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The case studies and descriptions of misconceptions about decimal notation show that there are many difficulties that students encounter when trying to understand decimals. Decimals are sometimes thought to be easier than fractions, because the operations are closer to the whole number operations and therefore easier. However, as the research data shows, understanding of decimals is too often missing. This need not be the case. The substantial variations from class to class, school to school and country to country in levels of expertise in decimal understanding show that good teaching will pay dividends. Here is a brief report of one of our experiments. |
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We identified four schools where the Grades 5 and 6 children had low achievement on our decimal comparison test, over several years. |
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We invited them to undertake a one-hour professional development activity on this topic, to demonstrate LAB and some targeted lesson plans, similar to those on this CD. |
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Three schools were too busy - we know this feeling! One school with four Grade 5 and 6 teachers took up our offer and attended the short in-service activity and received sets of LAB and booklets. |
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All the Grades 5 and 6 students were tested on the Decimal Comparison Test in June. Their results were reasonably consistent with previous results from the school. |
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The teachers of two classes were too busy with other topics to do any work on decimals over the next four months. |
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One teacher used LAB and some other lesson ideas on three or four occasions in August. The other teacher used it on one occasion. |
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At the end of October, long after the teaching, we retested all the students. |
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In the classes which had done no work on decimals, there was no change - the students' ideas were unchanged. |
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In the 2 classes which had done some work on decimals, about one half of the children who had a misconception moved to expertise and all the experts stayed as experts. (The others obviously need further help.) |
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Just a little bit of targeted teaching can make a difference! |
This experiment is reported in the article:
Helme, S. & Stacey, K. (2000) Can minimal support for teachers
make a difference to students' understanding of decimals? Mathematics
Teacher Education and Development. Vol 2, pp 105 - 120.