Episode 3: Why is teaching dividing fractions so difficult?
MT talk by MT talk team
Episode notes
Dividing fractions is the focus for this episode. This is a topic which is well known to be difficult for learners to understand. This episode is a conversation between Elizabeth Bridgett, Lisa Coe and Jay Timotheus and is centred on two articles: Sam Brace’s Awareness of the division of fractions: keep your flipping change to yourself! from MT297, published in 2025, and Pete Griffin’s Doing and construing from MT227 in 2012.
Also referred to in the podcast are John Mason’s 2004 Open University paper, Doing ≠ Construing and Doing + Discussing ≠ Learning: The Importance of the Structure Of Attention, along with the much more recent Dividing fractions - realising I know nothing by Alex Spencer in MT296 (2025). We also think about the ideas in Jay’s own Division by a fraction: Do you see what I say?, ...