Jerry

Qiao
10/25/14
Math Module Interview #2 Analysis


I chose to ask two students the height with hat question, where the hat was 1 foot
tall. Both students were 4th graders at the Linden STEAM Academy. This interview was
conducted during their lunch period. For the purposes of this interview, they will be known
as Brenda and Carla.

I began this interview by framing the question with an example. They were quickly

able to deduce that if a person was 5 feet tall, that with a hat, theyd be 6 feet tall. Similarly,
they were able to provide answers when I changed the height of the person with the hat.
After enough examples, I probe them for something more general. After a little bit of
conversation, I asked them how much taller does any person in the world get if they put on
the hat. Both of them seemed to be in agreement and said one more feet taller [line 34].
This was a common theme throughout the first half of the interview. Brenda and Carla
were both breezing through the early parts; their responses were quick and were always
able to show work or reasoning for their answers. At worst, they got momentarily confused
in the co-variation question (line 70-72), but were quick to readjust their answer so it
made sense.

Although they were unfamiliar with the t-table and had to be guided through it at

the beginning, they were quickly able to plug in various heights and produce a number for
the persons height with a hat on. Even with absurd heights, they were able to produce an
output.

The first interesting comment came when I asked them to tell me the rule that they

seemed to be using in order to figure out how tall someone would be with a hat on. While

Brenda was thinking, Carla jumped in and said that they were using the ones table [line
130]. They ultimately explained what they meant by the ones table, but it was
nonetheless interesting. I was curious as to why they didnt just answer were adding one
more the first time around. The answer could be that they arent often asked to describe
about rules or patterns in mathematics, so the phrasing and vocabulary used in the
question threw them off for a bit. I found the rest of the interview to be particularly
interesting, so Ill break it apart in sections.

I.

148. I said Hmmhis height---hes y feet tall. So lets write that down. The letter y.
Right under there. How tall would he be with the hat on then?
149. C: One footone footone more?
150. J: What would you put on this side?
151. B: Y
152. C: No.
153. C: Z!

After I introduced the variable, the conversation became a lot less trivial. Both
Brenda and Carla began to think more about their answers than before, because the
answers werent as clear anymore. Carla seems to be keeping true to her rule, as after some
thinking, she tells me one foot more. She understands that no matter who the person is, if
a person puts on the hat, he or she will be one foot taller. It was both surprising and
unsurprising that Carla assigned a value of Z for the persons height with a hat on. With a
response such as one foot more, the representation Y+1 would be very fitting. However,
she did choose Z as her answer. From following examples involving other variables, it
was clear she was going to the next letter, as per her one foot more rule.
II.

156. J: And lets say I found another person. Another random stranger. And I said he was Z
feet tall. How tall would he be with the hat on?
157. C: Z.?
158. J: Just put down what you think his height would be with the hat on.
159. B: YZ? NoZZ?
160. C: Ohhh. I get it. Wait. I need someones desk to do it.
161. J: Why do you need someones desk? Ok you can look at someones desk really quickly. Ok
so Z feet tall. How tall would they be
162. B & C: 26.
163. C: He would be ZA!
164. J: ZA?
165. C: Mmhmm.
166. J: Ok. Can you write that down? And why did you say ZA? Lets go Brenda first. Tell me
why you said ZA.
167. B: You can go back to the beginning.
168. J: Ok.
169. C: No because so
170. J: Carla, come over here, come over here. Just come over here. Why did you put ZA?
171. C: Because when you count over there. When we counted there was 26 letters and then
when you go back it makes 1 more.

Carlas thoughts on the question posed in line 156 are beyond fascinating. In the
interview, she had the look of confusion as her previous hypothesis of progressing a letter
was not applicable here anymore. I mirrored her look of confusion as she asked to use a
desk to help her figure this problem out.
Each desk in my classroom has a number line and alphabet on them, as part of their
nametag. She began counting all the letters on the alphabet, to see how many there were,
which is why I backtracked a little bit and asked her how tall a person who was Z feet
would be. After their counting, both students responded by saying 26 [line 162]. Before I
could ask anything, Carla seemed very sure that she had found an answer as she blurted
out He would be ZA! [line 163]. Carla and Brenda found a way to bypass the bounds of the
alphabet by looping back to the beginning.
Furthermore, Carlas reasoning in line 171 was full of material. ZA represented, on
the level of variables, a perfectly legitimate answer in their eyes. Carla found a need to

combine her rule with the variable given, and ultimately produced ZA. Since they ended
up assigning the value of 26 to Z, it made their answer of ZA all the more fascinating. If
they assigned 26 to Z, one could infer that A would have been assigned a value of 1. It
wasnt just that A wouldve been the first letter after they loop around, but it also happens
to be a representation of the number 1. While I regret not digging deeper on this, it was
nonetheless an innovative approach to the bounded limits that the alphabet has.
One last interesting moment in this interview came towards the end, when I posed the
idea that if a persons height was Q, their height with the hat on would be Q+1. While
initially accepting of my idea, they ultimately came to the conclusion that U would be a
better answer. This seems to show again that there is this deeply embedded connection
between numbers and the letters of the alphabet. When I asked them why they preferred
U over Q+1, they said that when you add one more, you go to the letter after.
Ultimately, based on this interview and the other one I did, I have found that my
students have the ability to work in this abstract world of variables, but might need some
assistance in thinking beyond the alphabet. In this interview, both Brenda and Carla
werent bound by the lack of a fixed number; only once in the beginning did they say I
need to know their height. I thought their approach to this subject was quite advanced,
especially in figuring out what comes after Z. This interview shows that these students
were not far off from gaining a working knowledge of how variables and functions work.