SED 496 Dyer

Instructional Activity #5
Private session for Eric Roth’s ASUPD Math Student, Emilia D
Fractions, Decimals & Percentages: Monday 3/21/22, 1PM
Jennifer Hand, PharmD

My experiences with tutoring informed me that a significant number of students seek help with
math problems involving using and interconverting fractions, decimals & percentages, both for simple
calculations, and especially for word problems.
I decided to put together a slide deck to help explain the basics, and to demonstrate how to apply them to
word problems.
I also wanted to showcase a few tools, such as a F-D-P converter triangle, fractions tiles, and percentage
bars.
My slide deck is a work in progress, so I asked Emilia if she would like to get some one-to-one
help with F-D-P and at the same time, help me test-drive my slides. She agreed. We met for ~45 minutes.
The slide deck did not run as a presentation, so I talked my through the slides, and used the zoom
whiteboard when necessary.
Emilia, like many students, could manage converting fractions to decimals, but not the reverse.
Also, she struggled with interconverting decimals and percentages. This is the most common challenge
for students.
I talked her through all the steps for interconverting fractions, decimals & percentages, and
showed her the F-D-P triangle graphic organizer. It is a great tool for students to fill out with help, then
keep with their math notes or school binder, as a handy reference. I believe that most students will
eventually understand these processes and how to correctly implement them, but it takes time and
practice.
When I work with struggling students, I try to include specific instructions for them to write in
their math notes. I give them the topic, key vocabulary words & definitions and key equations and/or
problem-solving strategies. I want them to have meaningful but concise information to study and use,
moving forward. Note-taking is a major hurdle for many students in middle school so it must be
scaffolded and reinforced, if students are to be successful in school.
This session yielded 3 tasks for me to improve the slide deck:
1. Re-work the percentages bar concept.
2. Flesh out the slides, adding more pear deck interactives.
3. Email graphic organizers and send feedback to my lead instructor.
SED 496 Dyer
Instructional Activity #5
Private session for Eric Roth’s ASUPD Math Student, Emilia D
Fractions, Decimals & Percentages: Monday 3/21/22, 1PM
Jennifer Hand, PharmD
Every time I work with students, I uncover a little piece of information that helps me improve.
Emilia was a really good sport, and helped me identify what was working, and what needed to be re-
tooled.