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Science and Mathematics Education Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education
An Integrated Study Of Children's Construction Of Improper Fractions And The Teacher's Role In Promoting That Learning, Ron Tzur
Ron Tzur
In this constructivist teaching experiment with 2 fourth graders I studied the coemergence of teaching and children's construction of a specific conception that supports the generation of improper fractions. The children's posing and solving tasks in a computer microworld promoted a modification in their fraction schemes. They advanced from thinking about a unit fraction as a part of a whole to thinking about it as standing in a multiplicative relationship with a reference whole (the iterative fraction scheme). In this article I report an intertwined analysis of the children's construction of this multiplicative relationship and an examination of the teacher's …
Teacher And Students' Joint Production Of A Reversible Fraction Conception, Ron Tzur
Teacher And Students' Joint Production Of A Reversible Fraction Conception, Ron Tzur
Ron Tzur
Within a constructivist perspective, I conducted a teaching experiment with two fourth graders to study how a teacher and students can jointly produce the reversible fraction conception. Ongoing and retrospective analysis of the data revealed the non-trivial process by which students can abstract multiplicative reasoning about fractions. The study articulates a conception in a developmental sequence of iteration-based fraction conceptions and the teacher’s role in fostering such a conception in students.
Iteration: Unit Fraction Knowledge And The French Fry Tasks, Ron Tzur, Jessica Hunt
Iteration: Unit Fraction Knowledge And The French Fry Tasks, Ron Tzur, Jessica Hunt
Ron Tzur
Using these tasks can help nurture children’s multiplicative notions of unit fractions beyond part-whole understanding. Often, students who solve fraction tasks respond in ways that indicate inadequate conceptual grounding of unit fractions. Consider, for example, a student, Lia (all names are pseudonyms), who examined a long, rectangular piece of paper she had folded in the middle into two equal parts (halves).
From Theory To Practice: Explaining Successful And Unsuccessful Teaching Activities (Case Of Fractions), Ron Tzur
Ron Tzur
In a teaching experiment, I examined a theoretical model of mathematics teaching and learning in practice. In this paper I focus on how the model can guide the teacher's thinking about students' understandings and the generation of activities that foster intended transformations in those understandings. As a research-teacher I taught, twice a week for four months, basic ideas of fractions to 28 third graders, in a public school in Israel. The analysis of both classroom data and researcher's documented reflections indicates how the model can empower the generation and explanation of successful teaching activities, as well as thinking about and …