Fraction Fun

Interested? A VoiceThread of student-created word problems involving finding the fraction that represents part of a group or set. We shared it for any problem solvers on Twitter. Lastly, students added the answers after viewing the comments left.

innovative? Mark Carls finally sold me on trying out VoiceThread this year and WOW we'd loved it! I really needed an idea to make it useful for us. Since we've done our first VT - Meet Mrs. Griffith's Class - the ideas haven't stopped! Plus, we've enjoyed seeing how others utilize it at the primary level. We'd solved some math problems on a VoiceThread that Karen Ditzler's third grade students created and my students were inspired to make their own version on fractions - our current chapter. They'd watched Mrs. Ditlzer's comment that combined the use of pens and video. Last time we'd tried our webcam it wasn't working right with VoiceThread. Thank you for your innovative example, so we could adapt it to be innovators here at RCS!

So, students composed and illustrated word problems in small groups. Since they were already at the independent stage of making voice comments, the transition to video comments went really smooth. The students read the problems for others to solve.

Here's the final VoiceThread -

IMPACT? We appreciated those that we've collaborated with this year such as Mrs. Ditzler, Mr. Carls, and Mr. Grice participating in our project. The students were amazed at how sharing it on Twitter could get other teachers, students, and even a Vice Principal solving problems and interested in this format of making math more interactive. They also thought the variety of ways that people commented was really neat - typed, voice, and video comments combined with the use of the pens. This was one of our best VT experiences yet because of the global connection.

Also, the students were introduced to the concept of equivalent fractions on a different level as a result of the comments. They needed to think about if the equivalent fractions were correct because the answer was different than what they had recorded as a group. Thanks!

Impressed? I was amazed with Twitter and people's response and how this impressed upon my students the importance of working with other's outside our classroom and learning from and alongside them.