A teacher who loves the comic book series, The Mysterious I.D. Vide and Newton’s Nemesis, recently asked me “How would should I use it?” Up until now, I’ve been hesitant to prescribe a “best practice”…
This morning my mother and I spent some time looking at old 5th and 6th grade textbooks at the Columbus Regional Math Collaborative to see how fraction multiplication and division has been taught over the…
I recently stumbled across a great and easy fraction division lesson in the International Journal on Emerging Mathematics Education. In Indonesia, all 6th grade students take a national exam, so these creative teachers printed motivational…
If you cook, you use fractions. So why not use cooking to teach fractions? During the holidays my favorite recipes feed a small army, and when I'm cutting them in half, it always reminds me…
Thanks to Google's search image that reminded me that this is not just another day off, I was inspired to read about diversity and comic books to celebrate Dr. King's birthday. So with a warm…
As I was doing my holiday shopping, I couldn't help but be a little self-indulgent and look around for cool books and classroom tools for teaching fractions. As a former teacher, I would often wish…
A recent task I developed utilized visual models of multiplication involving a unit fraction. Can you match the models with the expressions ⅓ x 12, ⅓ of 12 or 12 x ⅓? Who would have…
Researchers in mathematics education have long hypothesized that requiring students to write about mathematics is extremely powerful. Writing-to-learn can add to a student’s understanding, deepen their ability to justify their answers, and improve metacognition. But…
In the new era of the Core Curriculum and reformed mathematics teaching, the big goals are to have our children understand mathematics deeply and solve problems creatively, rather than just memorize a bunch of meaningless…
I recently stumbled upon the work of Robert Siegler, a professor of cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University who is working with several colleagues to determine why fraction arithmetic is so difficult. Of course, all…