construction of this way of operating, it is a particularly salient occasion to consider the sense in which her way of operating was social through and through in Cobbs (2001) terms. If social through and through is interpreted in its strong form in the way that Van Oers (1995) interpreted the basic tenet of a Vygotskian approach to education that individual learning is dependent on social interaction, then Lauras partitioning operations as well as her abstraction of her way of partitioning would need to appear in the organizational features of the involved social interaction. In that there was no social interaction in which Laura engaged that contained elements of her way of operating that was observable to me, the strong form of interpreting the products of learning as being social through and through is not viable. That is, the organizational features of Lauras operating was not abstracted from the organizational features of social interaction in which she may have engaged, but instead, in Piagets terms, was added to whatever social interactions in which she may have engaged without being abstracted from them. Abstracting the organization of the operation of partitioning each of the three parts into say, twelve parts; calculating the number of parts by using her algorithm; disembedding the twelve parts from the thirty-six parts produced and making a part-to-whole comparison by specifying the fraction, 12/36; and then selecting the next number, thirteen, and repeating the process came from within Laura and had no precedence in social interaction. At best, it was only minimally indicated by the teachers actions. Thirteen thirty-ninths is one third did not exist for Laura prior to her operating and was produced as a result of operating. Still, as I have already indicated, there were aspects of her operating that would not have been possible without social interaction [such as her number words], so a weak form of Cobbs notion that the products of learning are social through and through is necessary to mean that Lauras operating from the point of view of the observer occurred in a social context. 9.1.5. Establishing intersubjective knowledge in social interaction Rather than consider the setting up of perturbations as the only function of social interaction as does Lerman (1996), I have specically demonstrated that another fundamental function is to provoke assimilation and accommodation. But the role of assimilation differed considerably for the two children. For Laura, the role of assimilation of the language and actions that Jason used in productive mathematical activity served her in bringing forth her units-coordinating scheme and abstracting a way of operating to produce a sequence of fractions each commensurate with one third in the specic context in which the assimilation occurred. But I did not regard this change in Lauras way of operating as an accommodation because she did not independently produce a similar sequence in the case of two thirds. Nor was her production of the sequence of fractions each commensurate with one-third executed independently of her interactions with Jason. So, the most that can be claimed is that her assimilation of Jasons language and actions led to a contextual modication of her units-coordinating scheme. For Jason, the role of assimilation of the teachers request served him in coordinating operations that were sufcient to construct a commensurate fractional scheme.
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In spite of the differences, the children did establish interactive mathematical communication concerning their activity when attempting to make a fraction like but different than two thirds. Initially, Laura did partition the middle one third into two parts. But she did not partition the two other thirds into two parts each. She had already produced a sequence of fractions each commensurate to one third, so it should not be said that she had formed no goal or that she simply had misinterpreted the request of the teacher to make a fraction like but different than two thirds. Recursive partitioning was what seemed to be lacking. The necessity for recursive partitioning was demonstrated by Jason when he intervened after Laura partitioned the middle one third into two parts by saying, Put another one in here, and another one in here, and then there would be two, two, and two and six in all. Jason knew what to do even before Laura engaged in her partitioning activity [he said, I know before Laura began]. Up to the point of his intervention, not only had Jason formulated a way of operating that he knew would produce four sixths, he also followed Lauras activity very closely. That is to say, he assimilated Lauras language and actions and used their results to implement his operations. Following on from Jasons suggestions for how to operate, Laura in turn assimilated Jasons linguistic productions as indicated by her partitioning the two outer thirds into two parts each and pulling out these four parts and joining them together into a four-part stick. At this point in the teaching episode, my inference is that the children established intersubjective knowing in that each child seemed aware of how the other child operated to produce four sixths. This example demonstrates why I consider intersubjectivity as produced as a result of social interaction rather than as an explanatory construct in the construction of subjective knowledge, which is the way Lerman (1996) seems to consider intersubjectivity. Even though Laura was yet to construct the recursive partitioning operation, she was able to make sense of Jasons actions and language and to engage in interactive mathematical