When I first envisioned using a comic book to teach fractions, I naturally went online to see if anyone had thought of the idea yet.  There were plenty of resources on teaching the concept of a fraction, and even adding and subtracting fractions.  But when I searched (and continue to search) for teaching ideas that truly get at why the algorithms for dividing fractions work, I was surprised.  There are plenty of cute ideas of “Keep-Change-Flip” but not many ideas that tackled the “why”.  That’s when I started to write and read more about the current research on fraction division.

There’s a lot of great research on division with fractions and how children learn math that has inspired how I approached the math in Newton’s Nemesis.  But it takes a lot of time to digest.  So, I thought I’d share the work that I’ve done by creating a blog about what researchers in the field are doing.  I hope it not only can help others who are trying to find a better way to teach why we invert and multiply, but also give readers of Newton’s Nemesis a little background on why I put certain elements in the stories of Ms. I. D. Vide.