This week we continued exploring other methods of engaging students
when teaching fractions.
Red Light, Green Light:
A stimulating technique is to use games to teach fractions. This activity
is played by having the teacher at the finish line and a group of students at
the starting line. It is green light when the teacher at the starting line is looking
away from the students and red light when the teacher faces the students. If
any of the players are caught moving while teacher is facing them they have to
return back to the starting line. At the end of the game, each player is a
certain distance from the teacher. They now have to communicate in fractions,
describing the distance they are from the teacher. I found this game fun and engaging
and I could see this being used at my placement. The teacher at my placement has allotted ten
minute energizers where she allows the students to play an outdoor activity. Depending
on the weather this activity could work really well. Since this grade 6 class
is taught in a portable it allows for the students to easily enter and exit the
class without wasting much time.
When describing the distance, students would be encouraged to use a variety of descriptive terminology to explain how far from the teacher each of them are. This is known as using soft math terms such as; close to, far from and about half-way, just to list a few. When students are comfortable with this terminology, they can be introduced to fractions such as 1/2, 1/4, 8/9, and 2/47. Students can then be given a number line to see if they understand where each fraction would be placed. They can also work in groups to share ideas of why certain fractions fit in certain places on the number line. This allows students to communicate and collaborate with other students and gets them comfortable with using fractions and math terminology.
Mr. Tan’s Tile:
Another engaging way to develop a student’s understanding of fractions
is through the use of stories. Many students enjoy listening to stories
especially the junior grade. Incorporating stories into instruction
captivates the attention of the students and helps in processing information. A story can be constructed to get students to
help Mr. Tan put all the broken pieces back together to create a complete tile.
Students can relate each of the pieces to represent a fraction or a portion of
the entire tile. I think this is a great introduction to fractions and
proportions. Students can also have fun by using the tiles to create various
other images.
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| I created a house with a chimney (Khalid, N © 2016) |
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| Each tile of the tangram representing a fraction of the whole tile (Khalid, N © 2016) |
Making Fractions Meaningful:
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| Dividing fractions same as multiplying (Khalid, N © 2016) |
This week in class we learned the meaningful way of dividing and it was
as simple as using the same technique of multiplying fractions. The numerators
are divided and then the denominators to give an answer. If the denominators
cannot be divided evenly, we can find a common denominator. This basic way of
dividing fractions is easier and similar to multiplying fractions. When
dividing fractions, I never really understood why we used the technique of
inverting and multiplying when we could skip one step and just divide numerator
by numerator and denominator by denominator. The cool thing about this method is
that since the fractions are divided to give a smaller quotient, reducing this
answer is much easier. Whereas the invert and multiply gave us larger
equivalent quotients making it hard to reduce the fractions and adding multiple
steps when dividing two fractions.
Overall this was an insightful class that opened up many possibilities to
making learning and teaching math engaging, fun and most of all meaningful. Here
are some great websites students can explore to make their experience of learning
fractions even more exciting and fun:
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