Week 7: Problem of the week

Question 1- Takeem
As a teacher, how would you respond to your understanding
of Takeem's misconception?  How might you intervene?  What would you try to
help Takeem understand?

His misunderstanding is most likely a) he is noticing each figure leaves one square unshaded. Any of the
answers are possible, but based on his looking at the figure to formulate his response, ‘A’ is most likely
true. The problem is that his figures would be correct if each fraction representation were stand-alone
answers, but since they are part of the same problem its incorrect because the two figures are not of
equal size. I think the simplest way to help him understand the difference would be to show him how to
make a pie graph instead using a block graph. Correctly proportioned pie graphs can be hard for
students to make on their own if the fractions don’t have a denominator of 2,4, 8, 16, etc., so the
teacher would want to draw it first, while emphasizing that the two shapes must start out the same size
because they’re both representing their own equal 1 whole. It might also help to use a physical
representation of the chart that the child originally drew, like actual blocks, to show how they don’t
offer a accurate equality, in order to fully break that misconception from the child’s mind.

Question 2- Ms. Foster

1. Put the numbers in order from least to greatest (whichever set you chose)
2. How did you do it? What was your process?

I would use set C if the teacher wanted to use the most methods possible. I would not use ‘A’ because
all the numerators are the same, so you can really only show one way. ‘B’ would be able to show other
methods like common denominators, but the common denominator for those numbers would be very
large because 11 and 13 are primes so its rare that they are factors in many other numbers, and most
kids only learn their time’s tables up to 12 anyway, so anything above 12x12 in terms of commonality
might throw them off. This would be a lot of work for students just learning the concept. Therefore, I
feel ‘C’ offers the right mix of showing how to determine size with mixed denominators, without
overwhelming the students.

1) 1/12, 3/8, 3/7, 2/3, 5/6

2) First, how I did it and how I would teach it are not the same. I used a combination of
visualization (picturing each as a pie graph in my mind) and common sense (the one with the
smallest numerator as well as the biggest denominator is logically the automatic smallest) to do
an intial sort, and went from there. The only trouble was 3/7 , but since I knew that its bigger
than 3/8 because of the same numerator but smaller denominator, and smaller than 2/3 as one
is obviously less than a half and the other larger than a half, it was easy to stick 3/7 in the right
spot. Also, I can pretty much do all the percentages for these denominators off of the top of my
head for everything besides 3/7 because I have them memorized, so I sort of intuitively knew
how to sort them without doing the actual math work. This method certainly wouldn’t work all
of the time, but I use it enough in real life that it did work easily here, and I wanted to be honest
about how I did it. The way I double-checked my answer is the way I would teach it first, which
is to divide each denominator by its numerator, and use each accompanying result, the
percentage of a whole that they are equal to, to order them. Another way, that I did not choose
to use, would be to find the common denominator (168,) and use cross multiplication. That
method is good for teaching if you are using a smaller number of fractions with relatively small
denominators, but I wouldn’t use it to teach for a set of five fractions as it would likely confuse
too many students, and be more work than its worth in many cases (for example, set ‘B’ from
the PoTW.) Common denominators are good for a set of two or three fractions, to give students
an understanding of the concept and how to utilize it. As the total number of fractions in the set
increases, or the denominator values are numbers outside of the student’s memorized times
tables (i.e. 13 from set ‘B,’) that method loses practicality.