Using the Number Line to Investigate the Solving of Linear Equations

Author(s): Paul Dickinson and Frank Eade

Source: For the Learning of Mathematics , Jul., 2004, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jul., 2004), pp. 41-
47
Published by: FLM Publishing Association

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USING THE NUMBER LINE TO
INVESTIGATE THE SOLVING OF LINEAR

EQUATIONS
PAUL DICKINSON, FRANK EADE

with
The curriculum (DfEE, 2001) for eleven-year old the unknown.
students in To solve 3x + 2 = 5jc - 9, however,
ing' is solving
the UK, currently adopted by most schools, includes not enough and it is now required to operate di
linear equations with the unknown on one sideon thebefore
only unknown quantity. Sfard (1991) describes this
moving onto those with the unknown on both tinction as one between conceiving of the algebraic sy
sides in later
years. The suggestion in the Framework for Teaching Math- (as processes) or structurally (as objects
operationally
ematics is that the former kind are solved: suggests "a deep ontological gap" (p. 4, emphasis in o
nal) between the two.
by using inverse operations (p. 122)
While many teachers grapple with bridging this gap
and the latter by: attaching meaning to such equations and their sol
strategies, for example, through the use of the b
beginning to understand that an equation can be
metaphor (see Vlassis, 2002 for a recent evaluation of
thought of as a balance where, provided the same oper-
evidence suggests that for many students solving equ
ation is performed on both sides, the resulting equation
remains a matter of learning rules and performing
remains true. (p. 125)
manipulations. At best, they develop "cover stories" (P
Implicit in these recommendations is the belief 1995,
that there
p. 89), is
such as "take it over the other side and c
a significant shift in the level of complexity when moving
its sign", to deal with this.
from one kind of equation to the other, and henceSimilarly,
a need for school textbooks struggle with the ba
a different set of solution strategies. The following
betweenclass-
developing algebraic understanding and trai
room exchange (see Figure 1), recently observed by skills
algebraic the (Wijers, 2001).
authors, would appear to substantiate this. In this article we describe an attempt to encourage
dents to exploit an already familiar image, the numbe
in order to address the difficulties described above.
should also be stressed, however, is that we do not co
3x + 2 = ll what follows to be a new method for solving equation
Teacher Can you /* ^ Pupil: 3 times a new form of representation. It is simply the exploi
explain what this X | of an image with which the students are already comfor
means? /
to support their developing understandings of linear
tions through access to die solution strategies availabl
is a crucial distinction and will be referred to a numb
Pwpi7: 3 times a
times during the course of the article.
J* ,r,?.ry.fl + L " JX number plus 2
Teacher: Can you * J* + L " JX \ make
explain what Beginnings/
this ^^^ ^ but I do
means? / A couple of years ago we attended a seminar on the 'model'
/
/ \ the five x minus 9 approach used in Singaporean schools to help primary stu-
is doing there. dents solve 'higher-order' algebraic problems (Fong and
Chong, 1995). Figure 2 shows an example of this.
Figure 1: Classroom exchange discussing linear equations.
A ruler and two pencils cost $1.40. A
This shift in complexity is well documented and is some-
times referred to as the "didactic cut" (Filloy andruler costs
Rojano,20 cents more than a pencil.
Find the
1985, 1989; Herscovics and Linchevski, 1991, 1996). The cost of a ruler.
basis for this "cut" would seem to be the interpretation of the
equals sign as a "do something signal" (Behr et al.9 1976;
Kieran, 1981) rather than as suggesting the "quantitative
sameness" (Boulton-Lewis et ai, 1997 '; Saenz-Ludlow and
Waldgrave, 1998) of the two sides. That is, the expression
on the left-hand side of the equation is seen as a process,
and consequently the right-hand side must show the (arith-
metic) result of this process. So, in the above example, 3x +
2=11 can be solved by inverting or 'undoing'Figure the 2:
given
The use of the Singaporean model approach to solve
operations and there is no requirement to work directly ona problem
or (Fong and Chong, 1995, p. 34).

