While this support activity is designed for a face-to-face, synchronous delivery, it should be noted that supporting text and interactive examples have been embedded in the digital assignment page to assist asynchronous or hybrid course delivery and to be made more accessible to students performing make-up work.

Notes for synchronous active-learning delivery

The purpose of this corequisite support activity is to help students refresh their memories on simplifying fractions. This activity also serves the purpose of creating a welcoming but serious academic environment with expectations of achievement.

You may find the following suggested class-flow and content tips helpful.

As students arrive —

• Greet students and hand them the support activity as they enter the room. Ask them to begin working in pairs.
• To encourage students to start talking and working with their partners, ask them to discuss Questions 1 and 2.

Whole-class discussion —

• When most of the students have arrived, call the class together.
  • Explain that the beginning of the worksheet may seem simple but is designed to build to more complex concepts.
• In Question 2, Part D, students should note the chance of selecting a student with brown eyes is much greater than any other color, so it is more likely that the randomly-selected student will have brown eyes.
  • If possible, take the opportunity to open up a discussion about the possibility of the randomly-selected student having any of the other eye colors.
• In Question 2, Part E, students may have difficulty dealing with equivalent fractions.
  • The idea of simplifying, or reducing, fractions will be introduced in the next part of this support activity, so if students struggle, it is OK.
  • After a reasonable amount of struggle, ask students to review the “Simplifying Fractions” section of this support activity.

Circulate through the class as students work in pairs —

• Be prepared to explain the process of removing common factors to students who are less prepared.
• When “converting to decimals,” emphasize that the fraction symbol represents division, so these fractions can be “computed” using a calculator.
• Students may ask about repeating decimals. The idea of rounding will come up soon in this course, but for now, just “truncate” or stop writing the decimals after a while. Permit students to correctly use notation already familiar to them.
• While students may have had previous math classes where fractions always had to be written in reduced, or simplified, form, it is fine to point out that both forms give helpful information.
  • For example, having a proportion represented as 14/24 is helpful when trying to keep track of the actual counts involved. But, to easily compare proportions that have come from different scenarios (like the students’ eye colors versus the teachers’ eye colors), using simplified fractions or decimals might be more useful.