Sense making through algebraic activities: A case study

Alik Palatnik1 and Boris Koichu2

1
Shaanan Academic Religious Teachers' College, Haifa, Israel; umapalatnik@gmail.com
2
The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel; bkoichu@tx.technion.ac.il

This article presents a case in which a pair of middle-school students attempts to make sense of a
previously obtained by them position formula for a particular numerical sequence. The exploration
occurred in the context of two-month-long student research project. The data analysis was aimed at
identification and characterization of the activities in which the students were engaged and the
processes involved in the students’ self-imposed sense-making quest. We found that the sense-
making process consisted of a sequence of generational and transformational algebraic activities in
the context of a global, meta-level activity, long-term problem solving. In this process, the students:
(1) formulated and justified claims; (2) made generalizations, (3) found the mechanisms behind the
algebraic objects; and (4) established coherence among the explored objects. The article is
concluded by a proposal for a four-component decomposition of algebraic sense making.
Keywords: Algebraic sense-making; Problem-solving; Project-based learning; Integer sequences.

Introduction
Sense making has long been a focal concern of the mathematics education research community
(e.g., Kieran, 2007; NCTM, 2009). NCTM (2009) recognized sense making as a means to know
mathematics as well as an important outcome of mathematics instruction. To review, NCTM (2009)
refers to sense making in mathematics “as developing understanding of a situation, context, or
concept by connecting it with existing knowledge” (p. 4). Nevertheless, NCTM (2009), as well as
many additional literature sources, is rather inexplicit as to what sense making comprises of and
how it occurs. Moreover, it has been broadly acknowledged (e.g. Schoenfeld, 2013) that
empirically-based knowledge about the processes involved in sense making is insufficient.
The case presented in this article occurred with two 9th graders, Ron and Arik (pseudonyms) who
participated in the Open-Ended Mathematical Problems project, which was conducted by the
authors. The initial part of Ron and Arik’s project is analysed elsewhere (Palatnik & Koichu, 2014,
2015). It lasted for three weeks and resulted in an insight solution to the problem of finding a
position formula for a particular sequence. This discovery was a highlight of the project. The
students told us, however, that they found the formula “by chance” and that it did not make sense
for them. As a result, making sense of the obtained formula became an explicitly chosen goal and
the main theme of the second part of the students’ project. This part had lasted for four weeks.
The goal of our study was to discern the activities and processes involved in the sense-making
effort. Specifically, we pursued the following research questions:
- In which events and algebraic activities were the students engaged while attempting to make
sense of a formula?
 - What were some of the processes involved in the students’ explicitly expressed conviction,
by the end of the exploration, that the formula “makes sense”?

Theoretical background
In empirical studies, the notion of sense making frequently denotes ways by which learners of
mathematics act upon a particular entity in the context of a particular mathematical activity. The
expression “to make sense of…” is attributed in different studies to such entities as proofs,
equations, concepts and solution methods (e.g. Smith, 2006; Rojano, Filloy & Puig, 2014). In
particular, Rojano et al. (2014) present algebraic equations and solutions as open mathematical texts
with embedded intentionality to introduce students with activities that require production of new
(for them) knowledge and sense by relation to the previously built texts. In our study, we adapt
NCTM’s (2009) perspective on sense making. Our theoretical framework is built upon the idea of
algebra as an activity (Kieran, 1996, 2007) and on analytical apparatus of Mason’s (1989) model of
mathematical thinking known as Manipulating – Getting-a-sense-of – Articulating (MGA).
Kieran (1996, 2007) puts forward the idea of algebra as an activity. She identifies three types of
activities in school algebra: generational, transformational, and global/meta-level activities and
argues that each activity has affordances for meaningful learning of algebra and development of
students understanding of algebraic concepts. The generational activity involves the forming and
interpreting of the objects of algebra (e.g., algebraic expressions or formulas) including objects
expressing generality arising from geometric patterns or numerical sequences. The transformational
activity includes various types of algebraic manipulations. Kieran (2007) points out that
transformational activity can contribute to students’ manipulative fluency with symbols and also to
development of students’ notions of equivalence as a core idea of algebra. A related point is
highlighted by Hoch and Dreyfus (2006), who proposed the notion of structure sense and by Arcavi
(2005) who discussed such aspects of symbol sense as friendliness with symbols, an ability to
switch between attachment and detachment of meaning, and an examination of the meaning of
symbols. Finally, algebra as a global/meta-level activity refers to mathematical activity for which
algebra is used as a tool. Kieran (2007) argues that “these activities provide the context, sense of
purpose, and motivation for engaging in the previously described generational and transformation
activities” (p. 714). Examples of such activities include problem solving, conjecturing, justifying
and proving. It is essential for the forthcoming analysis that when the learners are engaged in a
global/meta-level activity, the decision to use the algebraic apparatus arises as their choice.
The MGA model (Mason, 1989; Mason & Johnston-Wilder, 2004) considers a sense-making act
as an inseparable part of mathematical thinking. The model postulates that manipulating familiar
mathematical objects (M) leads to the formation of a sense of generality or regularity based on
properties of these objects (G), and then to the articulation of that general property (A), which in
turn forms new objects for manipulations. Thus, MGA model elaborates a helix of activity, in which
each cycle includes its own, local, sense-making act. Mason (1989) suggests that the driving force
behind this process is the gap between expected and actual results of manipulations.
 To summarize, we approach the student exploration as a sequence of algebraic activities
(Kieran, 1996, 2007). Each activity is in turn characterized in terms of the MGA model (Mason,
1989), with particular attention to manipulated objects and local sense making acts.