For the Learning of Mathematics 24, 2 (July, 2004) 4 1

FLM Publishing Association, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

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As we attempted to solve more complex problems we met
with the difficulty of needing to 'drop' our existing algebraic
knowledge if we were to explore this new approach fully.
At this stage, some people in the seminar group began to feel
more comfortable using an empty number line instead of a
series of blocks (see Figure 3 for the new representation). Figure 6: Addition jumps to solve 153 - 68.

Although not initially apparent, it became useful later on

for students to be willing to drop the notion of jumps on the
line being representative of actual sizes. Early on it was
noticeable that jumps of, say, twenty were regularly drawn
twice the size of jumps of size ten. However, students even-
tually seemed happy to draw diagrams such as Figure 7.
Figure 3: Using a number line to solve the problem.

From here, it seemed a relatively small step to begin repre-

senting equations such as:
3x + 12 = 5x + 6

on a double number line (see Figure 4).

Figure 7: Moving from seeing jumps as a 'model of some-
thing to a 'model for \

This would seem to be an early indication that pupils were

beginning to make the transition from seeing the number
line jumps as a 'model of something to a 'model for' that
thing, a transition originally identified by Streefland (1991).
Figure 4: Using the number line to solve equations with the Although this shift may not necessarily be permanent, as dis-
unknown on both sides. cussed later in this article, it is crucial if students are to move
As this happened, we were struck by the immediacy (for successfully from informal methods to more formal mathe-
us) of seeing 2x + 6 = 12, and decided to present this repre- matical knowledge (Gravemeijer 1990).
sentation to a group of teachers as a topic for research. The Following these starter activities, the teachers introduced
research group consisted of about ten mathematics teachers equations simply by putting 3x + 4 = 19 on the board and
drawn from a number of schools local to the university then (slowly) drawing the representation in Figure 8.
where we work as teacher educators, who were already
meeting on a regular basis to discuss their classroom prac-
tice. These meetings include reflection on relevant academic
writing, as well as discussion on ways of working within
the classroom. This article describes the initial work of the
group in relation to this topic.
Each teacher was asked to introduce these ideas in a similar
way and to keep notes on the lessons and retain copies of the Figure 8: Representation for 3x + 4 = 19.
students' work. Some lessons were also videotaped as a fur-
ther means of gathering data. The results reported here are the Students were initially asked to tell the teacher what they
amalgamated outcomes of the experiences in all the classrooms. could see. One immediate issue was the number of familiar
difficulties that this question helped to highlight. In particu-
Early lessons lar, a number of pupils either stated that all the jcs were the
Familiarity with the number line seemed to be important for same, or asked if this had to be the case. Other responses
students. So, when the idea was initially taken into classrooms,included "3 times a number plus four is equal to nineteen",
teachers were asked to do some preparatory work (often "3axs must be fifteen", and "* is five". The latter was a very
series of mental starters) on using the number line to solve common response, which, although obviously useful, actu-
addition and subtraction problems. For example, the problem ally worked against us at times, as will become clearer
153 - 68 might be represented as shown in Figures 5 or 6. below.

Figure 5: Subtraction jumps to solve 153 - 68. Figure 9: Representation for 3x + 14 = 5x + 6.

