6/16/10

I really enjoy learning fractions with the use of sharing. It does make fractions more understandable. I am still concerned with the notion of adding, subtracting, etc. fractions with each other. I thought the examples of the children solving the "slices of cake" problems were extremely interesting. It is interesting that children with more math knowledge will try to use a math problem to figure out which table to sit at in order to get more cake, and the children without math knowledge will just think about the problem and figure it out. I would think that both groups of the students would think about the problem before they try to put it into a math problem. But this just goes to show that most of the math students are taught just to memorize ways to solve problems and not necessarily taught to think about what is being asked first. I have noticed that after some teachers read word problems to their students they first ask what math strategy should be used. I think the teachers should instead be asking for the students to think about the word problem and what it is asking. Then if the children need a math strategy to figure out the problem, the teacher can go into that. But first, the children should be taught to THINK about problems.