TEACHING AND LEARNING ISSUES

Fractions is one of the earliest topics introduced to students after learning the four
basic arithmetic operations in most of the mathematics curriculum including Malaysia. Hence,
the understanding in learning fractions seems absolutely important as they can lead to
mathematics anxiety, and affect opportunities for further engagement in mathematics and
profession. However, the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) released a paper in 2013
reporting on students’ understanding of fractions using data from NAPLAN testing that noted
almost all students find them challenging and many struggle with them throughout their
education (Earp, 2016). Undeniably, there are many issues exist nowadays regarding the
teaching and learning of fractions nowadays.

Starting from the learners’ learning issues, one of the major issues or factors leading
to difficulties in learning fraction is the interference with student’s prior knowledge about
natural numbers. In this case, the ‘whole number bias’ always results in errors and
misconceptions since students’ prior conceptual framework of numbers does not hold longer.
In other words, this kind of bias leads to difficulties conceptualizing whole numbers as
decomposable units. For instance, the learners have to overcome the bias between the
whole numbers and fractions when they start to learn the concept of multiplication of two
fractions results in a smaller fraction. Another compelling example is most of the beginners
tend to reasoning like if the number is larger, then the magnitude it represents is larger.
Thinking about fractions in reality, a larger denominator does not mean a larger magnitude,
but a smaller one. This issue revealed that students need to reconstruct their understanding
and a correct conceptual framework for better understanding.

The issue of difficulties of learning fractions most of the time also related to the
connection between conceptual and procedural knowledge. Conceptual knowledge refers to
the understanding of the principles ruling a domain and interrelations between different parts
of knowledge in a domain. Meanwhile, procedural knowledge refers to the sequences of
actions that are useful to solve problems. (Rittle-Johnson, 1999). Based experiences and
research findings, it is noted that the issue is the use of mathematical symbols without
access to their meaning. For example, they always learn the right procedures to compute
operations of fractions, but they never seem to understand the underlying principles. In this
case, a student with an inadequate procedural knowledge level of fractions can make errors
due to an incorrect implementation of the different steps needed to carry out calculations
with fractions. The real scenario such as students with adequate procedural knowledge of
the multiplication of fractions sometimes they forget the rule to multiply both the numerators
and both the denominators causing them not be able to come up with a correct answer. In
short, the using of procedure which lead to a better conceptual understanding seldom exist
in the real learning environment

On the teaching perspective, there exist some issues regarding the teaching and
learning process of fractions. The implementation of mathematics teaching nowadays
especially in teaching fractions always has some issues related to the uses of resources.
The issues such as lack of using, using inappropriate resources or even the neglect of its
importance and effects are not something new in this area. In this case, the problems of
teachers using teaching resources such as representations in which fraction and whole
numbers are easily confused. For instance, students are asked to count the number of
shaded parts of a figure and the total number of parts and that each part is written as an
independent entity or amount. Without the fully understanding of the concepts, students
probably will not able to apply what they have learnt in solving other problems as the
teaching approach before may lead to misunderstanding of the part-whole concept.

Sometimes, the utilisation of teaching resources is also considered as an issue. This

is because even when a teacher has the intention to use teaching resources in teaching the
fractions, but some of them do not know how and when to access it. For instance, some
teacher misuses the teaching aids which are supposed to manipulate by students
themselves as hands-on experience but it ends up with the teacher use it alone while
teaching. They just expect students to master and understand the skills quickly leading them
to create something based on procedural approach which can help students to complete the
tasks step by step. Moreover, most teacher always use resources based on several things
such as cake, pizza, or pie which are round in shape while introducing fractions. But the
problem arises when asking students to divide circles without the use of compass or
protractor.

On the other side, there are some teachers complain that the implementing of diverse
resources in teaching fractions is too time consuming. In another words, they think the uses
of resources especially concrete manipulatives or something related to ICT as burdensome
or chaotic rather than rely on written work to teach the operations related to fractions In
reality, some senior teachers or even educators see all types of teaching resources as
something “fun”. Consequently, they would only try to use these resources at the end of the
lesson or at the end of the school year when the assessments were completed. These
teachers do not believe manipulatives resources are essential to teaching and
understanding fraction (Green, 2008).