Over the last year, Dr. Lisa Lunney Borden and I have been working on a model for integer operations that she introduced me to a while back. Our goal is to amplify her research for classroom mathematics teachers. Right now, the idea consists of three pieces, each at varying stages of development.
For the first time in a decade, I am not reconvening with a high school staff to begin preparations for the school year. (I’m preparing to work with pre-service teachers on a university campus). It feels weird–very weird. It is a day that I look forward to because optimism is a constant across the building. Staff feels fresh, materials are crisp, and possibilities are endless. It sadly belies what’s to come.
Bummer, right?
I have been thinking about extending the Fraction Talk love ever since I wrote this initial post in June 2015.
I have used them with my grade nine classes as the starter during units on rational numbers. I have taken the larger questions (such as “What possible fractions can be shaded using this diagram?”) as the prompt for entire lessons of student activity. I have used them to create great conversations with grade 7 and 8 students at our school’s annual math fair.
My Grade 9 students don’t see an equation for the first two weeks of their unit of solving linear equations. That is because I think students get all bogged down in the notation, and lose their problem solving intuition.
Instead, I play around with a key metaphor for solving linear equations–the balance scale.