I've heard them called the bugaboo of American math education. Eureka is trying to improve fractions' "reputation," by helping educators build student knowledge of fractions methodically and deeply. Learn more from grade 4 writer Mary Swanson below.
Lynne Munson
President and Executive Director, Great Minds
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Three More State Alignment Studies Released
Eureka teacher-writers have just completed three more State Standards Alignment Studies showing how Eureka aligns with math standards in Oklahoma, Indiana, and Minnesota. These new K-8 alignment studies join one already completed for Texas. Access all four studies on our Teacher Support page.
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How New Techniques For Comparing Fractions Work
In a new blog post, grade 4 writer Mary Swanson discusses how Eureka Math students learn to compare fractions. The new standards-based methods build a firmer understanding of fractions by equipping students to "reason about the size of fractions," Swanson writes. Using pictorial examples, Swanson walks through the new ways students are being taught and compares them to more traditional strategies. Swanson notes, "As a young student, the way I learned to compare fractions was to use the strategy of finding common denominators." But Eureka students use multiple strategies that build conceptual understanding and number sense---- rather than just one or two that are "computational in nature."
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Parents Learn Eureka Methods
The Garden City, Kansas, Board of Education is set to vote on whether to adopt Eureka Math as its core curriculum for K-6 mathematics beginning in the 2016-17 school year. On Jan. 21, retired Kansas State University instructor and past president of the Kansas Association of Teachers of Mathematics Melisa Hancock, as well as local math teachers Sarah Cross and Brandy Gnad, hosted an information session for district parents to illustrate how the new methods for teaching math compare with those that most parents learned in school. Parents were asked to solve a set of problems. Then the teachers showed them how to find solutions using methods found in Eureka. "Many of the parents thought the new way was more efficient than the old because they were really able to explain their thinking, and they had a deeper understanding than just doing an algorithm," Gnad said. Hancock noted that, "The old expectations had teachers teach steps, things to memorize. This way, students have so many tools in their pocket that they can pull out; they don't just have one recipe. The new method teaches kids to think on their own." Read the entire article here.
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