Using the 'fractions wall' with health and care students | number | 31/05/03

Using the 'fractions wall' with health and care students

This page describes an attempt to put some numeracy over to a group of students with a strongly felt vocational group identity. The young people on this course see themselves as care professionals. They all have work placements, most often in playgroups or nurseries, environments where display work is seen as important and valued. I am showing examples of display work produced by the students. You can also download the fraction wall handout I used.

$screen grab from the halves fraction wall - original is monochrome$

Context

The Adult Core Numeracy curriculum suggests the use of the 'fraction wall' as a way of helping students to recognise the common equivalent fractions. I use a number of walls, grouped as 'families' of fractions - halves, thirds, fifths and so on. The students who are more confident with numeracy suss that I'm classifying families based on the denominators being prime numbers and their multiples. You can download a rather basic fraction families handout, and there are screen grabs of display work produced by students. I have had the A3 displays laminated and have kept A4 colour photocopies for the AoN portfolios.

One hour revision lesson

Students had already worked through the fraction families sheet in a previous lesson some months ago. This revision session was prompted by the proximity of the AoN test. We

summarised the main fraction families on the whiteboard
used the equivalent fraction facts (including 'cousins' like fifteenths - belonging to both the thirds and fifths families) to do additions and subtractions
then students picked a simple fraction sum and designed a display based on the sum
displays were aimed at young school age children
the designs were implemented using scissors, glue stick and coloured paper - the next class I do this with may be encouraged to use the computer

The work

Below is a selection of the work produced in about half an hour by three different students. The images below have been scanned from A4 colour photocopies of laminated originals. I think the calculations and the methods used by the students are clear. The students did comment favourably on the use of display work in AoN lessons. I'm looking for integration opportunities now as the time that display work takes up is perhaps too great for short lessons. I was just a little disappointed that all the examples chosen were 'within' a family - perhaps adding two thirds and a fifth might be hard to show as it would need two families.

$display based on a fraction sum using a fraction wall method - two thirds plus one sixth$

$display based on a fraction sum using a fraction wall method - three quarters plus a half$

$display based on a fraction sum using a fraction wall method - half plus a quarter$

Originally added on Saturday, May 31, 03
in category: number

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