Week 5 Reflection

          There were two presentations this week that stood out in my mind as useful ways of teaching fractions. The first involved the use of different geometric shapes such as hexagons, rhombuses, trapezoids and triangles as a way of representing parts of a whole.

Retrieved from: Personal Photos

          As the picture above shows, the triangles, trapezoids and rhombuses can be combined to create a whole. This means that these shapes each represent a different fraction of a whole. Assuming that a whole is represented by the hexagon which can also be labeled as 6/6 triangles, then a triangle is 1/6 as it is that much of one whole. Because a rhombus is 2 triangles, it represents 2/6 or 1/3. And lastly, the trapezoid is equivalent to 3 triangles which is represented as a fraction by 3/6 or 1/2.
          This way of representing fractions is an interesting change from using blocks or other conventional methods and i will definitely incorporate it in my classroom one day. Although none of the topics discussed this week were terribly difficult, finding ways to explain fractions to people who have never used them before can certainly be. In my practicum placement today, i taught a lesson on converting decimals with whole numbers into fractions or mixed numbers. It was quite challenging to find a way to effectively portray how 2.75 becomes 2 3/4 when changed and reduced. I later found that simply telling the students to put the tenth and hundredth digits over 100 every time made it easier for them to understand and apply.
          The second lesson that stuck with me this week also dealt with fractions but approached it in a different way. Each group were assigned different fractions which added up to 10/10 to represent all the fingers and thumbs on two hands. These fractions were then assigned a colour. Each group was then supposed to colour in that percentage of nails in the specified colour.

Retrieved from: Personal Photos

          As the picture above indicates, our group had 1/10 black, 2/10 blue, 3/10 yellow and 4/10 purple. The order that we coloured the nails did not matter, the point of the exercise was to represent the fraction of fingers and using colours was certainly a great way to do this. This is another great lesson that i think would be a good one to use in the classroom. It really gets students engaged and excited to do something hands on and working in groups with their classmates. Limiting the fractions to n/10 does mean that not all grades will benefit from this lesson. But as an introduction to fractions for a 4/5 class, i do not think there is a better method out there.
          Having seen students in grade 6 struggle to understand how fractions work, i really understand the importance of building a good foundation for this type of learning. Because not all students are visual learners and wont simply learn the practicality of fractions through observation and repetition, it is essential that teachers learn to incorporate more engaging methods of teaching fractions as a way of building a foundation for future learning.