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Teaching Fractions: Strategies Used for Teaching Fractions to

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Teaching Fractions: Strategies Used for

Teaching Fractions to Middle Grades
Students
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Emilie A. Naiser , Wendy E. Wright & Robert M. Capraro
a
Texas A&M University
Published online: 03 Nov 2009.

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Fractions: Strategies Used for Teaching Fractions to Middle Grades Students, Journal of Research in
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 Journ al of Research in Childhood Education Copyright 200 4 by the Associa tio n for
2004, Vol. 18, No .3 Childhood Education Internati onal
025 6-8543/0 4

Teaching Fractions:
Strategies Used for Teaching Fractions
to Middle Grades Students

Emilie A. Naiser
Wendy E. Wright
Robert M. Capraro
Texas A&M University
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Abstract, Fra ctions are often d ifficult for students to fully comprehend, Teachers
must find a variety of strategies to use in the classroom for teaching fra ctions,
Th is study was conducted to identify effective strategies used by middle school
tea chers in order to find ways to improve fraction instruction. For four months,
data were collected in 12 classrooms, using observation note s, interviews, and
videotaping, Findings are discussed within a constructivist framework.

The National Council of Teachers of Math-
ematics (NCTM, 2000) states that students
in middle school should acquire a deep un-
derstanding of fractions and be able to use
them competently in problem solving. How-
ever, it seems that just as stu den t s are
struggling with learning fractions, so too
Authors' Note . Emilie A. Naiser (en a ise r@
bryanisd.org) is a mathematics education gradu-
ate re search assistant at Texas A&M University
and currently a 6th-grade mathematics teacher.
Wendy E. Wright (wendywright@tamu.edu) is a
mathematics education graduate st udent with re-
search interests in middle grade students' learn-
ing of r ational numbers . Robert M. Capraro
(rcapraro@coe.t am u.edu) is Assistant Professor of
mathematics education, with re search interests
in methodological issues and the improvement of
mathematical skills of underrepresented popula-
tions . The auth ors can be contacted at TAMU-
42 32, Coll ege Station , TX , 77843-4232 ;
979-845-8007. This research was supported by
an NSF-JERI grant, 2001 -2006- Improving
Mathematics Teaching and Achievement
through Professional Development (G. Nel son,
G. Kulm, J. Manon, Co-PIs). We gratefully
acknowledge the a ssistance of Gerald Kulm,
Curtis D. Robert Professor of Mathematics Edu-
cation, Texas A&M University.
193
are teachers feeling frustrated as they seek
ways to teach fractions effectively. The Na-
tional Assessment of Educational Progress
reports show that fractions are "exceedin gly
difficult for children to master" (NAEP,
2001 , p. 5). Additionally, students are fre-
quently unable to remember prior experi-
ences with fractions from lower grade levels
(Gr off, 1996). In an effort to increase the
effectiveness of t eaching fractions , teach-
ers iteratively review and modify the struc-
ture of their lessons on fraction concepts.
Dorward (2002) confirms that implement-
ing new ideas and systematic reflection on
student observations facilitates justifica-
tions made about what works best for stu-
dents' learning. By reflecting on the
different ways teachers implement fraction
concepts, it can be discerned what is work-
ing and what is not and this information
can be used to improve fraction lessons.
Dorward (2002) describes teachers engag-
ing students as active participants in their
fraction lessons. Burrill (1997) stresses that
good teaching is not making learning easy,
but rather making it active and engaging for
the students. Making the topic interesting
and exciting can improve students' learning.
 NAISER, WRIGHT, AND CAPRARO
"Effective Mathematics teaching requires
understanding what students know and
need to learn and then challenging and sup-
porting them to learn it well" (NCTM, 2000,
p. 16). Hatfield (1994) describes how ma-
nipulative use by teachers is low,as compared
to the familiarity and availability that
teachers report regarding manipulatives.
Additionally, findings indicate that the pri-
mary reason teachers do not use
manipulatives is because they do not feel
competent in using them in the mathemat-
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ics classroom .
Putnam and Borka (1999) describe teach-
ers shifting their way of teaching to reflect
on a child's mathematical thinking. Teach-
ers also gain a deeper understanding of
mathematics and were more willing to use
manipulatives as they viewed their math-
ematics teaching iteratively through the
eyes of their students.
Another important aspect offraction les-
sons is teaching style. Fotoples (2000)
stresses that teachers need to be aware that
students learn in different ways. Students
can arrive at the same answer from many
different routes. Manipulatives contribute
toward mediating these varied learning
needs. Kewley (1998) reports that coop-
erative learning techniques have proven to
be very efficient in the classroom, but find-
ings indicate that cooperative strategies
were only employed 7 to 20 percent of the
time. Further observations describe teach-
ers using direct instruction, wherein they
dominate the discussion. In contrast,
Burrill (1997) describes how the teacher
began to listen more to student strategies
and build on their thinking to make the
instruction more meaningful and engaging
to the students. Furthermore, teachers
used strategies that promoted problem solv-
ing and application of instruction, rather
than using worksheets and rote practice,
which do not allow for inquiry learning or
transfer of content.
Building on students' prior knowledge is
another strategy that teachers can use for
instruction. This is an effective strategy
that requires teachers to be knowledgeable
about the students' conceptions and miscon-
194
ceptions about the content (Tirosh, 2000) .
Tzur (1999) explains how students' learn-
ing offractions can be prompted with real-
istic situations that lead the students to use
their informal knowledge to construct
meaning for themselves. Using authentic
problems with students can be useful to
demostrate how the mathematical concept
may be interpreted and applied in real-life
situations. Manipulatives combined with
real-life problems can interest students in
solving problems, which, in turn, helps
them construct meaning. This process con-
tributes to students' mathematical knowl-
edge base. Perlmutter, Bloom, Rose , and
Rogers (1997) report using real-life prob-
lem solving to bring mathematics to life for
students. Using manipulatives to solve
problems allows the children to construct
their own knowledge about the mathemat-
ics concept. Real-life problem solving con-
tributes to students' knowledge regarding
mathematical relationships.
Method
Participants
Sixth- (n=178) and 7th- (n=92) grade stu-
dents from five different middle schools
were observed and videotaped during frac-
tion lessons. A total of 12 fraction lessons
were observed in extant classrooms across
a four-month period. The student partici-
pants were self-selected and chose to par-
ticipate after the district, school, and
teacher were identified.
A total of eight teachers participated.
Three of these teachers (two 6th-grade
teachers and one 7th-grade teacher) com-
pleted additional interviews . The teachers
were of varied backgrounds. All were fe-
male and their classroom experience ranged
from early-, mid-, and late-career math-
ematics teachers.
Design and Procedure
The data were collected in three forms: vid-
eotaping instruction, observation notes, and
interviews. A triangulative method used
cross analysis of the data. Analyzing data
from three different sources provided simi-
lar data for each category. The observation
 TEACHING FRACTIONS

notes contained an outline of a fraction les- Students use models and manipulatives to
son, including the lesson objective, activity construct and represent knowledge.
sequence, student-teacher interaction, ex- Category IV. Promoting Thinking and
amples, and notes on student thinking and Reflection: What questions and tasks does
reflection. The semi-structured interviews the teacher provide to promote students'
consisted of four questions: 1) How do you ideas and reflection on the topic? This cat-
engage students in the lesson? 2) How would egory was evaluated using the following
you describe your teaching style? 3) What four indicators: 1) Teacher builds on stu-
classroom materials do you use? 4) How do dents' ideas and makes connections with
you promote student thinking and reflection? real-world examples, 2) Teacher provides
higher order thinking questions to promote
The three data sources were analyzed us- students'reflection, 3) Teacher encourages
ing four general criteria organized into cat- students to use multiple strategies for solv-
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egories . Each category was composed of ing problems and provides opportunities for
several indicators . students to share and explain the process
oftheir learning, and 4) Teacher dominates
Category I . Engagement Strategies: discussion and provides little/no opportu-
What strategies are used to engage stu- nity for studen ts to reflect.
dents with the lesson? This category was The videotapes consisted of twelve 45-
evaluated according to the following indi- minute fraction lessons. Notes were taken
cators : 1) Teacher uses real-world ex- about the strategies used during fraction
amples that are meaningful to the lessons, describing student-teacher interac-
students, 2) Teacher provides an activity tions, student comments and questions, and
related to the topic in order to help stu- solution strategies.
dents focus on the lesson/theme, 3) Teacher The constant comparison method of
reviews prior knowledge and makes con- analysis was used to organize the observa-
nections to relate new material, and 4) tion, videotape, and interview data into four
Teacher provides math problems unrelated sub-categories: 1) engagement, 2) class-
to the topic . room materials, 3) teaching style, and 4)
Category II. Teaching Styles: What dif- student thinking and reflection. Acriterion
ferent ways does the teacher structure the was developed for each sub-category. The
lesson? This category was evaluated accord- criteria emerged from the data. Within
ing to the following three indicators: 1) each sub-category, a list was made to fur-
Teacher dominates instruction and facili- ther describe the data that would fit into
tates whole group interaction, 2) Activity the sub-categories. The list provided struc-
is student centered and built on student ture to help sort the data.
ideas, and 3) Teacher provides opportuni-
ties for students to use the discovery or ex- Results
ploration learning in order to construct Teachers used several strategies to engage
knowledge and assume ownership as part students in fraction lessons. These included
of the instruction. review problems and practice, real-world
Category III. Classroom Materials: What applications, and building on students' prior
materials does the teacher use to conduct knowledge. Some of the review problems
the activity, and/or what materials does the and practice were not related to the lesson
teacher use to build representations of the at hand. Additionally, other teachers used
concept? This category was evaluated us- the first part of class to check homework.
ing the following three indicators : 1) Interview data indicated teachers also in-
Teacher uses worksheets to provide oppor- tended to use meaningful and interesting
tunities for guided practice; 2) Teacher uses examples to capture the students' attention.
the board and overheads to model, explain, The data reduction strategy employed
and provide examples of content; and 3) yielded the following meta-categories for
195
 NAISER, WRIGHT, AND CAPRARO
engagement strategies related to pedagogi-
cal content knowledge: 1) reviewed prob-
lems (prerequisite knowledge to fractions);
