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=Teaching About Fractions in 4th-7th grade - An Introduction=

Most students understand the concept of fractions by the time they are in 4th grade, but adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with fractions is hard for many middle school and high school students. A firm foundation in the meaning of fractions and the concepts of finding equivalent fractions and comparing the size of fractions is necessary for developing fluency with fraction operations.

This online course focuses on operations with fractions and decimals, and assumes that students have a basic foundation in the concept of fractions, finding fraction equivalents, the meaning of mixed numbers, uses of fractions, and the concept of decimal numbers. You can pre-assess their understanding of the basics of fractions using the first section of the Student Packet, "An assessment of basic fraction concepts." (Download the student packet from the link at left.)

The primary method for learning about fractions, as a teacher taking this course, is to assign parts of the Student Packet to your class and learn along with them. The student packet presents real-world problems for students to attempt, using what they know - using manipulatives and drawings, and building on prior knowledge. Sometimes they work in pairs, other times as individuals. They look for patterns in the problems they solve, and from those patterns, they develop procedures for operations that are more efficient than always using manipulatives or drawings. This is the basic approach of starting with objects, moving to drawings, then generalizing to symbolic procedures (e.g. adding fractions by adding just the numerators when the denominators are the same).

There are detailed instructions in the packet.

An excellent resource for helping students learn about fractions is the IES Practice Guide on Developing Effective Fraction Instruction, available here: @http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/

How to use this course
This is a self-paced course that can meet the Michigan requirement of 5 hours of professional development through an online source. To get credit for 5 hours of online learning through this course, you need to administer the Basic Fraction Concepts assessment and work through at least two of the three main sections of the Student Packet (adding and subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, and dividing fractions) with your students. Then write a brief reflection on the Discussion tab for that section about the difficulties your students have with that topic and the methods that seem to work to help them learn how to do it efficiently.

When you have worked through at least two of the three main sections of the Student Packet and written reflections on the sections you chose, contact the facilitator, who will check to make sure you have submitted reflections and approve the SB-CEUs.

You will need to purchase and read one article from NCTM (the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics), **The Role of Representations in Fraction Addition and Subtraction** by Kathleen Cramer, Terry Wyberg and Seth Leavitt, in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, April 2008, Vol. 13, Issue 8, Page 490. The cost is $7 and you can purchase and download it here: @http://www.nctm.org/eresources/article_summary.asp?from=B&uri=MTMS2008-04-490a To get the most out of the article, you should have a set of fraction circles, available from teacher stores, ETA/Cuisenaire or other online outlets.

To join this course, please contact the instructor: **Theron Blakeslee, Ingham ISD, 517-244-1201**.