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CAT Tracks for November 15, 2014
SOME FRACTION ACTION |
Okay, I'm probably testing your patience on a Saturday morning with a post about CCSS, especially since it's about teaching FRACTIONS!
(The sound of crickets...)
Hello...
...is anybody there?
Well, for those of you who only have one foot out the door, here's my favorite paragraph from the article:
Hmmm...
"...the common standards presume..."
Is "presume" a variant of "ass-u-me"?
Quick...
...somebody give me the CCSS in language arts that will 'splain it to a former math teacher!
Okay, diehards and/or math junkies, on with our Saturday morning entertainment...
From Education Week
Approach to Fractions Seen as Key Shift in Common Standards
PS: In keeping with Saturday morning, I tried to lighten the mood by finding a Schoolhouse Rock video on fractions. Sadly, Google failed me. I "presume" the creators of the series recognized the hopelessness of teaching fractions even back in the day when television was cutting-edge technology. Conjunctions had their function and zero was our hero, but fractions? Sigh...
Instead of spending time having students practice the steps for changing improper fractions into mixed numbers, the common standards presume that students will figure out how to do that on their own through better conceptual grasp.
