BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:researchseminars.org CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:researchseminars.org BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:James Tanton (Outsmart Education) DTSTART:20260908T160000Z DTEND:20260908T170000Z DTSTAMP:20260914T071010Z UID:ESME/67 DESCRIPTION:Title: Fr actions Are Hard! A Mathematical Overview of a Troublesome Topic\nby J ames Tanton (Outsmart Education) as part of Online Seminar On Undergraduat e Mathematics Education\n\n\nAbstract\nThe school curriculum is shaped by a fundamental tension: while much of mathematics is motivated by real-worl d intuition\, the mathematics that emerges ultimately outgrows any single model that inspired it.\n\nFractions sit squarely in this tension\, and it is never fully resolved in the curriculum. Students first meet fractions as commands—circle a third of the kittens—and then as concrete parts o f a whole—a third of a pie. Fractions are not numbers per se until we pl ace them on the number line and suggest that they are. Questions about mul tiplication and division then pull us back toward real-world thinking— “of means multiply\,” portions of portions\, and the area model—furt her blurring what a fraction seems to be.\n\nWhere do students land after all this on what a fraction is and why its arithmetic works? No wonder so many students reach high school and college mathematics disliking\, or eve n hating\, fractions. Let’s see if we can turn that around!\n LOCATION:https://researchseminars.org/talk/ESME/67/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR