Education Week – Liana Heitin
“Over the past year, since I took over the common-core math beat, I’ve been thinking a lot about fractions. As I wrote in November, the Common Core State Standards for mathematics emphasize fractions as points on a number line, rather than just parts of a whole. Now, more teachers are pinning numbers to clotheslines to demonstrate fractions rather than divvying pizzas and fruit pies. Many experts have called this the biggest shift from previous state standards in math. In a phone call last week, Hung-Hsi Wu, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, who helped write the common standards in math, gave an impassioned explanation of why instruction on fractions, which he calls “the backbone of school mathematics,” needed to change. Fractions are “really an abstract concept” Wu said. “For whole numbers, you have your fingers and your toes [to count on]. But for fractions, where in the world do you see 11/13?” Students are given a flood of terms to memorize when they start learning fractions—numerator, denominator, proper, improper—that are often not well-explained conceptually.”(more)