pdZone » Mathematics http://pdzone.edublogs.org "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." - James Thurber Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:31:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 A clock, a digital camera, and… http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/09/21/a-clock-a-digital-camera-and/ http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/09/21/a-clock-a-digital-camera-and/#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2005 04:38:12 +0000 pdzone http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/09/21/a-clock-a-digital-camera-and/ I was just looking at humanclock.com again and thinking about some possibilities for school. With literacy and numeracy being a big push for us, I like the idea of doing our own version of this. It’s an activity that could take place throughout the community, taking pictures at various points around town. We could do something similar for the date on our school page. Thanks, Will! (Yes, I am aware that I am six months late. It just took me a while to get back to Will’s post!)

]]> http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/09/21/a-clock-a-digital-camera-and/feed/ 0 Division of Fractions http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/08/31/division-of-fractions/ http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/08/31/division-of-fractions/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:16:48 +0000 pdzone http://pdzone.edublogs.org/2005/08/31/division-of-fractions/ J.D. has a great post at MathandText which provides a different method of dealing with the problem of teaching division of fractions. I really like the idea of building on students’ previous knowledge of equivalent fractions and common denominators. After a lifetime of cross-multiplying, the idea of actually dividing when doing division of fractions just seems so foreign.

I don’t recall ever seeing it done this way, but it works great. It is the equivalent of cross-multiplication, or invert-and-multiply, but makes it much easier for students to visualize what it represents. I think this could also be a really good way to introduce invert-and-multiply and to explain how it works.

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