The concept of area – Part 1

This is Part 1 of a multi-part blog post on the concept of area.

In 2005, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as ``The Nation's Report Card'', presented the following question:

 

This question was given to fourth graders, 47% of whom answered correctly.  This would have been a fair result if tiling had been taught by fourth grade and a good result if tiling had not been taught (i.e., students were able to figure it out on their own)—but we don’t know which.

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