Teaching Fractions? Try Visuals and Conversations, Not Tricks
How students are introduced to fractions in early grades affects how they approach more complicated mathematics—like algebra—in higher grades. It’s crucial that students learn how fractions behave differently than whole numbers and apply that logic to adding, subtracting, dividing, or multiplying fractions.
Building this conceptual base about fractions can be challenging because it’s easy for misconceptions to slip in, said Kevin Dykema, the immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and an 8th grade math teacher at Mattawan Middle School in Michigan.
“So many of those misconceptions have happened because we’ve just told the students what to do, rather than trying to get them to understand what’s going on,” Dykema said in a video interview with Education Week, recorded in August while he was still NCTM president.
In the video, Dykema details strategies to help educators dispel these misconceptions. He recommends the use of visuals, like fraction circles, graphs, or bars, to help students understand the relative size of one fraction compared to another. Dykema also suggests that “student-to-student discourse” can prod understanding or “a-ha” moments during a fractions lesson.
For more research-based strategies on teaching fractions, as well as other math concepts, check out Education Week’s email mini-course, Teaching Math.
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