Megan Colson F401 April 1, 2013 Assessment Project Section A: Investigating and Deepening your Own Understanding While

I was investigating my own understanding of math concepts related to fractions, I started to think of and research all the big mathematical ideas that relate to fractions. Ever since I can remember, I could never figure out adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing fractions unless I did the rules taught to me in elementary school. Fractions were always my weak concept in math and to this day I still struggle when trying to help my younger sister order them from least to greatest or multiply them with pictures. There are a few big ideas with fractions that I do understand. I know to understand fractions a person must understand the meaning and uses to represent the parts of a whole, set, and or distances on a number line. o This part I understand and can figure out when asked what the part of the fraction is and what is the whole. I do at times have difficulty figuring out where the numbers go on the number line. If they arent all like denominators, I have to sit and really think where each one goes. For example I have to think which fraction is greater than the other. To be honest, I have to draw pictures to get a full understanding of this concept. I also understand that the size of a fractional part is comparative to the size of the whole I understand fractions are used to represent numbers equal, greater, or less than 1. o Meaning a fraction is relative to the size of the whole or unit.

I know fractions can be represented in multiple ways and that fractions can show more than one. o For example: Modeling Part/Whole Relationships Writing Fraction Numbers Comparing Fractions Measuring on Number Line

A fraction describes the division of a whole into equal parts.

Overall I think my biggest misunderstanding with fractions comes when I have to use two fractions in a story problem or find the biggest or smallest of the two. I never really got a full understanding how to solve story problems without going straight to the rules I have always known which is finding like denominators, or multiplying the numerators and denominators. Trying to explain to kids how to figure out how to add two fractions together without teaching rules, is hard for me because I have trouble with it too. While researching about big ideas of fractions I came across an article that explained a few more big ideas with fractions I felt were very important. In Charalambous article, he discusses a lot about the importance of understanding the parts and the whole of the fraction. This is critical information for children to know when making sure they understand the big mathematical concepts. For example he gives big ideas such as the parts of the whole which are separated must be equal to each other. Students must be able to take a whole and divide it up into equal parts to see the fraction. He goes into much detail talking about how once student can understand the big ideas of the whole and parts of fractions they can move on to the deeper big ideas that correspond with this mathematical concept (Charalambous 2007)

I wanted to find out more what the exact idea or mathematical concept I was having with fractions. I found an article with some interesting facts about learning about fractions and the big ideas with them. Siegler gives a few statistics that really stood out to me, Although children receive substantial fraction instruction beginning in third or fourth grade, a recent National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that 50% of eighth graders could not correctly order three fractions (2/7, 1/12, and 5/9) from least to greatest. The difficulty continues in high school and college; for example, on another National Assessment of Educational Progress item, fewer than 30% of 11th graders translated .029 into the correct fraction. The pattern is longitudinally stable; children who have early difficulties with fractions tend to have later difficulties as well (Siegler 2012 pg. 1). I found this fact interesting because it goes right along with my understanding of fractions. I never understood them in elementary school and I can still not order three fractions from least to greatest. The article goes on to say there are two main big ideas to understand the knowledge of fractions. There is knowledge of not only procedures but conceptual knowledge too. This involves knowing what fractions are which goes along with the big ideas stated before that I already know such as knowing the whole and the part, there are infinite, positive, negative fractions, and one can represent fractions in multiple ways. While looking over these big ideas of conceptual knowledge of fractions I realized I need to understand the magnitude of fractions. There are several magnitudes of measures of fraction representations which includes ordering of multiple fractions. This is the area of fractions I need to work on and investigate more.

Section B: Choosing the Tasks and Planning Your Interview Task 1: Fraction Pieces/Shaded Regions The goals for this task are to:

Use manipulative to solve problems involving fractional parts of collections. Use shaded regions to compare fractions. Use equal sharing to solve fractional part-of-a-collection problems.

I want to start by explaining parts and wholes of fractions. I then want to give them fraction pieces and different problems to go with the pieces to figure out if they can find the whole and parts with the pieces. The worksheet they will be given is attached (Appendix A).We will talk about how using the fraction pieces we can find the numerator and denominator of a fraction. I want them to have plenty of practice with this before moving on to shaded regions and asking them to shade in a fraction in the region. Hopefully doing these tasks the students will start to see equivalence of fractions and start to think about how to find what fractions are bigger than others looking at the parts and the whole. The main focus for this task is to get their minds running on how to think about fractions and solving them in story problems, included in Appendix A. I want them to see with visuals seeing the part and the whole then using regions to make their own fractions. Questions to ask: Can you see the whole and the part in the fraction pieces? How does drawing out the pieces help you solve the problem?

