5 credits

Understanding fraction concepts is a critical foundation for learning about proportional relationships and developing algebraic concepts. In this course, educators learn how to extend students’ knowledge of whole numbers and basic operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division—to fractions and decimals. Educators learn instructional practices to help students understand, represent, develop, and engage in rational number operations with meaning, proficiency, and precision. They also investigate ways to foster deep conceptual understandings of ratios, rates, and proportional relationships, thus building in students the critical skill of proportional reasoning. Educators consider how proportional reasoning builds a bridge to the study of other important mathematical topics, including geometry, measurement, and data as well as the use of proportionality as a connecting thread throughout the elementary and middle math curriculum.