Decomposing Fractions – Digitally!
My school continues with our digital learning adventure. Today I want to share with you a lesson I recently taught that went well. I’m happy to say, these are becoming more common as I get better at reaching my students through Zoom. This is a lesson I like so well that I will teach it again – in person!
First, what do I mean by decomposing fractions? I have to admit, when I moved back to fifth-grade after19 years at various other grade levels and educational roles, I did not know about decomposing fractions. Had never heard of it! Thankfully, my neighbor teacher was happy to fill me in.
Decomposing a number means breaking it into pieces. For example, in first grade students should have learned to break 10 into 2 and 2 and 3 and 3. Decomposing is important because mathematicians and scientists need to be able to think flexibly about quantities. This skill will be vital for student success in later grades. Even after students finish school, a person’s ability to do mental computation depends on decomposing numbers. With all the research on how fraction understanding predicts algebra success, decomposing is especially important with fractions.
The first thing I did was create a video in Powtoons which reviewed this concept for my students. Decomposing fractions is a fourth grade standard, but learning was so disrupted last year that I wondered if they knew how to do it. Check out this preview of the video on my YouTube Channel (you can purchase the whole video, along with three Google Forms on TPT). I assigned the video through Edpuzzle, a free website that I use to help me track students’ progress through videos. For this assignment, I asked students to watch the video BEFORE class, and I paused the video on Edpuzzle to ask a question mid-way through. That data helped me know, even before I began teaching, that decomposing was not a skill the kids were comfortable with yet.
During our Zoom, we used Whiteboard.fi to practice together. This is another free website that I rely on frequently during math class because it allows me to see the students’ work, but they can’t see each other’s work. I even use this website for assessment! These images show some of the fractions we decomposed during this Guided Practice portion of the lesson. On Whiteboard.fi, you can send an image to every student very easily. Feel free to download these images and use them if they are helpful!
Once the students understood the concept, I asked them to complete Deiondre’s Homework #1 for homework before our next class. This is the first Google Form in my resource, which you can find on TPT. The resource includes 3 Google Forms. Deiondre’s Homework #1 includes the video which students had already watched. Because it is embedded in the Google Form, they don’t have to visit YouTube. Students watched the video individually and completed the Google Form asynchronously. I got the results immediately, which is one of my favorite characteristics of Google Forms! I then analyzed the results to plan instruction for the next class.
Luckily, decomposing came pretty easily for many of my fifth graders, even though I think it was a new idea with fractions. Their experience in lower grades with decomposing whole numbers transferred fairly easily. Based on my analysis, about 2/3 of the class had grasped the basic concept of decomposing fractions. They spent their class time completing these BOOM Cards in breakout rooms with a partner.
I worked in a small intervention group to practice decomposing some more, and then assigned that group Deiondre’s Homework #3. I chose #3 because that Google Form uses number lines and also emphasizes the unit fraction concept, which three of my students needed to practice.
Finally, I used Deiondre’s Homework #2 as a formative assessment. Using some free tools, two of the resources from TPT store and three 45-minute Zoom sessions, my students all gained proficiency in this vital skill, which we will continue to build on as we dive more deeply into fractions. You may find that this instructional sequence works for you, or that you use all three for practice and a different formative assessment. The resource is flexible enough to use in many ways!
I am working to digitize my Fraction-A-Day resource, and it should be done by the end of the week. I will be using that as a follow up to help my students continue to build a solid understanding of fractions.
I hope this lesson sequence is helpful to you and to your students.
Happy teaching!
Susan