EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISCONTINUITIES AND COGNITIVE

HIERARCHIES IN TECHNOLOGY-BASED ALGEBRA

LEARNING
Michal Yerushalmy
University of Haifa
There is speculation about the degree to which new technologies will lead to
replacement of current curricula with new content. How does the use of new
curriculum that is based upon new epistemological assumptions change our
capability to anticipate students' difficulties and strengths? Taken from a series of
studies carried out as design experiments in algebra classrooms over the last decade,
I will present examples where students’ performance in a technology-supported
curriculum is different from the performance one might have predicted for students
learning this content in a non-technology supported environment. These examples
suggest that technology can transform student learning. The technology and the
sequence help to bridge known transitions that assumed difficult to students to be
'natural' (for example: Modeling, recursive thinking, solving unfamiliar equations or
visualizing equation in 2 unknowns in 3D). However, the transitions between
fundamental concepts or operations remained the difficult and non-trivial parts. In
doing such analysis, I suggest that identifying critical discontinuities is an important
research tool for studying students' construction of knowledge and for analyzing
classroom guided inquiry supported by technology.
School algebra reform
In popular culture, school algebra, has a negative reputation. It is believed that school
algebra classroom involves students in the application of unjustified methods to
classes of problems, and that this is problematic because it does not get students
involved in creative thought that is representative of mathematical work. Studies of
educators and mathematicians concerning the ways in which the discipline is
portrayed to students have not demonstrated interest in algebra, probably because it
presents students with limited opportunities to engage in something like the solving of
problems in ways that reflect hallmark of mathematical thought. Indeed, school
algebra has been described as a part of the curriculum "overly focused on
“meaningless manipulation.” memorized rules focusing on specific strategies for
specific types of problems. As part of the larger reform movement across the world,
during the last fifteen years, mathematics educators have tried to work to reshape
school algebra and respond to the above mentioned criticisms. There have been calls
for more contextually-based problems that would allow algebra to emerge from
quantitative situations in the lives of students. There have been calls to integrate
attention to justification and proof throughout the school curriculum, including school
algebra. And, influenced by the increasing availability of computer and calculator
technology that supports multiple representations of functions, there have been moves
to use this technology to change the nature of the school algebra curriculum (e.g, Heid
et al., 1995). Algebra reform for algebra beginners has taken several forms, some of
them called functions approach to algebra. Although there are important differences
between them, these new forms organize the algebra curriculum around the concept of
function, emphasize and support concrete representations, and base learning on
situations that appear realistic and are centered on mathematization in the form of
modeling and of abstractions at different levels (Kieran & Yerushalmy 2004). With
respect to equations, the function-based proposals suggest that an equation is a
question of comparison between two functions (in the spirit of Freudenthal’s, 1973,
notation). Graphing technology and tabular representations of function values can
suggest the number of solutions to any equation and can approximate their values.
Learning of this type requires the active participation of the students: making
conjectures and performing actions with physical tools and representations in ways
that were not possible in traditional algebra.
Discontinuities in long term learning
Technology interacts in important ways with the desires of mathematics educators to
work for what Tall (2002) calls “long term learning.” Noss (2001) suggests that what
is natural to express and how one might do so both may change as a function of the
expressive tools available to a culture at a given time. This view of the power of tools
and media underlies much of the enthusiasm in mathematics education for
technological tools. Perhaps technology might upset the hierarchies of prerequisite
skills that often seem to dictate the practice of mathematics in schools. Perhaps
technology might aid teachers in making accessible to learners' powerful
mathematical ideas in a different sequence and rate than has been traditionally
deemed feasible. But technology is only one aspect of the reformed constructions of
long term learning. In Tall’s terms, when learners in school need to reconstruct their
knowledge in order to make progress, then they have experienced a discontinuity in
the curriculum. He suggests that discontinuities cannot be made disappear and argues
that they are a crucial matter of curricular design and understanding. Tall exemplifies
places where cognitive reconstruction is called for, even if learners do not find this
reconstruction difficult and asserts that such discontinuities are inevitably part of
mathematics teaching and learning and should be explored, rather than avoided.
In a recent paper Yerushalmy & Chazan (to appear) point on the need that
mathematics educators develop better descriptions of how curricula differ and what
bets (cognitive, pedagogical, and technological) particular curricular make. They
argue that it is less important to be able to make statements about the effectiveness of
a particular curriculum or the use of a particular technological innovation and more
important to be able to associate evaluation data about a curriculum with key aspects
of the design of the curriculum. We argue that a key aspect that would allow
evaluation data to accumulate across different curriculum development projects is the
discontinuities students will encounter. Using this notion of discontinuities I will
examine the design of an Israeli algebra curriculum (Visual Math 1995) at two points
and the discontinuities they entail.
Visual Math - An example of a long-term learning sequence
The Visual Math curriculum (1995) is an algebra, pre-calculus and calculus
curriculum where technology is being used to help learners develop knowledge from
their perceptions of the world and to develop conceptual understanding of symbols.
The growing research in the field of embodied cognition suggest the idea that bodily
activities are centrally involved in conceptualization of mathematics and that
important parts of Algebra and Calculus are understood via conceptual metaphors in
term of more concrete concepts. In particular the notion of continuous functions and
directed graphs are viewed as mathematical concepts developed through human
motion experience. The learning of algebra in Visual Math is preceded by semi-
qualitative modeling. Another challenge of the innovative development is rooted in
the symbolic world where technology that supports multi representations of functions
allows students to develop symbolic understanding using the feedback from graphs or
table of values, generating and viewing a rich repertoire of non-prototypic examples.