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 The apparent accessibility of this model allowed classes Mathematical development
to move quite quickly into problems involving the unknown Seeing eleven-year-old students of around average ability
on both sides and as early as the second lesson the teachers 'solving' equations such as:
introduced the problem in Figure 9 to students who were
3* + 17 = 8jc + 7,
again challenged to say what they could see.
It was noticeable in one classroom that some students and being able to explain what they were doing, goes some
wrote 3jc + 14 = and 5x + 6 =, a response similar in many way to confirming the initial accessibility of this model, but
ways to the student comment at the beginning of this article: little else. We stress again the importance of regarding the
model as a means of granting access to solution strategies,
3 times a number plus 2 makes something, but I don't
and not as a strategy in its own right. At this stage of the
know what. Don't understand what the five x minus 9 is
development it would be too easy (and unfortunately too
doing there.
common) to either stay with many similar examples simply
A response like this could also indicate that the student is to practise the 'method', or to drop the model and move onto
perhaps suggesting a search for two different values of x to 'harder equations'. The aim, however, is neither of these. It
satisfy the equation (see Sfard and Linchevski, 1994). Many is to use the ideas that the students have developed, and to
other students, however, clearly did recognise the equality encourage them to formalise these ideas.
inherent in the drawing, sometimes referring to "equal The belief that students can do this, coupled with the con-
length". What was also noticeable was the number of stu- viction that we are not here teaching a new method, but
dents who identified 2x + 6 = 14 as being something they simply allowing students to explore possible strategies, is
could see, along with many others who went straight to ux crucial. This has significant implications for how teachers
is 4". This latter statement was checked by using the jumps proceed from this point. We believe that Treffers's (1987)
along the line, which again seemed accessible to the vast distinction between horizontal and vertical mathematisation
majority of students. It was also noticeable even at this stage is important here, and in this case we interpret 'horizontal'
that a number of students, when asked for amplification of as being the ability to represent an equation on a number Une
their ideas, were beginning to cover up or cross out jcs so as and solve it, and 'vertical' as the development and forma-
to simplify the problem. It was quite common to see repre- lisation of solution strategies that will ultimately be
sentations such as that in Figure 10 in students' exercise generalisable. The questions asked of students were now of
books. paramount importance, and teachers who in earlier lessons
had managed to divert students' attention away from the
actual solution now experienced more success. For example,
with reference to:

3jc + 14 = 5jc + 6,

a common approach was to ask students for a number of

statements that they knew to be true, and to justify these.
Some students came up with x + 1 = 5 "because we know x
Figure 10: Crossing outxsto simplify the problem.
is 4", and when this happened a lot, some teachers found it
Statements such as 2x + 6 - 14 and, when pushed by teach- necessary to resort to equations where the solution was a
ers, jc+14 = 3x + 6 were particularly interesting as these non-integer, in order to be able to proceed.
were seen as encouraging signs of students starting to see the The next stage was to give students a series of statements,
algebraic terms as objects instead of merely processes (see, and ask them to justify whether or not they could be deduced
for example, Crowley et al. (1994) for a discussion about the from the original equation. These were of the form (using
importance of this distinction). We will come back to this 3jc + 14 = 5x + 6 as die original equation)
point in more detail later in the article. 14 + 3jc = 5x + 6
The apparent 'accessibility' for many students also cre-
ated dangers, however, and when they first taught with the 3x + 20 = 5x+ 12
images, many teachers reported feeling that they were in fact
moving too quickly onto more sophisticated problems. x + 14 = 3x + 6
When teaching the topic a second time, teachers tried to
ensure that much more discussion focused on the equiva- 5x + 14 = Ix + 6 and more challengingly,
lence of the two sides of the line, with students' attention
being drawn to this equivalence rather than to the solution of 6x + 28 = 10* + 12 and, importantly,
the equations. This proved to be a tension in some class-
rooms, with students showing reluctance to engage with 14 = 8* + 6,
issues once they knew "the answer" to the equation. This,
6jc+14= 10x + 6 etc.
of course, is nothing new and is even more prevalent when
trying to introduce some students to more sophisticated solu- Classrooms were soon full of many equivalent expressions,
tion strategies {e.g. balancing) to equations that for many ofwith students being challenged to find 'different' ones and
them can be solved mentally (with most 'arithmetic equa- always to justify these. Such 'free productions' revealed a lot
tions' coming into this category). about the kinds of strategies currently being adopted by the

