Introduction
My goal for this curriculum unit is to create lessons that are user friendly for the teacher and make the transition from whole number to parts of a whole number easy to comprehend for students. In doing so, the students will be able to master the concepts of fraction through highly engaged lessons with a relevant, real-life, career and technical approach.
During the first week of class, most students walk into my classroom taking deep breaths and with fearful looks on their faces. I assure them that we are going to have fun and math class will be a highly interactive class with lots of support. I give them a visual tour of the classroom, pointing out all resources available for the school term. They are still not impressed or encouraged about math class. The only equation they seem to remember is 'student plus math equals failure'. My goal is to create a user-friendly curriculum unit for students and teachers. Students should not to be afraid to learn math or associate math with a traumatic experience. I chose to write a curriculum unit on fractions because they play a major role in the learning of mathematics.
I teach mathematics in a Title 1 Priority inner-city middle school in Richmond, Virginia. The school district has approximately 23,000 students. The school where I teach has slightly over 400 students. The school's state accreditations status is accredited with warning. I instruct students with disabilities who are in the 6 th, 7 th and 8 th grades. All grade levels are taught independently of each other in 70-minute blocks. The disabilities in my classroom include: Specific Learning Disabilities, Emotional Disturbance, Autism, Other Health Impairment, Visual Impairment, Multiple Disabilities, Speech and Language Impairment. Approximately 30% of the students at the school are English Language Learners (ELL). In my classroom, I service one ELL student with a disability who has not attended school in a number of years, but was placed in middle school due to age appropriateness. Large portions of the students are highly transient which means attending multiple middle schools during 6 th – 8 th grades.
According to the Virginia Department of Education, the middle school where I teach categorizes 85% of the students as economically disadvantaged. Deficiencies continue to surface in the areas of mathematics and reading. The school district has turned to outside educational agencies for academic supports with the goal of improving student outcomes in the areas of mathematics and reading. The educational agencies provide content instructional coaches who assist the teacher with instruction and delivery of content. The instructional coaches gather resources to support the learning in the school. At times, they offer strategies to assist with supporting a student's educational needs. I instruct students who are on average two to three years below grade level, which academically places them at the elementary level. In my classroom, parental engagement is strong: a little over 80%, but the majority of the parents can only provide behavior intervention support, not academic assistance.
A large number of my students have expressed interest in attending the local Richmond Career and Technical Center (RTC). The RTC provides training for students whose goal is to enter successfully into a specialized career and/or higher learning. However, the students are leaving middle school with minimal experience in the area of occupational math. The current instructional curriculum covers consumer math situations, but little occupational math. The students must be able to make connections between what they are learning in the classroom and occupational math.
My curriculum unit will emphasize basic conceptual understanding of fractions. The unit will allow the student to develop and identify the importance of solving real world mathematical problems, which pertain to possible career choices. The student will be able to understand and see how fractions play key roles in learning and choosing a vocation as a career option. The students will also be able to create and solve problems involving career and technical education.
This unit will emphasize an approach to fractions via unit fractions, which is consistent with what is advocated by the Virginia State Standards of Learning (SOL). In order to build towards conceptual understanding, the unit will take advantage of pictorial representations, which include linear models (fraction strips, rulers and the number line), area models (rectangles, squares and sometimes other shapes), set models (various items), and circle models.
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