In general, an important goal of this curriculum is to help students develop strong
symbolic skills and to learn to do a variety of standard algebraic manipulations. But,
the curriculum is aimed at helping students learn to do such manipulations with an
understanding of the graphical and tabular meanings of these manipulations, as well
as a sense of the purposes for which such manipulations are useful. We will look at
how such new epistemological structures afforded by digital technology impact the
cognitive hierarchies; resolve or change the nature of known transitions or mark new
critical discontinuities in the curricula.
Algebra and Mathematical Modeling
Using technology such as simulations' software, MBL or other modeling tools that
include dynamic forms of representations of computational processes, it is now
possible to construct graphical models without first writing symbolic expressions with
x’s and y’s. Several studies suggest that such emphasize on modeling offers students
means and tools to reason about differences and variations (rate of change). The
Visual Math curriculum is an example of an algebra curriculum where the learning of
algebra is preceded by such semi-qualitative modeling. Graphs and what we will call
staircases (a graphical depiction of differences in y value for a set change in x
Schwartz and Yerushalmy 1995) emerged as models of situations, and also as models
for reasoning about mathematical concepts. Using the grammar of objects and the
operations on them, young students constructed complex mathematical models, based
on qualitative analysis of variation. Thus, if students become familiar first with ideas
of continuous change and finite differences, explicit closed forms may become less
natural aspect of expressing phenomenon. For example: in Yerushalmy (2005) I
describe students whose earlier experience with ideas of differences complicated their
use of explicit forms. They were seeking help in understanding why two numerical
phenomena they identified as appropriate: the linearly increasing differences and the
squaring describe the same quadratic phenomenon. In other words: why does the
solution of the difference equation f(x+1) –f(x)= ax+b is of the type: f(x)=x^2. This
complication might not have arisen if they had not had earlier support for recursive
reasoning. Thus the affordances of technology that made the recursive thinking the
natural way to think about a phenomenon and to symbolize it in a model is viewed as
strength however, it challenges thinking about teaching that can support the transition
to algebraic close rules.
Meaningful Manipulations
The lion’s share of the early parts of the Visual Math Algebra curriculum focuses on
functions of one variable and equations of one variable conceptualized as the
comparison of two functions of one variable. With this way of thinking about
equations, students acquire alongside the algebraic procedures alternative methods to
solve equations. Prior to and while using symbolic manipulations students are
encouraged to use systematic guessing, intuitive numerical and graphical analysis
strategies to narrow down the search interval. Research suggests that mature problem
solvers of word problems in algebra devote a substantial portion of their work to re-
presentation of the problem at the situational level. Forming the situational model is a
necessary stage in understanding the story of the problem and is a major component
of model-based reasoning. Recently Gilead & Yerushalmy (2001) studied Visual
Math students and equations' based algebra students solving linear motion problems.
87.3% of the 196 solutions given by the Visual Math students for problems in context
included graphical description of the situation which formed a situation model either
using a sketch (73%) or an accurate graph (14.3%). Investigation of the comparable
algebra students suggest that the students who were the more successful students of a
traditional algebra sequence which focus on unknowns and stress manipulations of
equations were substantially less capable to solve the same problems that were part of
their curricular sequence as well. While 90.8% of the solutions of the Visual Math
were correct solutions only 57.2% correct solutions were given by the equations'
based approach students. The function's approach to algebra that we took stressed the
algebra signs and symbols and the expressions and equations using these symbols to
be a meaningful language to express ideas. One of the ways to observe meaning is to
view equations as describing situations out of the mathematics and as graphical
models. This habit has been proved to support students learning when solving
constant rate problems. However, this same view of equation had probably leaded to a
discontinuity while approaching equations in two variables.
In typical algebra instruction, solving an equation in two variables and then a system
of equations requires to shift from a non explicit form (x+y=2) to an explicit function
form: y=2-x. One then substitute and use similar solution techniques as in a single
variable case. While technique does not require dramatic change the shift from an
equation in a single variable to two variables requires a shift in understanding the
nature of the solution: from a single definite solution to a set of solutions. For the
Visual Math function approach students the equal sign of the equation represents a
symmetric comparison sign and the function equal sign represents an a symmetric
assigning sign. Taking this view the nature of the solution remains the intersection
values of the intersection of the two functions. But the graphical and tabular
representations of functions of two variables must be developed in order to help
students see their connections to the ways of representing functions of one variable
with which they are familiar. Thus the transition remained critical; either one has to
develop new ideas about presentations of function in two variables or one has to
rewrite the equation in a way that violets the distinction between function and
equation. It required acknowledging that simple algebraic technique can change the
mathematical objects in hand: from equation in two variables to a function in a single
variable.
Discontinuities- a tool for curriculum analysis
The underlying assumption is that discontinuities exist in any long term learning
process and they cannot be made disappear. I demonstrated how the use of technology
in function's based school algebra has the potential to introduce strengths that looked
as if the "unnatural" became "natural". Using two examples; about the transition
between open and close sentences and the transition from one variable equations to
equations in two unknowns I argue that often discontinuities are stable – probably
because they point on, or a result of epistemological gaps. However, I suggested that
we should learn to remap the algebra with technology terrain in a way that would help
us to identify new or what appear as new discontinuities. An important question for
educators, teachers of new learning approaches and designers of reformed curricula is
whether it is possible to expect specific discontinuities. The two examples I presented
were expected when we planed the Visual Math sequence. Knowing that they are not
the optimal ones and that there could be other choices Visual Math bets on the
pedagogical values of these choices. As analyzed in Yerushalmy & Chazan (to
appear) function-based approaches to school algebra are not univocal. We suggested
that the study of discontinuities – whether stable or new – should be considered as an
important challenge for curricular design and evaluation.
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