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students (see Streefland, 1990, 1991) for further discussion be the same, but the level of understanding is very differ-
of the value of asking students to produce such work). While ent. This idea of learning mathematics through proceeding
students may at this stage have been mainly engaged with from your own informal mathematical constructions to more
examining the procedural operations associated with solving formal mathematics has also been very successfully used
equations, their justifications invariably hinted at more within the Realistic Mathematics Education (RME)
structural aspects. This, in our experience, is quite rare, and approach developed in The Netherlands (see Treffers, 1991).
is discussed further in the conclusion to this article.
For example, adding 2x to each side was dealt with quite Using negative numbers
confidently, with students regularly making comments such The issue of how and when to introduce negative numbers is
as "as long as you add the same number of jcs to both sides one that is being looked at in future research, but the actual
the lengths (on the line) will still be the same". Also, the sym- representation of equations including them is interesting. In
metrical properties of equality appeared to be self evident to the time that this model has been used in the classrooms, a
many students. In fact it was rare at this stage to find students number of possible representations have emerged. Four rep-
disputing or having difficulty with the notion of equality. resentations for the equation 2x - 3 = 5 are discussed below.
From such experiences discussion was common about 1. A lot of students initially wanted to use the notation in
strategies that were 'allowed'. It also became clear that stu- Figure 12. It was discounted as not following the accepted
dents were now beginning to generate such strategies by convention on the number line, although it does allow for
referring to the equation rather than to the number line (the some equations to be solved. Having done early number line
algebraic form of each equation was always present along work for addition and subtraction questions did appear to
with the model in all lessons). Students beginning to act on help students here.
the symbols as objects was clearly a major step, though it
was still important that teachers regularly checked that stu-
dents could use the original image to continue to justify their
strategies. Indeed, it was central to the entire investigation
that the representation should remain available throughout,
and that pupils could refer back to it at any time.
Another strategy adopted at this time was to ask questions
of the form:
Figure 12: First representation for 2x-3 = 5.
48* + 24 = 21x + 87.
2. and 3. Figures 13 and 14 were used by many students,
This form of equation provided valuable information con-and seem to reflect how most schools represent subtraction
cerning the amount of progress being made by students. on a number line.
Responses varied from those who wanted to draw 48 indi-
vidual jumps of jc, through some who represented 48 as four
tens and an eight, to those who (impressively) drew the rep-
resentation in Figure 1 1 .

Figure 13: Second representation for 2x-3 = 5.

Figure 11: Students' representation of48x + 24 = 27x + 87.

It was also noticeable, however, that many students asked if

they had to draw a number line, claiming that they "could
see" that 2\x + 24 = 87. When pushed further, some stated
that they "imagined" the number line "in their heads", whilst
others were simply operating on the equation. Figure 14: Third representation for 2x-3 = 5.
We believe that the vast majority of the above work is
analogous to the idea of 'doing the same to both sides', and They also continue to allow students access to solution
some students began to articulate their strategies in thesestrategies. For example,
terms, sometimes referring to "two sides of the line", and
3x + 7 = 5x - 12.
sometimes to "two sides of the equation". The significance
here is that the students are developing their own proceduresis now seen as shown in Figure 15, from which similar ques-
and explanations for them, rather than just being told by tions
a to before can be posed, or a 'solution' can be found
teacher to use mechanical procedures. They have an under- through 2x - 12 = 7, or by seeing 2x = 19 directly.
lying image to return to if they need to be reassured or needSimilarly, 13-2x = *+lcanbe represented as shown in Fig-
to re-evaluate a particular strategy. The final outcome mayure 16.

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 So, for example, this representation would yield 3x + 7 =
5jc -12 as shown in Figure 19.

Figure 15: Representation of an equation with an unknown on

both sides and a negative number
Figure 19: Representation for 3x + 7 = 5x- 12.

And 13 - 2x « x + 1 would be represented as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 16: Representation for 13-2x = x + 1.

And 2x - 7 = 5x - 12 as shown in Figure 17.

Figure 20: Representation for 13-2x=x + 1.

