She made a story problem saying that they were at a soccer game and there was a group of bears sitting on the bleachers. She said that there were seven bears sitting on the top bleacher and there were two bears sitting on the bottom bleacher, and then asked the group how many bears were there total.
This specific student named Charlie* first counted the top row and wrote down the number seven in the box. He then counted the bottom row and put the number 2 in the second box. He then recounted the top row and continued counting to the bottom row. He used his finger to physically point at each bear while counting. He then came up with the answer that there were nine bears total and put in the the end box.
Charlie* used direct modeling to solve this problem because he used both the bears and his fingers to get the total amount of bears.
A good analysis and a great example of direct modeling. Also make sure that you think about how you might advance this student's understanding...e.g., how might you increase the cognize demand of this task? What are some other representations / approaches to addition that this student might try, or that another student might share with him? How would that advance his thinking or understanding? What do we still not know about his understanding of this big idea?
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