Method
Learning environment, participants and the mathematical context
The Open-ended Mathematical Problems project, in the context of which the case of interest
occurred, is being conducted, since 2010, in 9th grade classes for mathematically promising
students. The learning goal of the project is to create for students a long-term opportunity for
developing algebraic reasoning in the context of numerical sequences. It is of note that 9th graders in
Israel, as a rule, do not possess any systematic knowledge of sequences; this topic is taught in the
10th grade.
The project is designed in accordance with the principles of the Project-Based Learning (PBL)
instructional approach (e.g. Blumenfeld et al.,1991). Specifically, the organizational framework of
the project is as follows. At the beginning of a yearly cycle of the project, a class is exposed to 8-10
challenging problems. Teams of two or three students work on the problem of their choice at home
and during their enrichment classes. When the initial problem is solved, students are encouraged to
pose and solve follow-up problems. After 10 weeks, the teams present results of their projects to
peers and to an academic audience (for more details see Palatnik, 2016).
Ron and Arik chose to pursue the Pizza Problem (Figure 1) which is a variation of the problem of
partitioning the plane by n lines (e.g., Pólya, 1954). Using Kieran’s (2007) terminology, we
expected the Pizza Problem to provide students with rich opportunities to engage with generational
and transformational activities in the context of a global/meta-level activity.
Every straight cut divides a pizza into two separate pieces. What is the
largest number of pieces that can be obtained by n straight cuts?
A. Solve for n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
B. Find a recursive formula for the nth term of the sequence.
C. Find a position formula for the nth term of the sequence.

Figure 1: The Pizza Problem

Data sources and analysis
We audiotaped and transcribed protocols of the weekly meetings with Ron and Arik (eight 20-
minute meetings), collected written reports and authentic drafts that the students prepared for and
updated during the meetings (more than 40 pages) and interviewed the students by the end of the
project. These data were used to create a description of the students’ exploration and for dividing it
into episodes/events.
We identified episodes/events in due course of the project where the students were engaged in
activities related to: proving, generalizing, pattern-seeking, question-generating etc. Then for each
episode/event we discerned, by means of the MGA model, which objects the students considered,
how they were manipulated, and how and which articulated properties served as a basis for the next
MGA cycle1. These allowed us to infer about the local sense making acts (cf. Sandefur et al., 2013).

