Reply To: Lesson 2 – Absolute Thinking vs. Relative Thinking – Discussion

[Jeanette Cox]

When I saw the illustration of the two purple shapes, it reminded me of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development in mathematics, particularly the pre-operational stage in which he took 3 containers of similar size and poured the same amount of water into each, the child thought that because the container that was wider had a lower level of water it therefore, was less because they were only looking at one dimension-height, and not width. Students looking at the two shapes are only looking at one dimension, the purple partition when they say they are the same (absolute value) like Piaget’s example, vs. viewing them relationally. Great task for assessing and asking probing questions to move students to the next level of thinking.