activity with him. So, I consider assimilation as playing still another role in mathematical learning, and that is to serve children in the establishment of intersubjective knowing. When two individuals are in social interaction, intersubjective knowing is established whenever (a) each individual reciprocally assimilates the language and actions of the other, (b) the reciprocal process of assimilation continues until no accommodation of the conceptual structures involved are necessary for successful assimilation, and (c) the individuals reach a state of mutual agreement about the meaning of the results of their interaction. By reaching mutual agreement, I do not mean that the interacting individuals necessarily end up with identical structures. Rather, I mean only that their conceptual structures are sufciently compatible for successful assimilation (Steffe & Thompson, 2000a, p. 193).
9.2. Lauras construction of the fractional composition scheme Lauras local progress in producing a sequence of fractions commensurate with one third was encouraging, so the teacher decided to test whether the fractional composition scheme was within her zone of potential construction. At the time of the teaching experiment, we had not explicitly constructed the concept of recursive partitioning, and we did not appreciate that the lack of this operation was an internal constraint in the construction of both the commensurate fractional scheme and the fractional composition scheme. So, in retrospect, the choice to engage Laura in fractional composition tasks was appropriate because they too can be used to encourage the construction of recursive partitioning. Five teaching episodes were devoted to Lauras production of a fractional composition scheme the 10 January 1994, 1 and 8 February 1994, 22 February 1994, and 1 March 1994 teaching episodes.
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9.2.1. The teachers experience of Lauras internal constraint The constraint that Laura presented to the teacher was illustrated during the 10 January 1994 Teaching Episode. Because the fractional composition scheme involves partitioning an image of a partitioned unit of some kind, in Protocol III the teacher covered all but one part of a 4/4-stick and asked Laura to share one fourth of the stick with him and then asked her how much of the whole stick she had. She knew she had one half of one fourth of the stick, but at rst she thought that she had 3 and 1/2 of the stick and, after the teacher cast doubt on her answer, then 4 and 1/2 of the stick. These were not fortuitous answers because 3 and 1/2 referred to the three parts that were covered and to the 1/2 of the 1/4-stick that was visible. Her change to 4 and 1/2 referred to the four parts of the stick and to the 1/2 of the 1/4-stick that was visible. So, Laura indeed re-presented the covered part of the stick and re-presented it in parts, which is necessary in the production of one eighth as one half of one fourth. But she did not partition the re-presented parts. So, the teacher asked her to measure her share, and 1/8 appeared in the Number Box. She then explained why it would be one eighth Because if you would put half on all of them, . . . , then they would be one eighth because there are eight pieces! Partitioning her image of the 4/4-stick was denitely provoked by seeing 1/8. 1/8 referred to eight parts of the stick, and it was Lauras problem to nd into how many parts she would need to partition each fourth for there to be eight parts, and this she could do using her units-coordinating scheme. Laura could explain why one half of one fourth was one eighth after she measured one half of one fourth, and found out that it was one eighth. But, she could not independently produce one eighth as that part of the stick comprised by one half of one fourth. Constructing a fractional composition scheme entails embedding recursive partitioning in the reversible partitive fractional scheme. Operationally, what I mean by embedded is that when a child produces, say, one fourth of one fth of a stick and forms the goal to nd how much that part is of the stick, the child intentionally chooses to partition each part of the original partition into four parts. After the choice is made, the child simply uses her units-coordinating scheme in the context of connected numbers to make the partition [in the case of one third of one fourth, the child uses three as a template for partitioning each unit of the connected number, four]. That is, the goal of nding how much one third of one fourth of a stick is of the stick evokes a coordination of the composite units three and four. 9.2.2. An abstraction of units coordinating There was indication in Protocol IV [10 January 1994] that Laura abstracted the unit structure produced by units-coordinating. After sharing one fourth of a partially covered stick among three people [3/4 of the stick was covered], she said that her share would be one twelfth because there are four spots, and you put three in each one, and four times three is twelve. This comment indicated abstraction of the structure of a unit containing four units and of the operation of placing three units into each one of the four units. Further investigative activity on the part of the teacher revealed that Laura could now partition the three covered units into three parts each and discriminate that from partitioning all four parts of the 4/4-stick. Laura seemed well on the way to abstracting the structure of a units-coordination because, at the end of the teaching episode, she knew that she would need to partition each of the four parts into eight parts to produce one thirty seconds of the stick. Although this was simply a more elaborated use of her units-coordinating scheme [she knew that one thirty seconds referred to thirty-two parts, and she also knew that four times eight is thirty-two], it is an indication of the emergence of interiorizing the activity of units-coordinating. However, she was yet to embed units-coordinating in her reversible partitive fractional scheme because, at the beginning of the teaching episode held on 8 February 1994, she didnt independently produce how
