13 Aug Grasp basics and advance concepts of fraction in our maths tuition
If students are asked about the topics of maths they like or dislike, fractions have a higher chance of ending on the dislike column. Several reports have concluded that maths tuition teachers believe that fractions are important for students who are entering high school.
Many students have been found to be avoiding fractions throughout their lives. But at the end of the day, we all know how important fractions are. A fraction is more preferred than decimals as they are more exact.
What makes decimals difficult?
- It is difficult to work out relative size for fractions, the bigger the denominator will be, the smaller the value becomes.
- For the same fraction, there are infinitely many expressions.
- By a fraction between zero and one, when you multiply, the result is smaller than what you began with.
- Transforming fractions to a common denominator is required for adding and subtracting fractions.
- The easiest operation is multiplying fractions except for mixed fractions.
- Dividing by fractions is just silly.
Visual Representation of fractions
Visual representations of fractions are encouraged by several famous maths educators. In textbooks, circles are often used for showing fractions. These circles can remind you of pizza and cookies. The representation suffers from the same problem similar to pie charts, in that case, it can be difficult to tell the relative size of a fractional value. Like for instance, which one is bigger among 3/5 or 5/7? In this case, bar models which are also known as tape diagrams are very useful for expressing fractions. You can compare different fractions, as long as the bars are the same length.
Teaching equivalent fractions and transfer of learning
For teaching fractions, a customary way is by starting with equivalent fractions, getting people to convert between thirds and sixths. Students have been found to be completing these exercises accurately but yet when faced with adding thirds and sixths, they do not transfer their skills from the equivalent fraction page.
Cross multiplication
It is actually interesting to teach students who are already familiar with the idea of fractions among which some work but have no meaning to them and many of which are mixed up together. Cross multiplication method may not work for everyone but is actually proven to be useful for some. Cross multiplication is easier and much less confusing than others.
Fractions matter more than others
It was important for some people to know about how to calculate with fractions but this may not be required now. Again on the other side, it has been predicted that “Early proficiency with fractions uniquely predicts success in more advanced mathematics.”
Generally, fractions are not operated on
People of the mathematics profession said that they tended to think more in terms of percentages. Common uses of fractions were in craft, cooking, distance traveled during running or flying, and time required for completing a task. Fractions are used more by Americans as they are yet to embrace the metric system and use cups rather than scales for measuring when baking. None of the examples given by them involves an operation on two fractions.
Fractions are required by probability
An area where fractions are relevant particularly is in probability. It is an area where fractions are suitable particularly for expressing likelihood and also for calculating complex probabilities.
Fractions are important for several mathematical problems which you will have to deal with in your student life and in later careers. So it is better to try to learn them using some easy and effective methods from maths tuition centers in Singapore like Miracle Learning Centre.
Contact us to join our maths tuition classes to learn maths in an easy and efficient way