Task 2: Fraction Strips The goals for this task are to:

understand that fractions are part of a whole

find relationships between fractions find equivalent fractions

I will show them by modeling how to find relationships between fractions, moving my fractions strips around and placing different combinations of fractions next to one another. Using fraction strips (included as Appendix C) the children will be able to see visually what the denominator tells us and what the numerator tells us. They will also see how fractions work on a number line. I want them to see what the fractions represent and to see on the strips how to see fractions from least to greatest. They will start to see equivalent fractions looking at number strips and working with different questions and pictures asking about fractions. I want to talk about the number line and the fraction strips and talk about how using these tools helps us see equivalent fractions. I want to do a couple problems and discuss how we use the fraction strips and talk about how you can see the part and the whole. Once the students have had the basic understanding of how to find equivalent fractions, I set them to the task of accumulating as many equivalent fractions they could find. Section C: Summary of interaction (minimum 1-2 pp.) Starting off my task I explained to my subject parts and whole of fractions. My subject understood this concept completely. To clarify that the subject understood we moved on to the activity using the fraction pieces. We did the first problem together, I asked if 2 of the yellow pieces make a whole then what would 1 yellow piece be, etc. It took my subject awhile to figure out the , and 1/12 of the whole. My subject would take the triangles and use them as a reference to move around and figure out how this triangle could help figure out the parts to the whole. When given the whole and trying to figure out what parts would be equal to was evident that my subject struggle to add the fraction. She would keep trying to add in her head without

actually visually showing where all the parts were. She explained once she focused on the triangles and realized the amount of triangles used was the denominator, figuring out the numerator became easier. After a few problems she caught on quickly and was able to figure out the rest of the problems without confusion or struggle. We then moved on to the shading region. I had her draw out the 5 rectangles and draw three lines vertically slicing the rectangle. I asked her to shade in three of the tiny rectangles on each one and asked what the fraction was of these rectangles. She immediately answered . I then explained to horizontally slice the first triangle in half, the second triangle in thirds, etc. I then asked what the fractions were of each rectangle. She would count each shaded region and make it the numerator and then write the denominator underneath. I then asked do you still see the of each fraction. She said yes right away and I knew that she could see we would be discussing the equivalence of fractions. We were able to get through task 1 without much confusion excluding the beginning were we added the pieces together without using the rules of writing them out. We moved on to the fraction strips and focusing on equivalent fractions. I introduced a fraction strip to the subject. It was her first time seeing one like this, but as soon as I handed it to her and she looked over it she understood the meaning behind it. We talked a little about it, me asking her a few questions. I asked her if she saw the whole and the part of each fraction strip; she quickly answered yes. She then explained how seeing the fraction strip helps her out more than looking at a ruler or a number line. I asked why this was easier and she explained that it breaks it down evenly one step at a time. After working and realizing she was understanding the fraction strip and had done so well on equivalent fractions we moved on. We began looking at equivalent fractions using the fraction strips too. We began discussing the worksheet, I provided. I felt she

would fly through it since equivalent fractions seem to already make sense to her. We talked about seeing the parts and the whole. I referenced back to the rectangles we made and talked about how we used equivalent fractions here similar to the fraction strips. She said the fraction strips break it down so evenly for you, and it is clearer to see the equivalent fractions this way than when working with the rectangles from the activity earlier. Section D: Analysis of Interaction (minimum 2-3 pp.) After the interaction with my subject I looked back at my big ideas of fractions and started to analyze if my subject had the understanding of these ideas. I started with my first big idea which stated, a person must understand the meaning and uses to represent the parts of a whole, set, or distances on a number line. When discussing the parts and the wholes using the fraction pieces my subject could answer what all the parts were from the whole that was given to her. She could also see from the shaded regions the parts and the whole and explained how it was easier to see with the shaded regions than the pieces. My subject could see where the numbers went on the number line, but once the denominator would change, it was easier for her to look at the fraction strip to see where the number would go. We talked about how fractions are used to represent numbers equal, less than, or greater to 1, especially when using the fraction pieces. She understood that fractions can be shown in multiple ways. My subject was able to understand the task given to her very well. I wanted her to be able to see the parts and the whole of fractions by doing the fraction pieces and the shaded regions. I was able to see that she understood this by her explanation when asked where the part is, where the whole is, and what do these mean to us when talking about fractions. My subject would be able to answer all these questions. I think with the task I chose it was evident what the parts were, and the whole were and for her to be able to make the connections on how this can help