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much one half of one half of a stick was of the whole stick. She called it a half of one half, but she couldnt say how much it was of the whole stick. But she did explain why 1/4 appeared in the Number Box after she measured the stick [Protocol VI]. She also produced one eighth as one half of one fourth and one sixteenth as one half of one eighth in Protocol VII and its continuation. In the context of the teaching episode, this seemed to indicate the emergence of recursive partitioning. After Protocol VIII, she even abstracted a pattern in operating to nd one half of one eighth, just double eight to produce sixteen; to nd one half of one sixteenth, double sixteen to produce thirty-two, etc. But whether she had embedded recursive partitioning in her partitive fractional scheme remained ambiguous because her demonstrated ability to abstract patterns in operating ts Piagets (1977/2001) notion of pseudo-empirical abstraction better than his reecting abstraction. It ts better because in pseudo-empirical abstraction, it sometimes happens that the knowing subject cannot carry out some constructions . . . without relying constantly on their observable results (p. 31). However, there was indication that Laura was in the process of abstracting the structure produced by units-coordinating, so the pattern in operating she abstracted may have been based on a prior reecting abstraction. 9.2.3. A test between pseudo-empirical and reecting abstraction The opportunity to test the nature of Lauras progress in successively nding one half of one half, one half of one fourth, one half of one eight, etc., was presented in the teaching episode held on 22 February 1994. The teacher presented the task of nding what one half of one half of one half might be of the original stick prior to Laura engaging in any activity. Had Laura abstracted the recursive property involved in the consecutive partitionings into one half, then she should have been able to reason her way through nding one half of one half of one half without enacting the partitionings. That she sat for approximately 33 seconds at the beginning of Protocol IX before saying, um, I am not sure. indicates that she did assimilate the teachers presentation of the situation. She apparently recognized the teachers comments as a situation in which she had previously operated, which indicates that she engaged in at least pseudo-empirical abstraction in the 8 February 1994 Teaching Episode. This level of abstraction is further corroborated when, after she was asked by the teacher what she was thinking of, she in turn asked the teacher if she could actually do it Can I do it? Well, and halving, and . . . one tiny little piece. She subsequently said that it would be one eighth and explained why by referring hypothetically to making one half using two visible parts of a bar that she had made: Because if you halved that one [the bottom one half], and then you would have that one [the top one half], that would be four pieces. And then if you halved that one [one of the four pieces], then that will be eight! The whole sequence of interactions starting with the teachers presentation of the situation ts Piagets notion of pseudo-empirical abstraction in social context with the proviso that Laura mentally partitioned two visible halves of the bar into two parts each and then mentally partitioned one of these four parts produced in thought into two parts. Moreover, mentally partitioning one fourth of the bar into two parts symbolized partitioning each of the other three fourths of the bar into two parts. The continuation of Protocol IX also affords the opportunity to further probe into the nature of Lauras abstraction because the teacher asked Laura to think what would be fth persons share. Her way of operating again corroborates the inference that she engaged in pseudo-empirical abstraction if pseudo-empirical abstraction is understood as including mentally partitioning a visible bar and then again mentally partitioning one part of the mental partition, where the second mental partition symbolizes partitioning each part of the rst mental partition. If interiorized, these operations would constitute recursive partitioning.
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9.2.4. Interiorizing units-coordinating activity A salient characteristic of a reecting abstraction is that it starts with a given scheme and interiorizes the activity of the scheme in situations other than the established situations of the scheme. Interiorizing the activity of the scheme makes abstraction of the structure of the results of the activity of the scheme possible because the activity of the scheme becomes a part of the assimilating operations of the new, abstracted scheme. So, when used in assimilation, the operations [or interiorized activity] produce a new situation of the scheme that was previously only a result of the activity of the scheme. In the case of a units-coordinating scheme, in the context of connected numbers the activity of units-coordinating produces a connected number that contains a sequence of connected units each of which contains a sequence of connected units essentially a