Student Work Blog

This task is having the students use word problems to understand fractions. It also is dealing with pennies and splitting the pennies up into fractions. The big idea of this task is to have students work with problems that have a fraction given of an amount and see if the student is able to understand what the word problem is asking. I am going to take number 1 as an example of how this student solved this problem. The problem stated that 5 people shared 15 pennies. The students have worked with problems such as partioning before where they had to split up a given amount equally among a certain group or amount of people or objects. So, this student understood that 15 pennies split up equally between 5 people and as you can see, she drew 5 squares and put a dot in each square until she reached 15, and saw that each person received 3 pennies. Now came the part she struggled with, the next problem states 1/5 of 15 pennies =___ pennies. At first she counted 5 dots and came up with 2/5 but then I reassured her that it is asking for 1 group (so 1 of the 5 squares) and how many is one of the 5 squares? She responded with 3 pennies. So I asked, "so how many pennies is 1/5 of the 15 pennies?" She said, 3 pennies. She then understood that the problem was asking for a group (square) of the 5. She was able to complete 2/5 = ___ pennies with 6.
The students current mathematical thinking about this problem reveals to me that with help on understand groups or parts with fractions she is able to understand problems associated with fractions. She understands that when a problem asks for 1/5 or 2/5 of 15 pennies she realizes to sort them into groups then take one group or two groups and count the amount of pennies and that is her answer to the fraction.

Questions I have about this problem:

1. Would the student understand if this problem was switched around and the fraction was not given and they had to solve for the fraction?
2. Why does this worksheet not make them write fractions? It gives them the fraction but is not helping them write fractions to understand them?
3. Is this worksheet really helpful in teaching students about fractions?

Ways I might answer:

1. The only way I believe I could find out the answer to this question would be to give the student problems that dealt with things sorted and then they would have to write the fraction instead of the fraction already given to them. This would then show me if the student could understand the reversal of the worksheet above.
2. I guess this question is not simply stated or an answer cannot specifically be given, but I believe that worksheets and problems such as this do not help the students really think about fractions. I think that this may be good for starting off possibly? But, I think they need to make more worksheets that help the students write fractions themselves or they will not learn about fractions personally.
3. I personally think this worksheet is not that helpful in teaching students about fractions. I think having word problems using numbers and having the students create/write the fractions to the problem is more higher level and allows the students to think deeper about fractions and also it helps them practice with writing out fractions. This way students understand the denominator and numerator. I believe it is important for students to understand the parts of fractions, how to write them, and how to solve problems dealing with them figuring out what the fraction is rather than simply giving the students the fractions already.