Findings: Ron and Arik make sense of the obtained formula

We present here2 four main events that occurred during students’ sense-making pursuit.
Event 1: Choosing new goals
The following conversation took place just after the students presented their solution to the Item C
n2 + n
of the Pizza Problem ( Pn= +1 ) to the instructor:
2
Instructor: Now you have a lot of work to do, and this is great. First of all, you see that
the formula works. Now we have to think why it works, and try proving that it works.
Ron (to Arik): Write it down. “Why it works, and prove that it works” (laughs), it is
interesting!
Ron accepted instructor’s suggestion. In his words: “When we have a formula, but don’t know its
meaning, it is not interesting. If we knew how the formula is constructed, we would know it 100%.
We got it by chance. So we do not know what it means.” In addition, both students proposed to
explore a more general problem, that of plane partitioning. They also suggested additional objects to
explore: the points of intersection of the cutting lines with and within a circle representing a pizza
and the number of segments on the cutting lines.

2a 2b 2c 2d 2e

Figure 2: The strategy employed in Events 1 and 2

Event 2: Simultaneous exploration of several sequences and first manipulation with a formula
Having chosen the above goals, the students started making sketches and counting: segments within
the circle, closed and open parts of the plane and points of intersection of the cutting lines, for

1
Due to the space limitation we exemplify MGA analysis only in the Event 2
2
A more detailed version of the story is presented elsewhere (Palatnik & Koichu, accepted)
different numbers of lines (see Figure 2a-c). As a by-product, the students noticed that the sum of
the first n odd numbers also equals n2. They also began exploring the connections between different
sequences (see Figure 2d-e). In particular, Ron noticed that the differences between the
corresponding terms of the sequences form a sequence 0, 1, 2, 3... (see columns X,Y at Figure 2d).
To obtain an explicit formula for the sequence 2, 5, 9, 14 … (the numbers of intersections of the
2
cutting lines with and within the circle), Ron adjusted the formula Pn= n + n +1 into the formula
2
n2 + n
X= + n (Figure 2c) in the following way: “I thought it would be like the previous formula,
2
but it did not fit. So I got rid of 1 and added n [to the right side of the formula], and it was right.”
Our interpretation of Ron’s actions in this transformational activity is as follows. For the first time,
an algebraic formula was object of Ron’s manipulations. In this MGA cycle, M (manipulating with)
n2 + n
was related to the formula Pn= +1 and A (articulation of a new property) – to the formula
2
n2 + n
X= + n . We infer that G (getting a sense of) was the realization that “similar” sequences can
2
be represented by formulas of similar structure and that one formula can be transformed into
another, instead of being developed through an exploration of regularities in a corresponding
numerical table.
Event 3: Producing an explanation of why the target formulas worked
The wish to understand why the formula returns the maximum number of pieces was a repeated
theme in weekly meetings with the instructor. The students eventually answered this query in the
following way. After exploring of new drawings Ron and Arik realized that the maximal number of
pieces is obtained when a new cutting line crosses all the previous lines in new points. As a result,
the students concluded that a new cutting line added n new intersection points to the existing
2
configuration of lines. For the students, it was an explanation of why the formula X= n + n + n
2
returned the maximum number of the intersection points. They further asserted that this idea also
n2 + n
explained, for them, why the target formula Pn= +1 returns the maximum number of pieces.
2
Event 4: “Proving” the target formula
As mentioned, the need to prove the correctness of the formula for the Pizza Problem was an
additional driving force for the students. First, Ron suggested: “We thought of a way to prove it [the
position formula]…[in order to do so, we want] to connect all the formulas we had, every table
we’ve made… may be it will give us the formula, then we will know that it is a true formula indeed.
Then we'd have a proof”. Ron and Arik built upon the following inference: for any number of cuts,
the sum of the number of open and closed pieces equals the overall number of pieces into which a
plane is divided. They explored the sequences for open and closed pieces. The number of open
pieces for n cuts, 2n, was easy for them to find and explain: adding a new cutting line adds exactly
two open pieces to the drawing. For the closed pieces the students empirically (i.e., by counting on
the drawings) obtained a sequence 0, 0, 1, 3, 6 for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 cuts, respectively. They perceived
it as “quite close” to the target sequence (2, 4, 7, 11, 16…) and began manipulating the target
n2 + n
formula ( Pn= +1) in a way similar to adjustment in Event 2. Eventually Ron and Arik obtained
2
the correct expression
(n − 2)2 + n −1 . The last piece of the puzzle came when Ron and Arik and their
2
classmate with whom they consulted devised and realized the following plan. Since the formula
n2 + n
Pn= +1 represents the total numbers of pieces and since Ron and Arik have obtained the
2
formulas for the number of closed and open pieces, the three formulas should match. After several
unsuccessful attempts, Ron and Arik implemented this idea and algebraically connected the three
formulas. In their final presentation, they showed a slide with the following transformations:
n ⋅ (n + 1)
(n − 2)2 + n −1 + 2n = n2 − 4n + 4 + n − 2 + 4n = n2 + n + 2 ; n2 + n + 2
+1 = . This and
2 2 2 2 2
validation of all three formulas by means of Excel tables were presented as “the proof” of the target
formula, and the formula itself was treated as “making sense” by the students.