partition of a partition. Upon interiorization of the activity of units-coordinating, this result is available to the child prior to operating and the child can be said to be aware of a unit of units of units and to take this unit structure as given in further operating. In partitioning language, the child is able to engage in recursive partitioning. Up through Protocol IX, there was little indication that Laura had interiorized the activity of unitscoordinating in the context of connected numbers. However, she engaged in units-coordinating activity that I regard as essential in the process of interiorizing the activity when she mentally partitioned two visible halves of the bar into two parts each and then mentally partitioned one of these four imagined parts into two parts. In Protocol X, Laura engaged in a quite similar way of operating in nding one third of one eighteenth. After mentally partitioning one sixth of a bar into thirds, she used this one sixth bar as a mental template in two ways. She had already made a 6/6-bar using the 1/6-bar she mentally partitioned into three parts, and it was her goal to nd how many parts she would make if she partitioned each of the six parts rst into three parts and then each one of these three parts into three further parts. So, she repeated partitioning each 1/6-bar into three parts and then into three further parts. To nd how many parts she would produce if each 1/6-bar was partitioned in this way, she counted the parts as she made them, thus using the mental template to create countable unit items. I consider the activity in which she engaged as in the province of reecting abstraction for four basic reasons. First, she had made a 6/6-bar by iterating a 1/6-bar six times, so her concept of the number, six, was used in making a connected number, six one sixths. But rather than rst make units of one and then unite them into a composite unit, she started with a spatial unit [a rectangle] and partitioned it into six rectangular parts using Parts to make the units of one that she would then unite together. But, rather than unite them together, she instead iterated one of the rectangular parts to produce a partitioned rectangle consisting of six one sixths. When iterating the 1/6-bar, I assume that she performed progressive integration operations so that when she was done iterating, she had produced six units each of which was one sixth of the original rectangular bar. This way of operating was novel for her and it opens the possibility that she abstracted the organization of the operations she used to make the connected number, six one sixths. What I mean by abstraction in this case resides in the production of a program of operations for making six one sixths by modifying her prior program of operations for making six. The production essentially involved a reorganization of the interiorized operations that she used to make a composite unit consisting of six units. She could now partition a rectangular region into six equal parts, disembed one of the six parts and constitute it as one sixth, iterate this part six times to make six sixths, and unite the six parts into a composite unit, six. Her operating also registered the novel gurative or sensory material she used in operating in the operations, which constitutes an abstraction of the material. Second, she used her concept of three to partition a 1/6-bar into three parts and then each of these three parts into three further parts. That is, she enactively engaged in what appeared to be recursive partitioning.
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Bringing forth an enactive engagement of partitioning the elements of a mental partition of a rectangular region is in the province of reecting abstraction in a way that I just explained in the case of making six one sixths because the operations that she used to produce her concept of three that she used further in partitioning were interiorized operations. Third, Laura construed the results of the activity of partitioning a 1/6-bar into three parts and then each of these three parts into three further parts as countable items. Counting is already a part of the activity of units-coordinating, but how she used it implies that she was aware of the operations of coordinating two units of three to produce countable items. In fact, she used one unit of three to track the production of composite units of three, and then used the produced composite units of three to track the production of countable items of one and then to count them. In that the units of three were not simply sensory-motor units, but were units projected into the rectangular regions of the rectangle that she took as material for partitioning, what was registered were mental acts that she used in producing the ephemeral units. This is a process of interiorizing the mental acts and the coordination of the two units of three that produced them. Finally, the organization of the operations that she used to produce one fty-forth was organized in the situation and she could be said to be in the process of constructing a fractional composition scheme. If the organization would reappear, then she could be said to have constructed an enactive fractional composition scheme that could serve her in solving situations like the one of Protocol X and could serve her in abstracting a fractional composition scheme. Essentially, Laura was engaged in establishing a way of operating that, if abstracted, could be constituted as a fractional composition scheme. When Laura, and Jason, was asked to nd how much one third of a one ninth bar was of the whole bar in the 1 March 1994 Teaching Episode (Protocol XI), Laura proceeded in a way