Collaborative Learning: Teaching Fractions

 

Fractions can be tricky for adults, much less children who are just learning and becoming familiar with fractions. To stimulate the students thinking and maintain their focus it is important to use items that are familiar to them, like a chocolate bar, and motivate them to stick with the tough problems. This is where collaborative learning comes in.

Activity

Students would be broken up into groups of 3 or four depending on the class size. Each group would be given a set of cards with different fractions on it. From here, the group will work together to organize the cards in groups based on if the fraction is less than one-half, between one-half and one whole, equal to one whole and more than one whole.

Organization Mat

Organization Mat

Fraction Cards

Why it Works

This activity promotes collaborative learning because students are working together and sharing their own ideas and brainstorming to properly organize these fractions. Each student is relying on one another to organize the fractions correctly. By working in a group, they are given a more authentic reason to do well and thus staying motivated.

Standards

3.NF.1: Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.

Common Core Unit Resource