1) What is this lesson looking to teach students?
2) How could this have been used to teach fractions?
3) Was this assignment just busy work given to students?
If I were to answer these questions, I would say that this lesson wasn't necessarily looking to teach the students any concrete mathematical concept. The students were only required to place the pattern blocks inside the large shapes to see how they fit, figure out how many fit inside, then draw those parts, and color the whole larger shape. If this were going to teach them anything specific about mathematics, I think that fractions would be the way to go. I think that the first 3 steps could remain the same (place pattern blocks in large shape, see how many fit, draw) BUT the worksheet would ask the students to only color a portion of (1/2, 2/6. etc) the shapes. In my opinion, this worksheet seems to be nothing more than busy work for the kids, but if there was one more step added to it, this worksheet could be very helpful to the students' understanding of fractions and smaller parts fitting into a whole.
You could ask your CT how and why you think this fits into the curriculum; you could also examine the curriculum and see how many other such worksheets are included in it, and if they link together at all.
ReplyDeleteI think all of your insights and suggestions for this task are very good. There is no doubt that such a worksheet could be used to address fractions. Another way to expand this task might be to say, "Fill up [the octagon] in as many ways as possible [using as many different shapes as possible]" This could also lead to a very interesting talk about fractions (e.g., do all the pieces have to be the same size to say that we cut the shape into thirds, etc.?)