ABSTRACT

Learning science research has examined how external representations can be used to foster student reasoning and understanding. This paper describes additional roles that students' representations play in a reform mathematics classroom. The paper describes three ways in which students' representations were used in a classroom: (a) to provide information on how an individual student thinks about a mathematical issue, (b) to provide information on patterns and trends in knowledge across students, and (c) to serve as an classroom tool for the students and teacher.