When students can match 1/4 with 25% with .25, you know they have some understanding of the value of each.
When they go on to the much more difficult matching of 79/1000 with 7.9% and .079, you know their understanding has deepened.
When you ask for an explanation of their work and they don’t start and end with “Move the decimal to the left two spaces,” you know they are on to something!
Here’s a social math activity that extends the skill practice exercises in the workbook and online. A fuller explanation and all materials needed can be found on page 92 here in Changing the Way We Teach Math.
Charts such as the ones shown above are placed around the room.
Strips with fraction, decimal and percent notation to match each one are cut apart, shuffled and given to students.
Students move to the chart that matches the strip they have been given, confer with the other two students there to confirm that they are in the correct place, and the three of them explain to the whole group how they know the notation on their strips indicates the amount shown on the picture.
The set of charts given in the manual includes more difficult equivalencies, so the activity can be repeated with new questions as understanding grows. Or you can use charts that range in difficulty, and by judiciously assigning the strips, can allow participation by both less and more skilled students.
A blank chart is included, so students can make their own problems for other students to tackle.
In addition to the usual benefits of social learning activities, this activity makes the discussion a little easier because it starts with three students who agree about something, and asks them to explain their thinking. For adult students who have experienced failure in school, or for whom conflict triggers memories of violence, activities that require them to convince someone else or to defend their position are much more difficult, if not impossible.
If you are working with only one or two students, the same charts are useful–each student will be in charge of more than one strip.
More posts about social and physical math activities: Human Digits and Make Math Social. Other math resources: Math
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Great activity! Just downloaded your whole book. An amazing resource to be available for free!! Thank you!!
Thanks so much. I got a grant to write it–and one of the conditions of the grant was to make it be available free online. Changing the Way We Teach Math
I wanted to let you know that your book inspired me to get fraction pie kits for my classes. I tried them out today, along with the first couple pages of worksheets from your book (put in order smallest to biggest, ?/5=1, etc) and it really worked well. Some of the students tried to do the problems without the pieces at first, but when I asked them to show me (or, I admit, sometimes when I showed them…), the pieces really helped. One of my students initially said, “why should I do it that way when it’s faster without the pieces?” but soon she said “these really do help you with the tricky ones!” later, she was up and across the room to figure out a problem together with another student.
Also, I had far less wandering mind to deal with. My most ADD student seems to be very tactile, and really thrived. She was happy to explain to everyone exactly what she had learned by the end of class.
Thanks so much for this feedback, Rachel. My students always liked the fact that they could do those 10 or so pages of “proofs” instead of a 100 page workbook, and pass the same tests.
I especially liked the fact that your student could talk about what she had learned!
For other readers, the worksheets Rachel is referring to, along with an explanation of how to use them, start on page 72 of Changing the Way We Teach Math. Available free online.
I almost wish I taught math, so I could use this!
It is fun. And I like the colours on the charts.
Thanks for sharing this activity. I really love the flexibility of graph paper- not only for teaching a visual means of thinking about fractions/decimals/percents- but for many other things. It is great for multiplication- and extending to the concepts of perimeter and area. I also find it useful for folks who may have challenges in keeping their work organized.
I don’t know what I’d do without graph paper!