Before reading these chapters I had never really considered drawing models to represent my work when multiplying and dividing fractions. It was very interesting to see what some of the students came up with. For example when Dawn Selnes asked her students how much chocolate each of six children would get if she shared five bars among them evenly, many of the studetns drew models. When I had first read this problem and before I looked at some of the student's strategies I was trying to solve this problem in my head and then also on paper and because fractions are not my strong point in math I was having a very difficult time solving this problem. I was unable to picture this problem as a model. Once I looked over the different models I was surprised at how well I understood the problem. Seeing this problem in drawing helped me see how much of a candy bar each student would get. This problem reminded me of the submarine problem we did in class. When I had to solve the problem I couldn't because I didn't use models, however when we watched the video of the students solving this problem and they were drawing models, it became so much more clear to me.
One thing YMaW helped me realize was how much work I need to do with fractions. When I tried to solve the problems on the gray math activity sheet I had a lot of difficulty. It was easy for me to understand multiplying and dividing fractions when I saw students models and their explanation, however when it comes to me attempting I am still unsure of a lot of things. It is confusing to me as to why I have such a difficult time with fractions, decimals, and percentages, because if I were dealing with whole numbers I would have a much easier time making models, etc. I also have a much better understanding of how to multiply and divide whole numbers. One good thing about these chapters was that I understood them much better than the last chapters in YMaW, which shows me that I am making progress!
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