A power meaning of multiplication: Three eighth graders’ solutions of Cartesian product problems

This article examines data from five teaching episodes with three eighth grade students who were participants in a 3-year constructivist teaching experiment. The five teaching episodes were a transition point in the teaching experiment: the students were beginning to work in contexts that were deemed to support their development of a meaning for squaring quantities—a power meaning of multiplication. Prior to these teaching episodes, the students had worked in contexts that were deemed to support their development of a linear meaning of multiplication.