Interestingly, in the school where this first emerged, students

now began describing other transformations of the equations
that had not been considered before. For example, 13 - 2x
= x + 1 is clearly equivalent to 13 = x + 1 + 2x and suddenly
the image of 'moving terms over the equals sign' begins to
emerge.
Figure 1 7: Representation for 2x-7 = 5x- 12. As this happened, it felt important to return to previous
questions. The representation of 3jc + 14 = 5x + 6 shown in
One possible obstacle with this representation was the re- Figure 21 also yielded expressions such as:
emergence of the issue of the size of jumps on the line. For 3x + 14 - 6 = 5x
example, in the question above, students were worried about
"how far back to go" for - 7, and whether or not a jump of 3x + 14 - 6 - 2x = 3x
7 was greater or larger than a jump of x. Interestingly, this
was a concern even for some more high-achieving students 5x + 6 - 14 - 3x = 0.
who, in previous questions, had clearly come to view the
These explorations led to a lot of discussion about how what
model simply as a representation 'for' the equation. This
was now happening compared to the notion of 'both sides'
apparently retrograde step may be seen as a particular exam-
that had been around in previous lessons.
ple of a phenomenon detected in a similar situation by Filloy
and Rojano (1989) and described as "[t]he temporary loss
of previous abilities, coupled with behaviours fixated on
the models" (p. 21). This obstacle is clearly not insurmount-
able, however, and the discussion that it generates can be
useful in itself.
4. The first time Figure 18 was seen was when a student
drew it as part of a homework. The teacher was initially
unsure whether to accept it or not, but was persuaded par-
Figure 21: Returning to an earlier representation, 3x +14 =
tially because many other students immediately wanted to 5x + 6.
adopt it.

Results and limitations of the model

Some of our students have now taken in-school tests and
also the national tests required at ages fourteen and sixteen.
Initial results are encouraging. Certainly the image of the
line seems to be around for quite a lot of students, and we
regularly saw over 50% of a class drawing a diagram to help
to solve an equation. This does feel different to our experi-
ence of working with other images such as the balance,
Figure 18: Fourth representation for 2x-3 = 5.

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where students would rarely evoke the model once it had solving equations with negative solutions, they will have
been 'dropped' (see Boulton-Lewis et a/., 1997 for further developed suitable strategies for dealing with all simple
evidence of this). equations. If they are still totally reliant on the line, one
It is also true that the teachers appeared to stay with the could argue that they are not ready to move onto such
number line much longer than might usually be the case, equations.
attempting to create examples that encouraged students to
move away from the line, but allowing others to remain with Discussion
it if they so wished. Many of the teachers, when questioned What we have described here are some early trials in
on this issue, cited the accessibility and sustainability of the number of schools. We have restricted ourselves to a brief
model as the reason for this change in approach. description of the kind of strategies that teachers used, and
The model seems to allow quite natural movement to initial student responses to these strategies. We will be work-
dealing with different forms of an equation. For example, 1 ing on more detailed case studies of student learning in the
+ 2x = 5 seemed as accessible as 2x + 1 = 5 (and 5 = 2x + 1), future.
3x + 2 = 5jc was seen as the same kind of equation as, say, 3x However, students in the initial trials appeared to enjoy
+ 2 = 5x + 1, and when this was written as 2 + 3x = 5x + 1, working with equations in this way, and certainly made
students appeared comfortable with having to 'rearrange' the progress. Some more able students could very quickly begin
equation for drawing purposes. This contrasts with some to develop effective strategies for solving a whole range of
other models where a rearrangement, or the move to nega- equations, and were clearly beginning to formulate the more
tive coefficients, causes severe obstacles for learners or even abstract procedures necessary for solving higher-level prob-
the complete breakdown of the model (Filloy and Rojano, lems. Perhaps, most striking of all, was the access given to
1989). In this respect, it may be that the number line can middle-and lower-achieving students who, experience sug-
offer greater insight into the properties of equality (for gests, would usually struggle with such problems.
example symmetry and transitivity), and hence create valu- One feature of our work was the way that teachers could
able opportunities to involve students in discussing such relate to what others were saying because of the similarity of
properties. We will return to this point in our conclusion. their experiences and outcomes in different classrooms and
We consider the strength of this model to be the fact that it different schools. This allowed for much productive discus-
gives access to possible solution strategies and gives stu- sion whenever our teachers met, and undoubtedly helped
dents some means of deciding which of these are viable. It them to reflect on and refine their teaching strategies. This
may even begin to attach some meaning to what for many collective approach to classroom research was a valuable
students were previously meaningless procedures. It does aspect of our work, and adds weight to our contention that
not model all equations successfully, nor is it intended to do this approach to the teaching of equations can be useful in a
so. For example, when x has a negative solution in an equa- wide range of classrooms.
tion such as 3x + 10 = 5, we have as possibilities the The main feature of the model that came out of all our
representations shown in Figure 22. classrooms, however, was its initial accessibility to students,
The first of these feels unsatisfactory mathematically; the and in this respect the model may serve to limit the impact of
second is likely to prove a difficult extension of the idea for the 'didactic cut' referred to earlier. Sfard (1991) stressed the
many students. Some teachers are still working on this, but need for a lengthy period of experience before procedural
while it may be of academic interest, it is not the crucial conceptions could be transformed into structural ones. We
issue. The contention of this article is that, through using tentatively suggest that when using the number line, students
the number line model, by the time students need to be may be regularly interchanging between the two. For exam-
ple, when a student draws a number line representation of,
say, 3x + 14 = 5jc + 6, it is likely that this represents an oper-
ational ('procedural') view. When, however, they describe
seeing that 14 = 2x + 6, or are asked to justify why 7x + 14
= 9x + 6, then we believe this to be working within the struc-
tural domain. We also see comfort with 'different' forms of
the same equation as further evidence of students beginning
to see algebraic statements as objects as well as processes.
For example, the move from 2jc+l=5tol+2x = 5 repre-
sents an increasing complexity and sometimes a serious
difficulty for students. The flexibility to be able to interpret
2x + 1 as both a process (to be evaluated) and an object (to
be manipulated) is crucial for algebraic progress and seemed
to be developing in our students.
However, the role of the teacher and the questions they
pose are crucial here, and this, in many ways, is the crux of
the matter. We do like the number line for both its accessi-
bility and its sustainability, and for the fact that, for many
Figure 22: Representations for when xhasa negative solution of our students it is an existing, familiar image. In this
in an equation, in this case, 3x + 10 = 5. respect it may serve a similar purpose to contexts and mod-

