Locking-It-In and Doubling: Mediating Second-Grade Students' Activity With Multiplicative Thinking

Authors

Jessica F. Shumway, Utah State UniversityFollow
Camille Lund, Utah State UniversityFollow
Joseph Kozlowski, Utah State UniversityFollow
Deborah Silvis, SUNY Cortland
Jody Clarke-Midura, Utah State UniversityFollow
Ana Ashineh, Utah State University

Document Type

Presentation

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association

Publisher

American Educational Research Association

Location

Denver, CO

Publication Date

4-2025

First Page

1

Last Page

14

Abstract

Using activity theory as a lens, we aimed to understand what second-grade students' interactions revealed about their thinking and what mediated students' engagement with important multiplicative ideas. In this setting, students interacted with multiplicative thinking using a coding robot and other artifacts as mediating tools. Through qualitative analysis, we found that students interacted with three concepts related to multiplicative thinking (i.e., composite units, doubling, iterating), and the lead mediators in their interactions included the robot's remote, dry erase marker and table, and peers/teacher. Students gravitated to artifacts that made sense to them, and the implication is that students need agency in opportunities to use artifacts and have interactions with rules and the community to make meaning of complex mathematical ideas.

Recommended Citation

Shumway, J. F., Lund, C., Kozlowski, J., Silvis, D., Clarke-Midura, J., & Ashineh, A. (2025, April). Locking-It-In and Doubling: Mediating Second-Grade Students’ Activity with Multiplicative Thinking. [Roundtable Session]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, Colorado.