Preservice Teachers’ Strategies for Interpreting Fractions Represented in Discrete and Continuous Models

Authors

Victoria Webster, SUNY Cortland

Files

Faculty Mentor

Muteb Alqahtani

Abstract

Teaching and learning fractions have been a focus of research in mathematics education for decades. Current practices of teaching fractions emphasize the partitioning perspective, or part-whole, to conceptualize fractions. Another approach to teaching fractions is measurement. The part-whole approach limits students’ conceptualization of fractions and impedes learning improper fractions, whereas the measurement approach has the potential to overcome these difficulties and supports learning improper fractions. In this study, 55 preservice teachers engaged in an intervention to reexamine fractions using a measurement perspective. Before and after the intervention, the preservice teachers were asked to interpret proper and improper fractions using discrete and continuous representational models. We used conventional content analysis to examine the changes in preservice teachers’ strategies for interpreting fractions. In this paper, we report on these qualitative changes from before and after the intervention and highlight how preservice teachers’ interpretations of fractions influenced by the measurement perspective.

Publication Date

4-2020

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Mathematics, Education, Pedagogy, Preservice Teachers, Transformations, Fractions

Disciplines

Elementary Education | Elementary Education and Teaching | Science and Mathematics Education