This blog post is an excerpt from Arjan Khalsa's white paper, "Demystifying the Multiplication and Division of Fractions":
“Dividing fractions is conceptually similar to dividing whole numbers, in that students can think about how many times the divisor goes into the dividend. For example, 1/2 ÷ 1/4 can be represented in terms of “How many 1/4s are in 1...
Posted by Arjan Khalsa on Feb. 28, 2013
It is 9:30 pm. A sixth-grader is curled around the pages of Harry Potter while his mother cajoles him to turn off the light. This youngster will apply his reading skills for the rest of his life. He will slay demons, travel to worlds real and fictional, and communicate with friends near and far - all through the gift of literacy. What will be his tangible rewards for developing strong sixth-...
Posted by Arjan Khalsa on Mar. 30, 2012
I am sitting on an airplane with the movie Footloose playing in the background. True to my nature, watching the movie makes me think about math education. In the film, teens are unhappy about rules and expectations imposed on them. In the math classroom, students are similarly unhappy with the requirements. Are there any real parallels here? Let’s see.
Let’s start with the...
Posted by Arjan Khalsa on Feb. 23, 2012
The Common Core State Standards emphasize the need to make sense of multiplying and dividing fractions: “Students [also] use the meaning of fractions, of multiplication and division, and the relationship between multiplication and division to understand and explain why the procedures for multiplying and dividing fractions make sense.” (CCSS, page 33)
As the folks at...
Posted by Robyn Silbey on Sep. 23, 2011
It's another school year and the other day I got to work with a great teacher who works with students with learning disabilities, as well as Tier II and III students in our RtI model.
I was helping her learn how to use her new interactive whiteboard and we began talking about some of her students who struggle with fractions, which led to a trip to...
Posted by Matthew Press on Sep. 13, 2011
