Children also used a variety of strategies to solve problems rather than just one. “Young children’s selection of partitioning strategies depends not only on their prior knowledge and experiences but also on the context of the task, the type of analog objects being shared, the number of analog objects being shared and number of shares” (Charles & Nason, p. 216). While there is nothing wrong with using multiple strategies, students must understand three concepts in order for these strategies to work all of the time. Students need to understand that their partitioning strategy must yield equal parts that are able to be quantified accurately. In addition, the strategy they choose must clearly show a relationship between the number of people and the fraction name, as well as a relationship between the number of objects being shared and the number of parts in each share. Charles and Nason (2000) suggest that teachers use these three things to asses their students’ understanding of partitioning and fractions. Students who are using partitioning strategies which employ all three of these concepts have a deeper understanding of the content than those using only one or two of these concepts when partitioning objects and sets. This information can be used to plan and implement activities at the level the learner is functioning …show more content…
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