Student Work Blog- Week 13

Different symbols and ways of Writing Division Problems

            As students approach division,  they are introduced to different ways of writing division problems. It is important for students to be able to recognize different division symbols in order to know what to do when they are solving math problems. The activity that students had to do in class was to solve division problems. The division was not hard for the students however writing their solutions in different ways seemed to be a challenge for students. Some students were used to seeing the ÷ when they were doing division. Students got all of the division problems that included this symbol correct. However, students were not able to solve division problems set up like this: 4|¯24. Students had never seen a division problem set up like this so a lot of students did not attempt this problem which caused their score on the activity to go down. What this says about their current mathematical understanding is that they understand what it means to divide. Although they may not know all the symbols for division, they can successfully carry out division tasks. Based on the activity, the gap in mathematical understanding is that there can be different signs that mean the same thing. At this point it seems that students have not been introduced to different signs for division. Students have been accustomed to solving division problem in different ways. Two activities that students can do to further their mathematical understanding would be to practice solving division problems in various ways using different symbols this will help students become more familiar with various types of division. Another activity would be to practice division problems using different symbols. By practicing writing the symbols different ways students will become more familiar with how to write division problems and be able to recognize to recognize different division signs when they see them.