her with fractions. When we did the second task, talking about equivalent fractions more in depth, it became clear to me that the subject understood equivalent fractions. When asked the equivalence using the fraction strip she could see how seeing the parts and the whole of the fraction make finding the equivalence easier. The uncertainties the subject had occurred during a few problems with the fraction pieces. She had trouble not being able to write out the fractions and just add them up. The uncertainty came when having to come out of her comfort zone and use the manipulative in front of her instead of using the rules she was taught. When I told her I wanted her to use the manipulative in front and explain to me how she got an answer she had to sit and think about it for awhile. She second guessed many of her answers until after three of them she finally caught on to how it worked. The uncertainty I think came from having solved a problem in a way that was different from the normal way you would solve it. The other uncertainty I felt from the subject was when she used a number line to see equivalences. She would keep referring to the fraction strip when talking about the equivalence of fractions. From this I conjectured she was not as comfortable with equivalent fractions if it was not drawn out in a picture form for her. I think my misconception when doing the task, was that since she was able to talk about equivalent fractions so well and answer the questions, I didnt seem to question more on the number line as much. Yet, when looking back on the interview I can see that if I were to work with the subject again, I would need to do further work with equivalent fractions in a different task form. Section E: Planning the next teaching step (minimum 1-2 pp.) Since I felt like my subject understood the part and the whole of fractions after our text and understood equivalent fractions that went along with the task I gave, I feel like my next

teaching step should be more about equivalent fractions, but with a new task. Instead of using fraction strips I want the subject to be able to figure out the equivalences without using a fraction strip. A task that I have heard about is having the subject have 16 index cards that are labeled with fractions on them. The subject will be asked to pull out the index card. I will then ask her to find all of the index cards that are equivalent to . She will have a separate paper to be able to write these fractions down and be there if she needed any help drawing out the fractions. This will help the student see the patterns in equivalent fractions. I feel like this task is necessary because I want to take away the safety net fraction strip and start seeing equivalent fractions by drawing or writing them out on her own. Once she would do this my next task would be is to go back to the number line we used before. Before, the number lines confused the subject so to clarify how to see equivalent fractions on the number lines, I would have the subject gets a straight edge and line it up on the number lines on a number. This way they will see all the equivalent numbers that fall at the same place, this making them see the connection between many number lines and fraction strips. There are a wide variety of different ways to figure out equivalent numbers. Since my subject liked the fraction strip, but didnt feel as comfortable using the number lines, I think going back and learning different techniques to figure out equivalent fractions will help her grasp this mathematical concept. I also find it necessary to go back and explain the number lines in more detail to make sure the subject understands how it is used for equivalent fractions instead of just moving away from this idea. I think these next instructional steps will really help further the subjects knowledge over the big ideas she needs to know about fractions.

Appendix A

1. If 2

= 1 whole then

=_____ , 1

=_____, 1

=_____, 1

=___

2. If 2

= 1 whole, then

3. If 1

=1 whole, then

4. If 1

= 1 whole, then

5. If 2

= 1 whole, then

6. If

=1 then,

Appendix A continued Have students draw 5 equal rectangles next to each other. Just like below draw it on the board or have paper on overhead and show them these five rectangles.

Slice each square in fourths vertically. Shade in the same fraction in each rectangle. (ex. )

Slice each square into an equal number of horizontal slices. On the first rectangle slice once, second one twice, etc. The same amount is shaded. For each sliced square write an equation showing the equivalent fraction of the shaded part. Have them figure out what the fraction is of new rectangles.

= 6/8 And so on

Appendix B

Appendix B continued

Put the correct fraction into the fraction strip and find the missing number to make the equivalent fraction:

X`

References Charalambous, C.Y., & Pitta-Pantazi, D. (2007). Drawing on a Theoretical Model to Study Students Understandings of Fractions. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(3), 293-316. Siegler, R. S., & Pyke, A. A. (2012). Developmental and Individual Differences in Understanding of Fractions. Developmental Psychology, doi:10.1037/a0031200