• School Mathematics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.191-212
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• 2012

In the field of arithmetic in mathematics education, there has been lack of fine-grained investigations addressing the relationship between students' construction of division knowledge with fractional quantities and their whole number division knowledge. This study, through the analysis of part of collected data from a year-long teaching experiment, presents a possible constructive itinerary as to how a student could modify her unit-segmenting scheme to deal with various fraction measurement division situations: 1) unit-segmenting scheme with a remainder, 2) fractional unit-segmenting scheme. Thus, this study provides a clue for curing a fragmentary approach to teaching whole number division and fraction division and preventing students' fragmentary understanding of the same arithmetical operation in different number systems.

• School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.439-454
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• 2010

This study presents how two eighth grade students generated their own algorithms in the context of fraction measurement division situations by modifications of unit-segmenting schemes. Teaching experiment was adopted as a research methodology and part of data from a year-long teaching experiment were used for this report. The present study indicates that the two participating students' construction of reciprocal relationship between the referent whole [one] and the divisor by using their unit- segmenting schemes and its strategic use finally led the students to establish an algorithm for fraction measurement division problems, which was on par with the traditional invert-and-multi- ply algorithm for fraction division. The results of the study imply that teachers' instruction based on understanding student-generated algorithms needs to be accounted as one of the crucial characteristics of good mathematics teaching.