To help students recognize that they use fractions in there everyday life we would verbalize our "sharing/dividing" stories and have them do the same giving them the opportunity to recognize the pattern of how often they use this concept without even being aware of it.
Many people use fractions in one way or another in
everyday life. For example, when a person wakes up and allocates the time to
spend on each item of the daily chores, the time spent x on one of the
items is part of the twenty-four hours in a day. One may further come into
contact with fractions on checking time. In the majority of cases many people including
students do this without realizing that they are coming into contact with
fractions (Burns, 1992).
Fractions are
central to peoples’ everyday lives (Burns, 1992). People need to have a deep
understanding of fractions for them to be able to apply them in their
day-to-day activities. Researchers have established that many students have considerable
difficulty in understanding fractions (Behr et al., 1992). The sources of the
students’ problems of understanding fractions may be categorized into two major
related groups. These are the formal teaching strategies and informal learning
of fractions concept as argued by Behr and others (1992) Informal
learning starts at an early stage before pupils go to school and continues
during formal learning. This implies that prior knowledge on a particular
concept like fractions is so vital in the learning process. Students’ prior
knowledge is a combination of different life experiences they have encountered
in their day to day lives that require them to use knowledge of fractions. If
students fail to realize their informal encounter with fractions in their daily
activities, the formal learning of such concept remains abstract and
irrelevant.
Students’ learning
depends on the teaching strategy. When students are taught concepts by rules,
they are not afforded the opportunity to construct a conceptual foundation for
understanding.
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ReplyDeleteGroup members: Rishmattie Maharaj, Christine Jainth, Angallie Maraj, Maya Dass
ReplyDeleteOur group agree with you Cassandra, there are many opportunities in daily life to help children understand fractions, as well as to help them see the importance of fractions. One of the best times to practice using fractions is during cooking. At the recipes (e.g. 1/3 cups of sugar) can help to measure out the required qualities. If your child is experienced in applying the basic operations of fractions (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing) you can work on situations in which the final serving size is altered. For example, if the recipe serves 4 and you want to serve 6, how will that change the amount called for each ingredients? Even during a child's earliest knowledge of fractions, though, dividing food into serving sizes offers a great opportunity for children to see how fractions is used in everyday life. Involving food in your activities will be a great asset to your child understanding of fractions. For example, discuss how fractions are used to represent the portions when serving lasagne or how each pizza slice is a fraction of the whole pizza. Helping your child become comfortable with appreciating mathematics from a young age is fundamental to preparing them for the workplace of the future.
Very valid and tasty examples :) children need things like this...examples they can relate to, understand and have experienced and as you said they would appreciate mathematics because now they would see its importance and relevance in their own life...Apart FROM That Because They Now Understand They Will Be motivated to learn mathematics more.
ReplyDeleteMy group and I realized that we do use fractions as part of our everyday lives and not be aware of it. As Cassandra stated when we share snacks with our friends we are giving them a fraction of what we have (A Whole).
ReplyDeleteSimply noted a fraction is part of a whole. Take for instance a clock and telling the time, here we use fractions with regards to part of the hour. Example Quarter too or Quarter past (1/4), Half Past (1/2). The whole here is (60/60 which is equal to 1).
Yes, we use fractions in one way or another in everyday life even though we may not realize it.This concept of looking at a clock can be applicable to almost if not everything. We think that the value of something that is not a whole number is a fraction! After all, that is what a fraction is a part of a whole. There are wholes and part of wholes everywhere. If you don't believe this, then try baking a cake without using fractions. If it were not for fractions something as simple as baking a cake would be impossible. When you put 2 eggs into the cake mix you are using 1/3 of (1/2 a dozen) or 1/6 of a dozen. In fact, every ingredient in a cake recipe is a fraction of something: a cup of milk, a teaspoon of salt, a stick of butter, a half a cup of chocolate chips. Can you imagine the result of baking a cake mixing an entire salt shaker, a gallon of milk, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs and an entire bag of chocolate chips? You would end up with a really poor tasting cake or you would have a huge cake.
For students fractions can be tiresome or stressed to learn and understand. Once we are able to communicate the correct concepts to students they are engaged in a better understanding of fractions.
