RESEARCH

Algebra in the Revision

Susan Jo Russell, Deborah Schifter, and Virginia Bastable

A major emphasis of the revision is to make the foundations of algebra currently in

the curriculum more visible to teachers and students, to expand this work in the
context of students’ study of number and operations, and to deepen the focus on
patterns, functions, and change by creating a consistent strand in Grades K–5.

Algebra is a multifaceted area of mathematics content, and various schema have been
proposed for classifying that content (e.g., Kaput, 1998, 1999; Usiskin, 1988). These
references, as well as the NCTM’s Principles and Standards, suggest several central
aspects of algebra (these are related, overlapping categories): a) generalizing and
formalizing patterns; b) representing and analyzing the structure of number and
operations; c) using symbolic notation to express functions and relations; d)
representing and analyzing change. In the Investigations revision, we have addressed
these four aspects in two major ways.

Integration of Early Algebra into the Units That Focus on Number and Operations

The materials highlight the generalizations about number and operations students
frequently observe. Teachers learn to help students articulate these generalizations and
challenge them to consider the questions: Does this generalization apply to all numbers
(in the domain under consideration)? Why does it work? How do you know?
Throughout Grades 1–5, students articulate, represent, investigate, and justify general
claims. In each of the number and operations units, an essay, Algebra Connections in
This Unit, highlights several generalizations and includes examples of how students
think about and represent them. Investigation and discussion of some of these
generalizations are built into unit sessions; at other times, “Algebra Notes” alert the
teacher to sessions in which these ideas are likely to arise. For example, in Grade 2,
students consider whether the order of terms affects the sum in addition problems or
the diff erence in subtraction. In Grade 3, students discuss the generalization underlying
the equivalence of subtraction expressions as in the equation, 104 – 78 = 106 – 80. In
Grade 5, students justify why halving one factor and doubling the other in
multiplication results in the same product (e.g., 65 x 24 = 130 x 12 = 1560).

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Algebra in the Revision
A Complete K–5 Strand on Patterns, Functions, and Change

We have created a coherent K–5 strand that starts with repeating patterns and number
sequences in Grades K and 1, connects to functional relationships beginning in Grade 2,
and focuses on linear and nonlinear change in Grades 3–5. Students study relationships
that follow rules (such as the relationship between the number of windows in a
building and the number of fl oors if the building has a fi xed number of windows per
floor) and relationships that do not follow rules (such as the relationship between
temperature and time in Grade 3 and between plant growth and time in Grade 4). They
work extensively with ways of representing these relationships: in words, with
numbers, with tables and graphs, and (starting in Grade 4) with symbolic notation.
These units reinforce and connect with work in other units on multiplication, ratio, area,
volume, and graphing.

EXAMPLES FROM THE CLASSROOM

To provide a flavor of the kind of work students do in the revised curriculum, here are
two examples from field-test classrooms that fall under the first category: making and
justifying general claims about number and operations.

Grade 4: Is It 2 More or 2 Less?

In a Grade 4 class, students were trying to explain why the result of the subtraction, 145
– 98, is two more, not two less, than the result of the subtraction, 145 – 100. The context
for the problem was related to a science project in which the class weighed apples in
grams as they dried out. To address the subtraction problem, Brian drew a closed shape
representing an “apple” divided into two parts, then used it to show what would
happen if the part that is “taken away” is diminished while the whole stays the same.
“See, this is the apple at first,” he explained. “And you take some away [the part to the
right of the dotted line] and have some left [to the left of the dotted line]. Then you take
away 98 grams instead, so it’s over here [the part to the right of the solid line is now the
part that is subtracted; left of the solid line is what remains].”

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With the presence of this picture to focus the discussion, more students joined in, using
the representation not only to reason about the particular numbers, but to state and
justify a more general claim. Rebecca said, “It’s like you have this big hunk of bread and
you can take a tiny bite or a bigger bite. If you take away smaller, you end up with
bigger.” Then Max stated: “The less you subtract, the more you end up with, AND in
fact the thing you end up with is exactly as much larger as the amount less that you
subtracted.”

Grade 2: Switching Around the Numbers

But what about students in the primary grades? Aren’t they “concrete” thinkers? In fact,
young students, too, notice regularities about the work they do as they count, compare
quantities, and learn about addition and subtraction. Here is an example from a second
grade. The teacher asked the students to generate combinations of two addends with a
sum of 25. As they listed these on chart paper, students soon noticed—as they had
before in their computation work—that they could “switch around” the numbers and
still get the same sum, for example, if 23 + 2 = 25, then 2 + 23 = 25. In fact, the teacher
had in mind that this idea would come up during this activity and had planned follow-
up questions. She asked, “Suppose I asked . . . if you could prove that or explain it
better to me . . . if we take the 2 and put it fi rst, do we still get 25?” Nikki demonstrated
with a stack of 23 cubes and a stack of 2 cubes. She moved the 2-cube stack rapidly and
repeatedly from the right side to the left side of the 23-cube stack. “It doesn’t matter,”
she said, “if you keep on just switching it around, it will still make 25 . . . you’re not
taking away or adding to it . . . it will still be the same number.” Again, in this example,
the use of a representation that embodies the operation enables the students to reason
about the general claim. Although

Nikki is holding particular quantities—23 and 2—her reasoning applies to any pair of
numbers. Once all the students seemed quite convinced that the order of any pair of
numbers in an addition expression could be changed without changing the sum, the
teacher asked the students if the same is true for subtraction. From her experience with
these ideas, the teacher knew not to assume that students thought that the “switch
around” rule applies only to addition. Students thought about her question for a few
minutes, then several students offered their ideas, using 7 – 3 and 3 – 7 as an example.

