Although we do
not have to try to focus on making a connection between the reading we pick
from this week and then last week, I wanted to try to make a connection as best
I could. The first reading I wanted to focus on is from last week from Siebert &
Gaskin’s “Creating, Naming, & Justifying Fractions”. Most of my
concentration went into one of the figures in this article, figure 3. This
figure stood out to me most for two reasons, connection with my field placement
and connection with measurement. In my placement, my students are very stuck on
trying to understand the concept of a “whole”. Several students don’t realize
that when you have a fraction the denominator equals the number of total parts
in the whole. I liked this figure 3 because I feel like this would be a picture
or diagram I would bring into the classroom to try to reiterate that concept. I
really liked how the authors showed 1/8 in two different ways as well as
partitioning the fraction and iterating the fraction. The picture shows area
model and set model allows students to see a fraction being used in different
types of criteria. In my placement showing this picture would be so key because
I think my students need to see how a fraction is not “what is the shaded part
of the object OVER how much is left over” like a subtraction problem, they need
to see fractions as a whole. This cannot only help them understand wholes but
also measurement.
I believe this figure effectively displays the use of
fractions in terms of measurement especially when they show the partitioning
portion of HOW 1/8 fits into a whole. The figure for the area model displays
the notches in the “whole” to show how many 1/8s are in that whole. I believe
this can help students understand the concept of measurement and how you have
different units of different sizes in different “wholes” or even the same
whole. This would be a good figure to show struggling students who cannot
understand the concept of measurement maybe due to lack of understanding the
concept of a whole. In the set model example we see how you can group this
whole into 1/8 groups. This would definitely help students recognize the
significance of determining a certain measurement based on the whole quantity.
Next I want to focus on one of this weeks reading by Van
DeWalle “Developing Measurement Concepts”. I believe this further establishes
the need to make connections between fractions and measurements because it
effectively supports students learning of both concepts. Although DeWalle was
talking about the integration of science and mathematics curriculums I felt
this quote was also relevant to fractions for math. Measurement should be
connected with fractions because of “the need for increased precision leads to
fractional parts of units.” From my understanding of this point, DeWalle is
saying that the importance of measurement is not only important for that
subject alone but also can be an educational advantage to incorporate
measurement into other subjects like fractions so the students can further
benefit from a more integrative lesson.
