Week 0:

Friday, August 19: First day of class. Handouts from today's class: drink mixtures, ratio tables

Week 1:

Due Monday, August 22: Read about all the course policies, including the grading scale and policy. Notice, in particular, that the cutoff for an A is 4.6 out of 5 points. Read section 7.6 to page 304. Do practice problems 1 - 5 on pages 308, 309. Hand in: problem 4 on page 312.

MATH 7035 students only: begin to brainstorm ideas for your project.

Handouts from today's class: solving ratio problems with Singapore strip diagrams, ratio table and graph problems for 6th graders

Due Wednesday, August 24: Write a short set (3 problems or so) of ratio story problem that students could solve in (at least) one of two ways: 1) by making a ratio table and either using it directly or, in at least one of the problems, thinking about how to extend the table to other values and 2) by using a strip diagram like the ones shown in the texts used in Singapore. In the cases where the students would have to think about extending the table, explain how students could solve the problem by thinking about the table in two different ways: thinking about relationships "vertically" (going down in the table) and thinking about relationships "horizontally" (going across a line in the table). Discuss which way is easiest (using vertical relationships or horizontal relationships). Then give an example of different numbers you could use in the story problem that would make the other way easier (or at least as easy). Explain also how students could solve the problems with the aid of the strip diagram.

Due Friday, August 26: Read section 7.6 up to the section on solving proportions by cross-multiplying on page 304. Hand in: problem 3on page 312.

Week 2:

Due Monday, August 29: Hand in: problem 9 on page 313. Use reasoning other than setting up a proportion and cross-multiplying.

Due Wednesday, August 31: Hand in problems a - d below about the following problem from Primary Mathematics 6A*, page 38 #6: The ratio of the number of Meili's books to Sulin's was 1 : 2 at first. After Meili bought another 12 books, the ratio became 2 : 1. How many books did Sulin have?

a) Explain how to solve the problem using a Singapore strip diagram.

b) Explain how to solve the problem using unknowns (letters standing for unknown numbers) and equations.

c) Change some or all of the numbers in the problem so that the problem can still be solved readily using a strip diagram. Explain how to solve this modified problem.

d) Now change some or all of the numbers in the problem so that the problem can *not* be solved as readily using a strip diagram. Say briefly why a strip diagram is no longer as helpful.

*third edition, Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education, Singapore, available at www.singaporemath.com.

Due Friday, September 2: Read the rest of section 7.6 and do the remaining practice problems.