that was quite similar to how she operated in the 22 February 1994 Teaching Episode (Protocols IX and X). Her way of proceeding corroborates the inference that she had constructed an enactive fractional composition scheme by means of pseudo-empirical abstraction in the earlier teaching experiment. The observable difference in the two children was that Laura enacted recursive partitioning in counting by three nine times whereas Jason proceeded mentally in a way that one would expect a child to operate who had constructed the fractional composition scheme, and hence recursive partitioning. The question whether Laura constructed a fractional composition scheme in such a way that her use of her scheme would be comparable with how Jason used his scheme has no absolute answer. However, the way in which she operated in the continuation of Protocol XI indicates that the accommodations she made in the construction of her enactive fractional composition scheme indeed engendered21 an abstraction when enacting recursive partitioning. When she couldnt partition each part of a 9/9-bar [that was partitioned horizontally] into three parts using horizontal Parts, she suddenly exclaimed, I can do them up and down! and proceeded to use vertical Parts to partition each part of the 9/9-bar into three parts. Moreover, rather than count by three twenty-seven times, she resorted to using her computational algorithm for multiplication. Both of these modications in her way of operating indicated that a major change was underway in her enactive fractional composition scheme. Whether using vertical Parts to partition the nine parts of the 9/9-bar into three parts each is a solid indication of recursive partitioning is uncertain because there was no opportunity to test that possibility in future teaching episodes. What it does indicate is that partitioning one of the nine parts into three parts symbolized partitioning each of the other nine parts into three parts, which is essential in recursive partitioning. That she had nally constructed recursive partitioning is weakly indicated by her
21
An accommodation is engendering if it leads to further accommodations that involves a reorganization of the involved scheme.
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saying that one of four parts of a 1/3-bar is one twelfth in the 8 March 1994 Teaching Episode [Protocol XII] and by her agreement with Jason that a 4/12-bar is one third of the unit bar. Had the teacher asked Laura how much one fourth of one third of the unit bar was without indicating what Laura should do, and had Laura proceeded independently to produce one twelfth, this would have constituted a solid indication that she had constructed recursive partitioning. A more solid indication that recursive partitioning was emerging within her reversible partitive fractional scheme is contained in Protocol XIII of the same teaching episode. After Jason made a 1/3-bar and Laura a 1/4-bar, the teacher asked the children [I]f we take both of your shares, the one third and the one fourth, how much of the whole do we get? Laura placed a copy of both shares on the unit bar (Fig. 6) and exclaimed, That much! Her actions were executed independently of any actions that Jason carried out and were not implied by the teachers question. When coupled with her emphatic exclamation, they provide solid indication of reversibility in her partitive fractional scheme in that she established the goal of nding how much an unknown part was of the whole and anticipated nding a fraction that specied the relation. Establishing such a part-to-whole comparison is essential in establishing a fractional composition scheme. But it is not sufcient because it doesnt supply the operations that are needed to specify the fraction. To modify the reversible partitive fractional scheme in such a way that it becomes a fractional composition scheme, I have already said that the child has to embed recursive partitioning in the scheme. An indication of what such an embedding means is contained in the rst continuation of Protocol XIII when Laura used the complement of the 1/4-bar in the middle 1/3-bar to nd how many of these parts were contained in the unit bar after the teacher asked the children How much do you think this tiny little piece is? In producing her answer of one twenty-fourths, it would have been necessary for Laura to partition each 1/3-bar into four parts, which is an act of recursive partitioning. She used the computer graphics in her reasoning, so there was no indication that she could engage in recursive partitioning in the absence of visual material. Nevertheless, using the complement of the 1/4-bar in the 1/3-bar as a unit in simultaneously partitioning the visual join of the 1/4-bar and the 1/3-bar and the 3/3-bar under the goal of nding how much the joined bar was of the 3/3-bar opens the path to embedding recursive partitioning in the reversible fractional scheme, and thereby constructing a fractional composition scheme for unit fractions. 9.3. The emergence of a unit fractional adding scheme The basic problem that had to be solved in the childrens construction of a unit fractional adding scheme was how to bring forth operations in the children that are sufcient to produce a partition that would transform the fractions that are involved in a sum into commensurate fractions that are multiples of the same unit fraction. In the 8 March 1994 Teaching Episode [Protocol XII and its continuations], both children mentally joined two fractional parts of a connected number together [a 1/3-bar and a 1/4-bar] and then guratively compared the joined parts to the connected number without producing a fraction that would numerically specify the comparison. Both children did produce seven twelfths as the fraction that numerically specied the comparison between the join of a 1/3-bar and a 1/4-bar in Protocol XIII and its continuations, but in spite of the rather creative and productive thinking that was documented in these protocols, neither child constructed an ensemble of operations for nding the fractional part of a unit bar constituted by the join of two unit fractional parts of the bar. Whatever insights were produced by the children were produced in the context of interlocked interactions and were specic to the situations in which they occurred without implications for operating in similar situations.
