Elementary school students' logical reasoning on rolling

This paper reports a study of students' logical reasoning on rolling. Student learning experiences consist of both physical actions and logico-mathematical reasoning, and this study examined the relations between the above two in the context of rolling. This study took place in a Grade 3 classroom in eastern Canada consisting of 16 students over a two month period. The focal research questions were: (a) What characteristics of rollers do elementary students perceive as the result of a series of activities on rolling? (b) What relations between the above characteristics do elementary students develop as the result of a series of activities on rolling? and (c) What conceptions of rollers do elementary students develop as the result of a series of activities on rolling? Data were collected through video- and audio-taping students' verbal interactions during activities, collecting students' in-class activity recording sheets and after-class learning journals, and interviewing representative students on their perceptions of rollers. It was found that, as the result of a series of physical activities on rolling, students were able to perceive not only internal characteristics of rollers such as mass, shape, and material, but also external characteristics of rollers such as the slope and surface of ramp. Students were also able to develop various relations between the above characteristics such as the higher the slope is the farther an object rolls. Students also developed various elaborations of rollers. The results demonstrated that students developed various levels of logical reasoning during activities on rolling. These results imply that during open-ended physical activities elementary school students develop their physical and conceptual understanding simultaneously.