Important point Leah, it also points to the fact of how integrated each subject/topic is, fractions in your examples can not only be applied and integrated in our everyday life but also in our academics...and so in the lives of our students.
ReplyDeleteTeaching for conceptual understanding requires a lot of work but it proves to be very beneficial when teaching Fractions.
ReplyDeleteWe too agree that with Cassandra post “How do you use Fractions in your everyday life? How can you get your students to understand that they use fractions in their everyday life?” when she said that “When students are taught concepts by rules, they are not afforded the opportunity to construct a conceptual foundation for understanding.” Teaching for conceptual understanding requires a lot of work but it proves to be very beneficial when teaching fractions. Students enjoy learning and their attitude towards learning becomes more positive. They are also able to be better problem solvers and can be self-generated thus inventing new ideas on their own.
Another theorist, Jerome Bruner also plays an important role in Mathematics as he mentioned the spiral curriculum. With this spiral curriculum students are brought back to the same general topics periodically but the topics are always moving up a level. Students would deepen their knowledge on the topic but for this to be done their understanding conceptually must be strong. Pupils must have a good foundation and a strong understanding of a topic in order for success to take place at a higher level. This theory can also be related to Skemp as Bruner believed that children would learn well through guided discovery just as Skemp believed in creating experiences for concepts to be taught.
References:
Skemp, RR (1964).A three-part theory for learning mathematics. In FW Land, New Approaches to Mathematics Teaching. Macmillan & Co. Ltd: London.
How can we as teachers gain students attention when teaching fractions.
ReplyDeleteMy group members and I strongly agree that both learning and teaching fractions is a bit of a task. In many cases as soon as children hear or see the word fractions their minds wonder. As stated by one of my group members as children the way in which they were taught the topic they never really had a liking for it. Their teacher would use the method of ‘chalk and talk’, but we as a group believe for a topic such as fractions teachers should bring real world experiences within the classroom. Since we all know that it is a fact the we use fractions on a everyday bases, teachers can demonstrate this by bring the actual wholes into the classroom such as cake , pizza etc. and have the children get involved and cut the fractions out themselves. However, if this seems like a lot of work there is also technology where the use of virtual worlds were they can have the real world experience without leaving the classroom. There are also games which can grasp their individual attention and make the learning of fractions easier and interesting for them. Fractions should be easier to learn when the use of real objects and items are brought to the classroom and the children get the hands on experience.
My group members and I totally agree that we use fractions in our everyday lives. For instance, if you walk down the aisles of a supermarket you probably would not get a third of the way there without coming into a fraction in some way or the other. After all, that walk down the aisle is a fraction: 1/3. Yes, we use fractions in one way or another in everyday life even though we may not completely realize it. For example, you use fractions every time you look at a clock. Yes, we know that quart past (1/4), half past (1/2) and quarter till are fractions. In fact, all time telling is a fraction of x/60 with the exception of when it is time on the hour as it then becomes a whole number (60/60 = 1) For example, 36 minutes past the hour is 3/5's.
ReplyDeleteThis concept of looking at a clock is applicable to everything. Any value of anything that is not a whole number is a fraction! After all, that is what a fraction is a part of a whole. And there are parts of a whole everywhere! If you don't believe this, then try baking a cake without using fractions. If it were not for fractions something as simple as baking a cake would be impossible. When you put 2 eggs into the cake mix you are using 1/6 of a dozen. In fact, every ingredient in a cake recipe is a fraction of something: a cup of milk, a teaspoon of salt, a stick of butter, a half a cup of chocolate chips. Can you imagine the result of baking a cake mixing an entire salt shaker, a gallon of milk, a pound of butter, a dozen eggs and an entire bag of chocolate chips? You would either have a really poor tasting cake or you would have a cake the size of the refrigerator!
It is interesting to note that even those students who do very well on tests that feature fractions seem very poorly on understanding how fractions work in everyday life. This is not because they do not grasp the concept of fractions but because they are somewhat disconnected between the way fractions make the transition from the classroom and into practical experience. Therefore, it is our duty as teachers when teaching fractions to make that connection from the classroom to the outside world.