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What was needed was a task that the children could solve in such a way that the solution did have implications for the construction of a fractional adding scheme that was general enough to be referred to as a unit fractional adding scheme. We developed the basic task of Protocol XIV in an attempt to bring forth operations in the children that are sufcient to produce a partition that would transform the unit fractions involved in a sum into commensurate fractions that are multiples of the same unit fraction. The task was to partition a bar only once so that both one half and one third could be pulled from the bar. Of course this was not intended to be an addition task. Rather, it was designed to elicit a common partitioning that included both a two-partition and a three-partition. In fact, it was designed for the purpose of bringing forth an equi-partitioning scheme for connected numbers. In Protocol XIV Jason insightfully produced six [Wait! I know how to get both of them in one!] as the partition needed to pull out both one half and one third from a unit bar. Although we designed the task to elicit a common partitioning, Jasons insight in solving the task was a surprise because he proceeded numerically without indication that he produced a bar and an image of partitioning the bar in visualized imagination. Counting by two three times to produce six and then taking half of six to make three, or one half of six, broke through into his awareness primarily because it was one of the two possibilities for combining two and three that he had constructed. The other was to combine two and three additively which he did try and found that it didnt work. His source of creativity, then, resided in his adding and multiplying schemes for whole numbers. Nevertheless, his numerical insight was not separated from partitioning activity because immediately after his insight, he proceeded to partition the unit bar into six parts using Parts and pulled a 3/6-bar from the partitioned unit bar. His way of using his numerical multiplying schemes in the construction of a fractional adding scheme is a critical observation because it serves in corroborating the basic hypothesis of the teaching experiment that childrens fractional schemes can emerge as accommodations in their numerical schemes. This hypothesis is referred to as the reorganization hypothesis because when a new scheme is established by using another scheme in a novel way, the new scheme can be regarded as a reorganization of the prior scheme. In that case where a childs fractional scheme does emerge as an accommodation in a numerical scheme, I regard the numerical scheme as a constructive mechanism in the production of the fractional scheme (Kieren, 1980).
Acknowledgments The research on which the paper is based was funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the activities of NSF Projects No. RED-8954678 and No. REC-9814853. All opinions are those of the author. References
Bickhard, M. H. (1995). World mirroring versus world making: theres gotta be a better way. In: L. P. Steffe, & J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 229267). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Cobb, P. (2001). Constructivism in social context. In: L. P. Steffe, & P. Thompson (Eds.), Radical constructivism in action: building on the pioneering work of Ernst von Glasersfeld (pp. 152178). Washington, DC: The Falmer Press. Confrey, J. (1995). How compatible are radical constructivism, sociocultural approaches, and social constructivism. In: L. P. Steffe, & J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 185225). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kieren, T. (1980). The rational number construct its elements and mechanisms. In: T. E. Kieren (Ed.), Recent research on number learning (pp. 125149). Columbus, OH: ERIC/SMEAC, 1493
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Fractional Commensurate Composition and Adding Schemes Learning Trajectories of Jason and Laura Grade 5

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Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

The fourth person was left unnamed in the teachers question.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

Fig. 1. The situation of Protocol X.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

Fig. 2. The situation of Protocol XI.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

Fig. 3. Lauras introduction of vertical parts.

Fig. 4. The result of partitioning one ninth into thirds.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

Fig. 5. The situation of Protocol XII.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

Fig. 7. Laura mentally segmented the unsegmented part.

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

I do not equate coordination and accommodation [learning].

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295

L.P. Steffe / Journal of Mathematical Behavior 22 (2003) 237295