OPEN UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE

Tittle : Difficulties commonly encountered in teaching Fractions, Decimals and Percentages in Form One. WENCESLAUS TEHAS (NO. MATRIX : 810628135897002) NO. K/P : 810628-13-5897 NO. TELEFON : 013-8289282 wencelespichin@yahoo.com TUTOR: EN. ZURHANA BIN MOHAMMAD PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN: INSTITUT PERGURUAN MALAYSIA KAMPUS TUN ABDUL RAZAK SAMARAHAN

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

1.0 Introduction Commonly, teaching Mathematic subject in both secondary and primary school is not an easy task as it had gave lots of problem and issues to the teacher in school. It is because the students in Form One always lacking of knowledge and basic in handling the Mathematic skills as well as knowledge since they are in primary school. The inheritance of the problem from Primary school makes the Form One teachers feel headache on them. As for Form One students in secondary school, they have lots of problem in learning Mathematics especially in three main chapters, like fractions, decimals and percentages. According to the teachers who are interviewed, Mr. Albert and Ms. Susie totally agreed that it is very hard to teach the Form One in this three chapter as they found that the students are weak in understand the concept of fraction, decimals and percentages. It is because they cannot imagine the respective concept in their thinking. As a result, a comprehensive research had been planned and done in order to determine the problem which occurred in teaching decimals, fractions, and percentages in Form One class. All the introduction of the problem and scenario teaching Mathematic in Form One will be discussed in the first part of the paper. The second part of this paper will discuss main issues and problem which faced by the teacher during teaching Form One Mathematic. The third parts of the paper main discuss the suggested solution to help the Form One Mathematic teacher in solve the problems and issues in teaching these three chapters, namely decimals, fractions and percentages. Then, an evaluation on the teaching in decimals, fractions and percentages will done and discuss in later section.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

The last part of the research paper will concentrate on the conclusion which had been made on teaching decimals, fractions and percentages. The respective conclusion will include the best suggestion to solve the mentioned problem. 2.0 Difficulties in Teaching Decimals As for teaching the chapter of decimal in Form One, there are main problems and difficulties which will be faced by the teacher in secondary school. The first problem or difficulties in teaching decimals is the students will prefer to select the longer decimals as the larger numbers than the shorter decimals. There are many reasons why the students will choose the longer decimal numbers as the bigger number. There are a variety of reasons why they do this. Among the main reason of the misconceptions that longer decimal equal to larger number is because they build up such wrong concept since they are in primary school whereby about 30% of Year 5 students interpreting decimals this way, diminishing to about 10% by Year 6. However, the problem of longer decimal doesnt always happen as the students will still choose the correct decimal numbers as the larger numbers if the decimal digits are zero. For instance, the students will say 0.56 is greater than 0.7 but will know that 0.056 is smaller than 0.7. Meanwhile, there are another types of students whereby they can made the decimalfraction link but have trouble with fundamentals of place value. They will face a problem in write too many digits into a column. So 0.19 is 19 tenths while 0.012 is 12 hundredths. In effect, they squeeze the number 12 into one column. However, there are certain students who order decimals in the same way as above example. This type of students may lack of the knowledge and ideas on the decimal as representing a fractional part. For example, they will know that 0.41 is larger than 0.0041 or 0.014345. Meanwhile, the whole number thinkers students will select 0.0962 is smaller than 0.63 correctly.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

These can become a problem and issue for the Form One teacher to teach the Mathematics in Secondary school. 3.0 Difficulties in Teaching Percentages As teaching in Form One Percentage, the teacher also facing lots of problem. It is because the Form One students are more likely to learn if they understand why they are learning a particular topic or concept. One good method of introducing percentages would be to explain the practical application of percentages which happened daily life to the students. The students also cannot perform the transformation of the percentages to fractions and decimals. It is because they did not understand the meaning of the percentage in fractions and decimals. Therefore, they cannot get the full marks as they cannot give the complete and accurate final answers. For most of the questions of percentages in Form One required students to give the final answer in certain format like decimals or fractions.

Lastly, the students also facing a problem, in perform the operation of multiplication or divide the percentages with the decimals or fractions numbers. It make them very confuse and do not know how to do.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

4.0 Difficulties in Teaching Fractions Commonly, fraction becomes a problem for many students include Form One students in secondary school. Lots of students do not know to solve some fractions problem in the daily life. For the example, they do not know how to divide equal one pizza to 10 persons. Besides that, the students also facing a problem in simplify the fraction to the simplest format. For the example, the students do not to simplify 4/8 to . Therefore, the final answer which been given by them in Mathematical problem was not complete. As for the students in school, their arguments are based on the logic of division. For the example, the students might think that the way in which the pizzas were cut did not matter as long as the respective pizza can share equally to all the people. For example, one of the Form One students expressed that theyre the same amount of people, the same amount of pizzas, and that means the same amount of fractions however another student argued that because first they did one pizza and did it in six pieces, they had found out that two sixths was one third, so if they used both of them then they could just use one third each. But, the respective students also argued that the number of pieces and the size of pieces compensated for each other. Just like fractions. 2/6 and 1/3 are just a different way in

