Rational Number Assessment

Australian Catholic University

Teacher report on your students Rational Number Knowledge and any
misconceptions (300 words)
Lily demonstrated a developing conceptual understanding of the big ideas to do with fractions and
decimals, however some misconceptions in her mathematical thinking were revealed in the
interview.
Lily was able to correctly place proper fractions on a number line, and although lily was evidently
less familiar with interpreting improper fractions, with time she was also able to represent
fractions that were larger than the whole. It was evident that Lily had an understanding of
fractional equivalence, as she was able to determine which fraction out of the pairs was larger or if
they were equal. Lily revealed an understanding of partitioning, as evident when sectioning the
pizzas into equal sized pieces and she also used appropriate fractional language when responding
to questions.
Lily used the strategy benchmarking when comparing fractions, as evident by her explanation
for choosing 5/8 as the bigger fraction compared to 3/7. Lily explained that 3/7 is less than half
while 5/8 is more than half, meaning that 5/8 is greater. Although Lily was able to confidently use
the benchmark strategy, she appeared to have difficulty with residual thinking. Her explanations
revealed that Lily was using gap thinking. Lily also appeared to hold the misconception that
multiplication always means that the answer will be bigger even when dealing with decimal
numbers.
Lily confidently named the decimals on the number line, and showed an understanding of place
value by comparing and ordering a range of decimals. Throughout the interview, Lily also
demonstrated an understanding of the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentages,
and evidently understood that they can all represent the same thing.
Overall, Lily showed a strong understanding of fractions and decimals and was also able to clearly
articulate her mathematical thinking and used diagrams to build on her explanations.