Moving in and out of contexts in collaborative reasoning about equations

This case study investigates how a group of 12-year-old pupils contextualizes a task formulated as an equation expressed in a word problem. Of special interest is to explore in detail the phenomenon of pupils working with manipulative-based equation-solving methods in a task involving another real world context. The pupils' small group discussions were videotaped and analyzed in terms of how the pupils contextualized the task in their attempts to arrive at an answer. The results highlight the importance of giving pupils opportunities to realize the particular position of symbolic mathematical representations when dealing with mathematical concepts. While an abstract concept describes something general, concrete representations and specific real-world examples always describe something specific. No one particular example incorporates the rich meaning of an abstract concept. This central distinction needs to be included in teaching practices.