Group Members: Richard Simbhoo, Edlyn Sucre, Chrissie Bisram, Candace Ramdhanee, Kelsey Khan
ReplyDeleteAs previously stated, by my colleagues, fractions are a part of our everyday lives. It is used by people every day without actually realising it. Parents and children use fractions unconsciously as part of their daily routines in terms of getting up in the morning, bathing, eating breakfast, leaving the house, arriving at school and work via the use of the clock (quarter to, quarter past, half past the hour). Student also use fractions unconsciously in school in relation to knowing what time is assembly; recess; lunchtime; and when school finishes. Fractions are also used in physical education to measure distances or heights, for example, long jump 4 ½ m or high jump 2 ¼ m respectively. Students also use it in money, for example, half or quarter of a dollar. Students are also familiar with food such as cake and pizzas cut into slices or fractions. In addition, children also help their parents at home when they are cooking or baking (1/2 cup of flour, ¼ cup of oil) so they are familiar with the use of fractions in these activities.
In the article Understanding How the Concept of Fractions Develops; Vygotsky’s postulates, that everyday concepts are not based on a system; rather they are based in rich daily contexts and, therefore, might be used correctly or incorrectly by children. By using this rich context/ experiences the teacher can expand and clarify if necessary when teaching the mathematical concept of fractions. Mathematical concepts are within a system and are characterized by formal and decontextualized structures. For example, 1/2 is a number constituting a number system, which consists of rational and irrational numbers.
Therefore, when students can see the link between fractions and their everyday routines they can have a deeper appreciation of it. They can relate to fractions from their prior experiences, so when it comes to working with fractions they would be familiar with them. As teachers, we must draw on their prior knowledge/experiences and incorporate it in our lessons, resulting in students’ better understanding of the concept.
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ReplyDeleteGroup 5- Fazida Yathali, Reshma Gangadeen, Ornella Oudai, Abdur Mohammed.
ReplyDeleteOur group totally agrees with the examples shown here. Yes Maya, fractions can be used in cooking, Leah we agree with you on the example with the clock and Chrisann you are totally correct! Not to mention Richard's example with our breakfast.
Fractions are everywhere and we use it everyday without even realizing it. We go out shopping and spend a lot of money correct? I wish i could break that habit :(
Anyways, use our money and sometimes get back change. When we use a hundred dollars to pay the cashier and get back change, we are really spending a fraction of the money. For example if you buy a T-shirt for fifty dollars ($50.00) and pay with a one hundred dollar bill ($100.00) the fraction of the money you are spending is one half (1/2). Children also use this on a day to day basis when they go shopping in the school's cafeteria. Examples with money can be done to show fractions in order for students to make real life connections.
We also use fractions in our daily lives when we decide what w are going to do with our money for the day. Some may have to buy food, pay for gas, buy a snack, pay for an entrance fee to a movie or even buy something at the beauty store. Whatever we do with the money, requires us to divide it up into fractions. Therefore if i were to go out on a Saturday, i would split up my money into thirds so that 1/3 of the money will go to a nice lunch, 1/3 on shopping and 1/3 on a nice dress. Students can also relate to this with money they might have or receive as an allowance. For instance, students might save 1/3 of their money to buy something big in the future. They could also donate 1/3 to a charity and spend 1/3 on an item right now like an ice cream. No matter the breakdown, money can be used to create fraction problems.
My group members and I totally agree with you Cassandra because we have recognised that fractions are an integral part of our everyday life we use it in so many different ways that we are unaware of the different ways in which we use it. For example, we use fractions every time you look at a clock, we know that quart past is represent (1/4) and half past represent half (1/2). One can generally rely on coming into contact with fractions in one form or another mainly because parts of a whole are far more common that complete collectives of any one thing. This may seem odd to us because we are unaware of the importance of fractions in our everyday lives. By understanding this as perspective teachers it is important to impart this on our students so that they can become aware of the different ways to use fractions and by doing this it would help build on their schema. For example children love pizza so by teaching them that each segment of the pizza represent a fraction they would appreciate the importance of fractions as such it is our duty as teachers to teach fraction in a meaningful way so that the connections with everyday activities can be recognised. My group members and I therefore endorse the fact that fractions should be taught in a way that every child can make the connections with fractions as a meaningful part of their everyday life.
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