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

5.0 Issues in Decimals Commonly, there are some issues will be faced in teaching decimal in Form One. As we know, the main uses of the decimal point is to let us know that where we beginning to break our unit into tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and so on. However, the number one, not the decimal point, is the focal point of this system. Therefore, 0.543 is 543 thousandths of one. As for another example, 0.5 is five-tenths of 1, while 5 is five ones, and 50 is five tens, or 50 ones. But by the same token that 0.5 is five-tenths of one, 5 are five-tenths of 10, 50 are five-tenths of 100, and so on up the line. Meanwhile, 0.005 is five-tenths of 0.01, while 0.05 is five-tenths of 0.1. As for the opposite direction, 5000 is 50 hundreds, 500 are 50 tens. 50 is 50 ones, 5 is 50 tenths, 0.5 is 50 hundredths, 0.05 is 50 thousandths, and so on. The above theory had made most of the Form One student feel confusing. In order to compare 0.38 and 0.6, the teacher will tell the students to add in a zero so the numbers are the same size. Even the respective strategy works vey well to help the students to get the correct answer, but it does not develop understanding of number size. In other words, the students will continue confuse and not understand the concept of the decimals.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

6.0 Issues in Percentages There are also lots of issues in teaching the percentages in secondary school such as Form One class. It is simply because the Form One students do not have very strong basic in percentage chapter during they are in Primary school. It can inherit to secondary school. It is because the students easy to get confuse with the percentage numbers. As for most of the percentages question, the students are required to perform the operation of multiplication and divide as well as subtraction. But, before they can perform such operation, they must know how to convert the question from decimal or fraction to the percentages. The students will always facing a big problem in doing so. Lastly, the students in Form One also will face a problem in understand the meaning of the percentages which more than 100%. They cannot convert the percentages to fraction format if the respective percentages are more than 100% such as 120%.

7.0 Issues in Fractions In learning the fraction, there are too many rules need to remember. It always becomes the huge issues for the learners. For the example, there are about 8 rules need to memorize by the students and it will be every impossible for them to do so in such shorten time period. As for the students, if they memorize those facts and theory without understand the meaning behind, they will never understand the whole rules. Therefore, the respective

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

rules mean nothing to them as they could not apply it in their fraction calculation. Therefore, the students will not perform well in their fraction chapter.

8.0 Recommendation on Solution (A) Fraction The best solution to solve the problem in learning or teaching the fraction, the teacher should teach the students how to visualize the whole concept of the fraction instead of call them to memory on it. Obviously, the students who are able to visualize the concept of the fractions in their mind, they will easier to understand the concept of the respective fractions theory. Meantime, the students also can estimate the answer before calculating, and evaluate the reasonableness of the final answer. It is all because they can visualize the whole fraction concept in their mind. Finally, the students must be given more and more graphic and image based fraction theoretical explanation. It is because the students can see clearly the image of the fraction and it can help them in the process of learning the fraction.

(B) Decimal Obviously, the students easy to forget to take account for the decimal place value when they are learning multiply decimals in their Mathematical syllabus. In order to help them to solve the respective problem, the teacher can use the decimal dance. As for the decimal dance, the teacher can work out the product of the numbers on the blackboard. Then, the respective teacher will simply exaggerate the motion of counting decimal places. Later, the teacher will make a large white arc under each digit until accounted for the correct

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

number of decimal places. The students should able to remember to account for decimal place value after multiplying decimals. This will be much better method for the students to remember the decimal in Mathematics.

(C) Percentages As to solve the problem in percentages, the teacher can apply the quick tricks method in teaching this topic in school. For example, if a student wants to calculate 40% of a number he can start with the original number, mentally move the decimal point over one place and then multiply that 10% by 4 (because 10 x 4 =40). Any time the percentage involved is divisible by 10 this trick can be used. Another quick trick for finding 5 percent is to move the decimal point over one place and divide that result in half (because half of 10 is 5). Finding percentages that are multiples of 5 (for example, 25) can be done only in 3 steps: (A) Move the decimal point over one place to get 10%, (B) Divide that figure in half to get 5%, and then (C) Multiply that figure by 5 (because 5 x 5 = 25). 9.0 Evaluation As in the evaluation section, an article and research will be analyzed and discussed. Firstly, according to Irwin & Kathryn C (2001), a research had been done to determine the role of students everyday knowledge of decimals in supporting the development of their knowledge of decimals. As for the respective research, there are 20 students who are ages 11 and 12, came from lower economic area, were asked to work in pairs to solve problems that tapped common misconceptions about decimal fractions. As for the result, half the pairs worked on problems presented in familiar contexts and half worked on problems presented without context. A comparison of pretest and posttest results revealed that students who worked on contextual problems made significantly