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els used in the RME approach which not only provide ini- Fong, H. and Chong, T. (1995) * Solving algebraic word problems', Mathe-
matics Teaching 151, 34-35.
tial access into the mathematics but also support
Department for Education and Employment (2001) Framework for teach-
development through the mathematics (Gravemeijer, 1990). ing mathematics: Key Stage 3 National Strategy, London, UK, DfEE.
To think about being in favour or against this approach, Gravemeijer, K. (1990) 'Context problems and Realistic Mathematics
however, or to begin to compare its relative merits to other Instruction', in Gravemeijer, K., van den Heuvel, M. and Streefland, L.
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matics Education, OW & OC, The Netherlands, pp. 10-32.
many variables to attempt such a comparison and there is
Herscovics, N. and Linchevski, L. (1991) 'Pre-algebraic thinking: range of
no doubt that, in unskilled hands, the number line model equations and informal solutions used by seventh graders prior to any
remains firmly in the 'cute new ideas' file. What we are instruction', in Furinghetti, F. (éd.), Proceedings of the 15th Confer-
really interested in are the strategies that may be employed ence for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2, Assisi, Italy, pp.
173-180.
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Herscovics, N. and Linchevski, L. (1996) 'Crossing the cognitive gap
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between arithmetic and algebra', Educational Studies in Mathematics
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both sides to be introduced much earlier than is the case in tional Studies in Mathematics 12, 317-326.
our current curriculum structure. In turn there will be more Pimm, D. (1995) Symbols and meaning in school mathematics, London,
UK, Routledge.
time for the development of important concepts and skills Saenz-Ludlow, A. and Waldgrave, C. (1998) 'Third graders interpretations
without the pressure of frameworks and tests that so often of equality and the equal symbol, Educational Studies in Mathematics
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meaningless procedure). Beginning with eleven-year-old Sfard, A. (1991) 'On the dual nature of mathematical conceptions: reflec-
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students (and it would seem possible to use the model even
Educational Studies in Mathematics 22, 1-36.
before this) gives students of average achievement at leastSfard, A. and Linchevski, L. (1994) 'The gams and pitfalls of reification -
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