Practical Tips for Fractions

Learning to Teach

Doug M. Clarke, Anne Roche, and Annie Mitchell wrote the article, "10 Practical Tips for Making Fractions Come Alive and Make Sense." This is an article that can come in use for both new and seasoned teachers. As new teachers, we do not know everything that is out there. We have not experienced much, and our first couple of years are spent learning what and how we need to teach. Seasoned teachers have experienced a lot. These teachers have their groove and feel that they know best. In a lot of ways they do, however, even seasoned teachers can update their teaching methods. The information that we teach is always changing, why shouldn't the way we teach?

10 Tips

1. Give a greater emphasis to the meaning of fractions than on procedures for manipulating them--We need to not worry about "meeting the standards" as much as we need to worry about whether our students are truly understanding what fractions are, what their purpose is, and how to use them.
2. Develop a generalizable rule for explaining the numerator and denominator of a fraction--We introduce telling students that the denominator represents the "whole" and the numerator is the equal parts that fit in. While this may work for smaller fractions that are less that 1, it does not work for fractions that are larger than 1. Instead, the new definition that is suggested is "In the fraction a/b, b is the name or size of the part (e.g., fifths have this name because 5 equal parts can fill a whole), and a is the number of parts of that name or size. If we have 7/3, the 3 tells the name or size of the parts (thirds) and the 7 tells us that we have 7 of those thirds (or 2 1/3)."
3. Emphasize that fractions are numbers, making extensive use of number lines in representing fractions and decimals--number lines allow students to see all the variations that fractions can take, and see how fractions can compare to decimals and whole numbers.
4. Take opportunities early to focus on improper fractions and equivalences--If students are understanding fractions, they can move on to improper fractions. The students who are struggling can sometimes pick up faster by playing games and watching their classmates.
5. Provide a variety of models to represent fractions--Manipulatives, manipulatives, manipulatives.
6. Link fractions to key benchmarks, and encourage estimation--This helps students to learn residual thinking and understand the meaning behind fractions.
7. Give emphasis to fractions as division--I look at figuring out fractions by division sometimes.
8. Link fractions, decimals, and percents wherever possible--These are in everything: clothes sales, gas prices, etc. Linking these items to as much stuff as possible lets kids know that it is something that is important in their life.
9. Take the opportunity to interview several students one on one on the kinds of tasks discussed in this article to gain awareness of their thinking and strategies--Always keep communication open with your students, not only with math strategies (new and old), but with learning strategies for every subject.
10. Look for examples and activities that can engage students in thinking about fractions in particular and rational number ideas in general--Keep it interesting, but, informational.