Tuesday, March 22, 2011
More fractions....
"Fractions both underpin the development of proportional reasoning and are important for future mathematics study, including that of algebra and probability. However, it is clear that many teachers find fractions difficult to understand and teach and many students find them difficult to learn" (Clarke, Roche, and Mitchell p. 373). Rose and Gabe, correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is clear to all of us that fractions are a difficult concept to teach and learn. The thing we are not so familiar with, is how to use different tactics to teach fractions more effectively. I thought the article gave great tips on how to make fractions more readily understandable for students. I also really liked the student's homework example on page 374 when the task asked Darcy to draw or write about 3/4 in as many ways as you can. She was able to come up with nine different examples, which seems to be really great to me. Some of the tips I thought were most helpful were the following: "give a greater emphasis to meaning of fractions than on procedures for manipulating them, emphasize that fractions are numbers making extensive use of number lines in representing fractions and decimals, and lastly provide a variety of models to represent fractions" (Clarke, Roche, and Mitchell p. 375). Gabe and Rose, what things did you find most interesting out of these three articles?
Lauren, I definitely agree with you that fractions are a hard concept to teach and understand. I think fractions are easier to solve when they are not in story problem form, or dont need any explanation. I think the concept of taking only parts of a whole is a hard concept for students to grasp. The idea that multiplying something by 2, and dividing something by .5 are the same thing is still confusing for me! So I guess trouble with fractions stays with some of us for a while! But I too liked the suggestions for making fractions easier to understand, and think they will help our future students.
ReplyDeleteHey Guys!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree! Fractions are rough! I'm not looking forward to teaching them, but they are very important to learn. I did like the tricks that the articles displayed, but this year in my ESL placement, I was in a Math classroom. That teacher did a tremendous job using everyday examples when explaining fractions. She started out with 1/4, which was 1 quarter, 25 cents, etc. And then she discussed running miles (relating it to the athletes in the class who run miles in cross country, etc.) and she also talked about teh hours in the day, days of the week, and more. She used a lot of visual aids, which is helpful for ESL, but also can be used for more difficult topics in general education. I will definitely take what I saw in teh article, but mostly from what I watched my ESL teacher do with the visual aids. She gave them tools and asked them to split it in half, then that in half, 1/4, etc. They understood it more once they did it. It was really cool to see!