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

more progress in their knowledge of decimals than did those who worked on no contextual problems. Besides that, the dialogues between pairs of students during the process of problem solving were analyzed. Results from this analysis suggested that greater reciprocity existed in the pairs working on the contextualized problems, partly because, for those problems, the less able students more commonly took advantage of their everyday knowledge of decimals. On the other hand, Resnick, L. B., Nesher, P., Leonard, F., Magone, M., Omanson, S, & Peled, I. (1989), explained that the whole number errors derive from student's applying rules for interpreting multi digit integers. In the research, the respective researchers had mentioned that the fraction errors derive from student's efforts to interpret decimals as fractions in the Mathematical questions. However, the different curriculum sequences will absolutely influence the probability that these classes of errors will appear. It is proposed that errors are a natural concomitant of students' attempts to integrate new material that they are taught with already established knowledge. Since error rules cannot be avoided in instruction, the school teachers are advised and encouraged to use them as useful diagnostics tools in order to detect the nature of student's understanding of a mathematical topic. Lastly, according to Behr, Merlyn J., Khoury, Helen A., Harel, Guershon, Post, Thomas, & Lesh, Richard (1997), in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(1), 48-69, the teachers' understanding of the operator construct of rational number is important in teaching the fraction. In the respective research, three related problems were given. Given in 1-on-1 clinical interviews, consisted of finding 3/4 of a pile of 8 bundles of 4 counting sticks. Problem conditions were suggestive of showing 3/4 of the number of bundles and 3/4 of the size of each bundle. The respective studies and research will provides confirming instances that students use these 2 rational number operator sub constructs. As for the respective research, the SS strategies are identified when the rational number, as an operator, is distributed over a uniting operation. With these SS

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

strategies, rational number is conceptualized as a rate and it will be much easier for the learner to study the respective concept.

10.0

Interview Outcome

As for the research purpose, an interview session was done on two experience Mathematic teacher in secondary school. Both of the Mathematic teachers were taught in secondary school for Mathematic for more than 10 years time. The main objective of the interview session is to determine the challenges and issues which been faced during teaching the Form One Mathematic especially in three hardest chapters, namely: Fraction Decimals Percentages

The interview results will be discussed in detail as below: (A) Decimals As for teaching the chapter of decimal in Form One, Mr. Stephen expressed that it is hard and always need to spend more time to teach them in school. According to Mr. Ryan, the students always face a problem in doing the questions of multiply as well as divide for the decimal question. It is because the students cannot account the place of value for each of the decimal. Therefore, they are not being able to perform multiplication operation for the decimals. For the example, the students might not be able to get the answer of 27.28 X 19. Its all because they have no idea how to put the value of the decimal.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

At the mean time, the other problem faced by the students in doing the decimal question is they think that longer the decimal means that larger the numbers. It gives a totally wrong concept. For the example, they will think that 0.0877 is larger than 0.7. It make them cannot answer the question for decimal chapter.

(B) Fraction According to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Stephen, the students in Form One still face a serious problem in understand the basic concept of the fraction. For the example, the students do not know that 1 is equal to 2/2 or 3/3 or 4/4. As for them, they will think that 4/4 is larger than 1. The students also do not know that we can transform 4 to 4/1 before we precede to the calculation operations like add, subtraction, multiplication and divide. Therefore, it is not easy to teach them the topics of fraction Besides that, the teachers who attended the interview expressed that the students in Form One also face a problem in simply the fraction to the simplest format and put it as the final answer. Therefore, they always lose a mark in their final answer.

(C) Percentages As for the last chapter, percentages also give lots of problem to the school teacher like Mr. Ryan and Mr. Stephen who teach Mathematic in lower form for more than 10 years. According both of them, the main problem which been faced by them is the students still no idea how to transform the decimal number to the percentages before doing the other operations like subtraction and multiplication. Lastly, the students in Form One which handled by Mr. Ryan and Mr. Stephen also not able to convert the decimals and fractions to the percentages as they try to answer the questions. It makes them fail to get the correct answer during the Mathematic examination in school.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

11.0

Conclusion

As conclusion, is always not an easy task for the school teacher to teach the Form One and Form Two Mathematic especially in three chapters, namely fraction, decimals and percentage. It is because the students lacking of abilities and skill to visualize the whole concepts of three respective elements. The teacher should use the simplest and easy to understand method to teach the students so that they can understand better the respective three concepts.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002

12.0

Reference

Carraher, T.N. and A.D. Schliemann. "Using Money to Teach about the Decimal System." Arithmetic Teacher 36 (December 1988): 4243. Goldenberg, E. P. "A Mathematical Conversation with Fourth Graders." Arithmetic Teacher 38 (April 1991): 38-43. Hiebert, J. "Research Report: Decimal Fractions." Arithmetic Teacher 34 (March 1987): 2223. Lester, F. "Teacher Education: Preparing Teachers to Teach Rational Numbers" Arithmetic Teacher 31 (February 1984): 54-56. Payne, J.N., and A.E. Towsley "Implications of NCTM's Standards for Teaching Fractions and Decimals. Arithmetic Teacher 37 (April 1990): 23-26.

HBMT3303 TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FORM ONE WENCESLAUS TEHAS 810628-13-5897-002