The Role of Representation in Supporting Prospective Teachers’ Understandings of Fractions as Measures

Abstract

We discuss the evolution of an instructional unit for supporting prospective elementary and middle grades’ teachers’ conceptions of fractions as measures. We first studied prospective teachers’ conceptions of fractions using a task-based written assessment with discrete, linear, and circle representations. We designed an instructional unit that involved systematically introducing and connecting non-standard circles representations to other representations of fractions. We describe the assessments, learning outcomes of the instructional unit, limitations, and future directions.