Cheng, Ivan (2010). Fractions: a new slant on slope.

Mathematics Teaching in the

Middle School, 16(1), 34-41
Using slope to teach fractions gives students a visual representation of what the
fraction actually means. Most students are taught fraction using one of the
following models: linear model, area model, or discrete model. The problem with
these is that students must always be relating the fraction to the whole. Using
slope, students are able to take each fraction as its own number and relate it to
other fractions. This allows the students to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and
divide fractions all the while seeing the relationships visually.
Daugherty, Brooke N. & Matney, Gabriel T. (2013). Seeing spots and developing
multiplicative sense making. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 19(3),
148-155
Because common core standards are not fully implemented across the board yet,
students come in to middle school and high school with different levels of
multiplicative knowledge. Teachers must find a way to allow struggling students
to catch up while not holding back the entire class. Dot arrays are one way to do
this. They are visual, in our everyday lives (i.e. grocery store shelves), and allow
for students to use as much or as little multiplication as they know to fine the
number of dots in an array. The discourse that takes place while students are
explaining their reasoning for choosing the algorithm they did is what causes new
learning to occur. Students who are further ahead in their multiplicative

knowledge can pass that learning on to struggling students in a non-threatening

manner.
Irwin, Kathryn C. (2001). Using everyday knowledge of decimals to enhance
understanding. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 32(4), 399-420.
In this study of knowledge of decimals, the researcher discovered that problems
written in context led to more of an understanding than problems written without
a context. All students were given a pretest. Then students of low math ability
and high math ability were paired together to solve problems. Half of the pairs
were given contextualized problems and half of the pairs were given noncontextualized problems. Results of the posttest showed that both low and high
math ability students scored significantly higher when working on the
contextualized problem over the non-contextualized problem. This shows that
when students are given a real-life context in which to learn decimals, they will
have a greater understanding of decimals.
Matteson, Shirley M. (2011). A different perspective on the multiplication chart.
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 16(9), 562-568.
The use of multiples mats can help students with more than just multiplication it
can also help with understanding fractions and ratios. Since most students are
familiar with multiplication charts, the use of the mats is an easy transition (its
just a 12x12 multiplication chart cut in to strips). This allows the students to
manipulate the strips to help them see patterns with multiples as well as with
addition and subtraction. The ability to see and verbalize these patterns is an

essential step that will eventually lead to creating rules using symbolic notation.
(Matteson, 2011, p. 563)
Sowder, Judith. (1997). Place value as the key to teaching decimal operations.
Teaching Children Mathematics, 3(8), 448-453
Most students have a weak understanding of decimal numbers and their
symbols. Therefore, understanding place value when it comes to decimal
numbers is imperative. Children tend to learn place value at an early age, but
the meaning of place value isnt always explained. For example, what does it
mean to be in the tens place? It means you have ten ones. Once students get a
handle on this, it is time to go the other direction and apply these place values to
decimal numbers. Giving meaning to these numbers helps the student to
understand place value. If they dont know what it means for a number to be in a
certain place, then they cannot understand why its there. This will lead to
misconceptions and misunderstandings as the student progresses into higher
math classes.
Wagener, Lauren L. (2009). A worthwhile task to teach slope. Mathematics Teaching in
the Middle School, 15(3), 168-174
Mathematical tasks can be categorized into levels of cognitive demand lowlevel or high-level. Low-level tasks require a student to only memorize an
algorithm or to use that algorithm to solve a word problem. These types of tasks
do not require a student to make connections or justify or explain their thinking.
Higher-level tasks require students to not only choose the correct algorithm to
complete a task, but also to make connections and justify and/or explain their

reasoning for choosing the algorithm. These types of math tasks do not have
one path to the solution nor do they have one correct answer. Therefore, the
student must justify and/or explain each step they make as they move through
the task. If we want students to make connections throughout their math
careers, we must require that they do math, not simply memorize it and repeat it.