2) read a story, recall prior knowledge; 3)
practice worksheet (related to fractions); 4)
review and practice; 5) review homework;
6) warm-up word problem (r elated to frac -
tions); 7) review definitions; 8) math puzzle
(pr er equisit e skills); 9) real-world applica-
tion activity; and 10) introduce meaning-
ful/interesting examples.
Classroom materials varied, depending
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upon the teacher. Several teachers used
manipulatives, including grids , pattern
blocks, paper folding, fraction strips, tiles,
and base-ten blocks. Some teachers did not
use manipulatives in their lessons; instead,
students did seatwork, worksheets, or
watched the teacher work out problems on
the overhead. These types of activities did
not demonstrate students' active involve-
ment in the lesson. It was evident from the
notes and videotape that when students
were not using manipulatives they were
often engaged in activities other than their
lessons. Students found opportunities to
rummage through desks, engage in off-topic
conversations, and become distracted by
activities ofthe research team. A few teach-
ers utilized dry-erase boards to monitor stu-
dent progress . One videotaped lesson
illustrated a teacher incorporating a calcu-
lator into her lesson. She used the calcula-
tor to connect fractions and decimals by
computing the exact answer to an improper
fraction. Data reduction yielded the follow-
ing meta-categories for materials: 1)
seatwork/worksheets , 2 ) group workl
worksheet, 3) dry erase boards, 4) overhead
5) fraction pie-pictorial representations, 6)
grid models, 7) student-made pictorial rep-
resentations, 8) pattern blocks, 9) paper
folding models, 10) calculators, 11) fraction
strips, 12) tiles, 13) fraction bars, and 14)
base ten blocks.
The teachers incorporated various teach-
ing styles into each lesson, including direct
instruction, student discovery, whole-class
discussion , and cooperative learning.
Teachers using direct instruction domi-
nated the classroom discussions with mini-
196
mal input from students. Other lessons
were observed to be more student-centered
and built up on students' ideas. The teacher
allowed the students to explain their think-
ing process rather than directly telling the
students how to do the problem . Data re-
duction yielded the following meta-catego-
ries: 1) teacher asks questions, 2) teacher
directs whole-class question and answering,
3 ) students show work on overhead, 4 )
teacher shows examples on board, 5)
teacher-directed lesson, 6) whole-class dem-
onstration, followed by individual practice,
7) teacher lecture, 8) review material and
give quiz (limited student/teacher interac-
tion), 9) students explain process to class,
10) students make a list of common mis-
takes on a worksheet, 11) students gener-
ate a list of steps to solve a problem, 12)
student discovery of rules to fit division an-
swers , and 13) guided practice.
Observations also were made relative to
how teachers prompted thinking and reflec-
tion. Th e teachers encouraged students to
work similar problems in different ways,
rather than adhering to a structured for-
mula. The teachers also encouraged stu-
dents to sh are their work by modeling it on
the overhead or participating in class dis-
cussions. In other fraction lessons, students
applied their knowledge to their own real
world experiences. Also, teachers com-
mented in interviews that they provide stu-
dents the opportunity to write their
thoughts and ideas in a journal. A wide
range of qu estioning strategies were used
in the lesson s, including asking open-ended
questi ons to promote reflection as well as
asking low-level qu estions that did not re-
quire much thought on the part of the stu-
dent . For instance, teachers asked,
"Explain what you knew that helped you
identify what you need to know to solve the
problem." These types of questions often led
to extended discussion and students ask-
ing each other what they thought. In con-
trast, ''What did you get for question I?"
often resulted in limited discussion with no
commentary. In the Promoting Thinking
and Reflection category, data reduction
yielded the following meta-categories: 1)

