Note: Module content is available to professional development facilitators, without fees, for use with professional learning communities in accordance with the use agreement.

Fractions are a central topic in elementary mathematics. In both the NCTM standards and the Common Core standards, students in grades 3 through 5 are expected to develop an understanding of and skill with fractions as numbers, fraction equivalence, comparing and ordering fractions, and operations with fractions. In addition, students are expected to use and represent fractions as they engage in mathematical reasoning, model and solve problems, and communicate precisely. This module focuses on developing the knowledge and skills teachers need to help their students develop an understanding of some of the key ideas underlying these standards.

Featured mathematics teacher educator

Deborah Loewenberg Ball is the William H. Payne Collegiate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and the founding director of TeachingWorks.

Audience

Learning objectives

• Mathematics: knowing more about fraction representation, definition, equivalence, and comparison
• Student thinking: unpacking students’ ideas and approaches for representing and comparing fractions
• Teaching practices: representing fractions through classroom teaching
• Learning from practice: developing ways to learn from images of one’s own use of public spaces like whiteboards and blackboards

Work on these elements is integrated across the ten sessions. Working simultaneously on the four core elements is important because elementary mathematics teaching requires integrated attention to these elements in practice.

The sessions can be used with classroom teachers as 90-minute sessions that provide participants with opportunities to practice, build on, and extend ideas over time.