Professional lit (content)

Margaret M. Rathouz, the author wants to explain the importance of how the students learn

with decimals, specifically in multiplication. The article has 4 sections divided and those sections

talk about how bits and pieces work together students think about multiplication in decimals

(Models, Making sense of products using estimation, Making sense of an algorithm, and

Deepening understanding). When the teacher wants to know where the students are in terms of the

things they know at first, they should start assessing the students by asking them to formulate a

word problem related to the math operations which is multiplying for my unit. Expressions such

as 3 X 4 should be made into a word problem to make the students connect to their real life.

Margaret emphasizes how the relationship with the math expression and their real life so that the

students can make better sense of how multiplication works. Also, building fluency with

multiplication to make the students estimate better mentally. Once the students know how to

estimation, they will then know how to use algorithms to use in multiplication. After the realization

of all these things with the students, they will have a deeper understanding of how the expressions

can be used to build in their development in math subject. (2011, p. 433)

Margaret wants to suggest the ways in how to teach the students how to learn multiplying

decimals in various ways. The audience can be teachers who are lost with teaching the concept of

multiplying decimals. She wants to build onto the basic first before having a deeper understanding

of the knowledge. For my planning and implementation will be the same because students will not

get why they have to learn how to multiply decimals in various ways to come up with a meaningful

context. Building up with the basic skills in math will make the students picture how all of the

rules they know will work just the way it works.

Reference

Rathouz, M. M. (2011). Making Sense of Decimal Multiplication. Mathematics Teaching in the

Middle School, 16, 7th ser., 430-437.