Nikki: If you have 3 take away 7, but 3 doesn’t have 7. . . . You can only take away 3 to
make zero.

Alita: You can’t use the 3 because after you use the 3—3, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0. . . the zero’s going
to keep on repeating itself. Edward: It wouldn’t be zero. It would be negative 4 . . . That
means you’re going lower. If you’re going lower than zero, that means negative 1,
negative 2, negative 3 . . . .

Although these students did not yet have all the number experience necessary to
understand this idea, the teacher noticed that they were making important observations
about the diff erences between the properties of addition and the properties of
subtraction. She planned to return to this discussion as other opportunities arose—for
example, can the order of the numbers be changed in an addition expression with more
than two addends without aff ecting the sum?
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Algebra in the Revision
ALGEBRA FOR ALL STUDENTS

The work of generalizing and justifying in the elementary classroom has the potential of
enhancing the learning of all students. The teachers with whom we have collaborated
for several years have realized this potential in their classrooms. Teacher collaborators
report to us that students who tend to have diffi culty in mathematics become stronger
mathematical thinkers through this work. As one teacher wrote, “When I began to work
on generalizations with my students, I noticed a shift in my less capable learners.
Things seemed more accessible to them.” When the generalizations are made explicit—
through language and through spatial representations used to justify them—they
become accessible to more students and can become the foundation for greater
computational fl uency. Furthermore, the disposition to create a representation when a
mathematical question arises supports students in reasoning through their confusions.
Brian (in the Grade 4 example above), a tentative learner in mathematics, created a
representation that illuminated an important idea. In the second grade classroom, in an
urban center with a historically large proportion of underachieving students, a range of
students off ered important ideas about how addition is and subtraction is not
commutative.

At the same time, students who generally outperform their peers in mathematics find
this content challenging and stimulating. The study of number and operations extends
beyond efficient computation to the excitement of making and proving conjectures
about mathematical relationships that apply to an infinite class of numbers. A teacher
explained, “Students develop a habit of mind of looking beyond the activity to search
for something more, some broader mathematical context to fit the experience into.” In
the fourth grade example above, Max, one of the most mathematically successful
students in the class, listened carefully to his classmates’ explanations and then enjoyed
the challenge of formulating a precise statement of the generalization. And Edward (in
the Grade 2 example), who knew more about numbers than his peers, was able to seed
the conversation with a new idea about numbers below zero.

EARLY ALGEBRA IS FUNDAMENTAL

Underlying these kinds of discussions are what one of our mathematician advisors calls
“foundational principles”—principles that connect elementary students’ work in
arithmetic to later work in algebra. For example, the idea explored by the fourth graders
(the less you subtract, the more you have left) can be represented as, “If a – b = c, then a
– (b – x) = c + x,” or, more concisely, “a – (b – x) = (a – b) + x.” A discussion among
middle schoolers similar to that in the 4th grade example could provide an opportunity
to consider why the associative property does not apply to subtraction, and to articulate
a rule that does. The second graders do not yet have the experience with negative
numbers to allow them to completely make sense of 3 – 7, but they are nevertheless
engaged in reasoning about foundational ideas, in this case, that addition is
commutative, but subtraction is not: a + b = b + a, but c – d ≠ d – c. In later years, they
will come to see that there is a regularity here, that if c – d = a, then d – c = -a, or c – d =
- (d – c).

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Algebra in the Revision
For most adults, notation such as the use of variables, operations, and equal signs is the
chief identifying feature of algebra. Although we do introduce symbolic notation in
Grade 4, the notation is not the focus of activity in Grades K–5. Underlying the notation
are ways of reasoning about how the operations work. This reasoning—about how
numbers can be put together and taken apart under diff erent operations or about
relationships between two changing quantities—not the notation, is the central work of
elementary students in algebra.

In the course of our work to integrate the foundations of algebra into the Investigations
curriculum and through the insights of our fi eld-test teachers and the thinking of their
students, we have concluded that work in early algebra is fundamental to the
experience of young students. In summary:
1. Early algebra is not an add-on. The foundations of algebra arise naturally throughout
students’ work on number, operations, patterns, and through noticing how one thing
changes in relation to another. This work anchors students’ concepts of the operations
and underlies greater computational flexibility.
2. Algebra as generalized arithmetic provides openings for working on reasoning and
proving.
3. Algebra provides the opportunity to learn about the power of representation as a
basis for mathematical reasoning.
4. Working on the algebraic underpinnings of arithmetic is one way of engaging the
range of learners in
mathematical thinking.

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REFERENCES:

Kaput, James J. Transforming algebra from an engine of inequity to an engine of

mathematical power by “algebrafying” the K–12 curriculum. In National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics & Mathematical Sciences Education Board (Eds.). The nature
and role of algebra in the K–14 curriculum: Proceedings of a National Symposium (pp.
25–26). Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy
Press, 1998.

———. Teaching and learning a new algebra. In Elizabeth Fennema and Thomas
Romberg (Eds.). Mathematics classrooms that promote understanding (pp. 133–155).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999.

Usiskin, Zalman. Conceptions of school algebra and uses of variables. In Arthur F.

Coxford and Albert P. Shulte (Eds.). The ideas of algebra K–12, 1988 Yearbook (pp. 8–
19). National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, VA, 1988.

The work described in this article was supported in part by the National Science
Foundation through Grant No. ESI-0095450 to TERC and Grant No. ESI-0242609 to the
Education Development Center. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or
recommendations expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the National Science Foundation.

______________________________________________________________________________

From: Russell, Susan J., Schifter, Deborah, and Bastable, Virginia. Research: Algebra in
the Revision. Greater Than: A Prepublication Report. Investigations in Number, Data, and
Space © 2009. Scott Foresman. Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc. Used by
permission.

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Algebra in the Revision