Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Education
Whole Number Knowledge And Number Lines Help To Develop Fraction Concepts, Catherine Pearn
Whole Number Knowledge And Number Lines Help To Develop Fraction Concepts, Catherine Pearn
Catherine Pearn
Many researchers have noted that students' whole number knowledge can interfere with their efforts to learn fractions. In this paper the authors discuss a teaching experiment conducted with students in Years 5 and 6 from an eastern suburban school in Melbourne. The focus of the teaching experiment was to use number lines to highlight students' understanding of whole numbers then fractions. The study used a screening test and interview using number lines to probe students' understanding of fractions as numbers. By using whole numbers on number lines first, the interview questions clearly helped many students to connect whole number and …
Mathematics Recovery : Frameworks To Assist Students' Construction Of Arithmetical Knowledge, Catherine Pearn
Mathematics Recovery : Frameworks To Assist Students' Construction Of Arithmetical Knowledge, Catherine Pearn
Catherine Pearn
Mathematics Recovery was the outcome of a three-year research and development project at Southern Cross University, conducted in 1992-5. The project received major funding from the Australian Research Council and major contributions in the form of teacher time, from regional government and Catholic school systems. Over the 3-year period, the project involved working in 18 schools with 20 teachers and approximately 200 participating first-grade students. MR can be regarded as consisting of two distinct but interrelated components. One component concerns an elaborated body of theory and practice for working with students, that is, teaching early number knowledge. The second component …
Why You Have To Probe To Discover What Year 8 Students Really Think About Fractions, Catherine Pearn, Max Stephens
Why You Have To Probe To Discover What Year 8 Students Really Think About Fractions, Catherine Pearn, Max Stephens
Catherine Pearn
Many researchers have noted how children's whole number schemes can interfere with their efforts to learn fractions. This paper examines the persistence of whole number schemes among 14 year-old students who appear to have successfully mastered routine algorithms for working with fractions. Uncovering whole number thinking among such students is therefore difficult, and is illustrated through the use of several probing interview tasks, revealing quite different forms of whole number thinking. These forms of thinking can give correct answers also making it difficult for teachers to identify incorrect thinking about fractions. Representations of fractions using number lines can assist in …