Tag Archives: fractions
A Guest Teacher’s Challenge
INSPIRATION My last post, Multiplying Fractions: A Desmos Area Model, blended conversations from the same lesson run in two different classrooms. Although the lesson flowed similarly in both rooms, there was one student who viewed the presented problems differently. Gabe … Continue reading
Multiplying Fractions: A Desmos Area Model
INSPIRATION I’ve been tinkering with area models for awhile, storing countless versions in my teacher.desmos.com account. A few of my area models support the conceptual thinking of multiplying fractions. Recently, I was approached by a coaching colleague, Crystal, to teach … Continue reading
Desmos Graph: Adding Positive & Negative Fractions w/ Dynamic Labels
Inspiration For the past 15 months, I’ve been working on fraction models. When I brought the models to students, the resulting conversations were great. Just what I was hoping for. The downside stemmed from the behind the scenes “coding”. My original … Continue reading
Diving into Google Sheets: Adding Integers & Pixel Art Multiplication
Inspiration In August of 2014, I stepped out of the classroom to become a middle level math TOA/coach. After 21 years of teaching, I craved a different challenge and found that challenge with Desmos. Once I learned how to make … Continue reading
Desmos: Ordering Fractions on a Number Line
A couple of months ago, my team and I ran a Desmos workshop for elementary teachers. Two activities were highlighted. The first was an individually paced challenge AB (activity builder). The second activity shared can be run as a … Continue reading
Comparing Fractions w/ Desmos
For the past few days, I’ve been hanging out with Mrs. Becker’s (Peytra) 6th grade exploratory class. We both like experimenting with new strategies and often use her exploratory kiddos as guinea pigs. Our recent experiment – Fractions. Last year I … Continue reading
Progressions: Fraction Fact Families
This, my district’s second year implementing Common Core strategies, has been the year of PROGRESSIONS. As the months flew by, the use of the word progressions increased. Being a math coach, I’ve spent time studying and discussing the progression of standards … Continue reading
Why Do We Invert & Multiply? An Explanation
Ours is not to reason why, just invert and multiply. WHY! Keep Change Flip WHY! My district’s focus, this year, has been conceptual understanding. Therefore my coaching colleagues and I have been searching for a clear explanation to why we invert … Continue reading
The Vertical Classroom Project – Seeing is Believing
I began the Vertical Classroom Project due to a personal challenge made at Twitter Math Camp (#1TMCthing). Being a math coach, I needed to enlist one teacher to join the project, and then persuade administration to spring for the white boards. Both ventures … Continue reading