Discussion
The four-weeks-long exploration of two 9th grade students working on a particular project is being
presented. The answer to the first research question straightforwardly follows from the above
exposition. Briefly (in terms of Kieran, 2007), the students were engaged in generational and
transformational activities in the context of the global/meta-level activities of explaining to
themselves why the formula worked and of proving the formula. Note that the students’
generational activity initially involved several separately explored sequences, and the search for
connections between the sequences was framed by global activity.
Our second research question concerned the processes involved in student sense-making. In
order to answer the query “why the formula works” the students experimented with concrete
drawings (i.e., drawings with 4-6 cutting lines) and then articulated properties of generalized
drawings (i.e. drawings with n cutting lines). The concrete drawings apparently served as a visual
tool to reveal a generic process that occurs when an additional line is added to a system of existing
lines. Thus it looks like the processes of generalizing and searching for geometric mechanism
behind the formula were involved in the students’ sense making.
The query “how to prove the formula” turned to be the thorniest part of the project. Thus, the
process of justifying played an important role in the students’ sense making quest. The students’
initial way of justifying formulas consisted of term-by-term comparing formula-generated
numerical sequences with the empirically generated sequences. However, the students asserted that
they fully addressed the how-to-prove query only when they had succeeded to show how the target
formula came to cohere with two geometrically related formulas in a common algebraic structure
(see Event 4). It is of note that the cloud of the formulas used by the students did not exist when the
students began. Thus, the process of generating a cloud of formulas and checking the cloud for
coherence was a central process in the proving part of the students’ sense-making effort (cf. Rojano
et al., 2014, for sense production by means of connecting a new mathematical text to a system of
other texts). However, the process of establishing coherence was an important one at different parts
of the student sense-making quest. During the exploration, the students employed the following
strategy: they generated several objects of the same type and connected them, by means of
manipulations in a particular mathematical register and then among the registers. Namely, the
students established coherence first among the objects in geometrical and numerical registers and
then constructed and connected corresponding algebraic formulas.
As argued, Ron and Arik’s sense-making process consisted of a sequence of generational and
transformational algebraic activities in the overarching context of a global, meta-level activity,
long-term problem solving. In this sense-making process, the students: (1) formulated and justified
claims; (2) made generalizations, (3) found the mechanisms behind the algebraic objects (i.e.,
answered why-questions); and (4) established coherence among the explored objects. We now take
the liberty of formulating this summary by using a more general language, and propose a four-
component prismatic decomposition of sense making (see Figure 3).

Meta-level /Global activities

Generalizing
Generalisation
Justification
Justifying
Mechanism
Sense making Searching for mechanism
Coherence

Establishing coherence
Transformational activities Generational activities

Figure 3: Four aspects of an algebraic sense making through algebraic activities

Each of the aforementioned processes was considered in past research (cf. Arcavi, 2005, for the
main attributes of symbol sense, and Lannin, 2005, and Radford, 2010, for the role of generalizing
and justifying in studying algebra). However, the above four-component decomposition presents
sense making as a complex, multi-stage and multi-focus conjunction of processes. We suggest that
the prismatic decomposition in the context of generational, transformational and meta-level
algebraic activities could be used as an analytic tool in future research on algebraic sense making,
especially in complex learning environments such as PBL. Finally, the unusual characteristic of the
documented case is that a sense-making goal was self-imposed by the students. Further research is
needed in order to understand the emergence of this goal and in order to design algebraic activities
that can trigger and support students’ sense making.

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