students work problems in multiple ways,
2) students show work on overhead, 3) stu-
dents connect mathematics to their own
real-world examples, 4) writing injournalsl
notes, 5) students share, 6) no promotion of
thinking and reflection observed, 7) ask
open-ended questions, and 8) students re-
trace their steps and find mistakes.
Discussion
This study was conducted to identify strat-
egies used by middle sch ool teachers in or-
der to describe ways to improve fraction
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instruction. Throughout this study, vari-
ous strategies were observed and recorded
through observation notes, interviews, and
videotapes. This study did not focus on the
content that was being taught, but rather
on the pedagogical strategies that were
used to teach the lessons. The findings in-
dicate that fraction lessons could be im-
proved in multiple ways.
One area of improvement could focus on
how teachers engage students. Students
can be shown how fractions apply to their
personal lives. This makes the lesson more
motivating and successful for the students.
Many teachers did not make connections
from the content to real-life applications.
Many of the fraction lessons were not en-
gaging nor did they actively involve the stu-
dents. Instead, they consisted of the
teacher providing examples and the stu-
dents practicing.
The use of manipulatives was one way
that teachers made the lessons more engag-
ing by creating a hands-on experience.
Using manipulatives makes the le sson
more active and provides an effective way
for the students to represent their think-
ing. Manipulatives provide teachers with
more opportunities to understand what stu-
dents are thinking by observing what they
are doing with the manipulatives as well
as how they are constructing this meaning
(h ow they are doing it). When students
complete paper-and-pencil seatwork, genu-
ine thinking about the fraction problem is
not ensured. When the students were us-
ing fraction strips, however, it was easy to
see when they were selecting the appropri-
197
TEACHING FRACTIONS
ate strip for a task. Teachers were able to
quickly identify when students were and
were not engaged in the task. Furthermore,
they were able, through observations, to fol-
low the students' internal thinking regard-
ing the fraction problem.
Teachers may not be using manipulatives
as much as possible because of a lack of
training. This is congruent with Hatfield's
(1994) research on the low use of mani-
pulatives in the classroom. Yet, teaching
fractions can be improved by providing
more opportunities for students to work
with manipulatives.
Fraction lessons are more meaningful
when students are allowed to construct
their own knowledge and ideas. It is im-
portant for teachers to be familiar with
what the students already know. In this
way, they can build on students' prior
knowledge. Tirosh (2000) identifies prior
knowledge as helping teachers discover
what misconceptions students have about
the content. For example, through open dis-
cussion, teachers can identify when stu-
dents hold the belief that multiplication
always yields an answer larger than either
factor. Listening to students' comments
helps teachers to discern when students
believe that multiplying a proper fraction
by an equivalent of 1 other than III results
in a larger fraction. Since teachers know
that fraction lessons are usually difficult for
students to grasp, they may be reluctant to
trust the students and make the activities
more student-centered. When students
have more opportunities to share ideas,
however, they can learn from one another.
Burrill (1997) suggests that in order to
improve fraction lessons, teachers can pro-
vide students with opportunities to write
in journals, make real-world applications,
and reflect on higher-level questions. These
activities could replace worksheets and rote
practice. It is not necessary to teach frac-
tions with strict rules. Rather, students can
use problem-solving skills to discover their
own ways to use or apply fractions . Reflec -
tion occurs in many forms , including con-
versation with peers and personal thoughts.
Students can reflect on one's own actions
 NAISER, WRIGHT, AND CAPRARO
or those of others (Clar ke, 2000). "Commu-
nication can promote and guide reflection,
and reflection can enrich what is shared
through communication" (Heibert, 1992, p.
446). This reaffirms the Vygotskian (1986)
view of reflection that is intertwined with
semiotic mediation and has led many edu-
cators to take the position that this media-
tion should be initiated by giving students
specific opportunities to reflect on their own
and others' mental processes.
Using student-sensitive strategies can
make fraction lessons more effective. Many
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put great emphasis on when fractions
should be taught and how much time should
be spent in teaching the material. Teach-
ers can improve students' fraction learning
by placing more emphasis on examining
and improving the design of their instruc-
tion. Many of these strategies can be used
to improve all lessons.
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