From: Suzanne A. (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: Nov 28, 1999 at 12:42:55
Subject: Re: Partitioning Fractions

Hi Cindy,

I, like Gail, didn't quite know what it meant either but I found some
references to it and I think I understand now.

There is this lesson by Perry Lemon that lists as an objective "to teach
partitioning and equivalency" which you can read here:

http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ma9109.html

His sentence "Activity card 1, for example, would be a practice to
reinforce the part-whole interpretation of a fraction, such as, 3/5 indicates
that a whole has been partitioned into 5 equal parts and 3 of those are being
considered." makes me think that partitioning just has to do with the
representation of a fraction as a whole that has been divided into a number
of equal parts.

I also found this at the high school level and it seems to be related:

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/problems/partitions.html

The discussion is of partitions and ordered partitions. If you take "4" and
partition it then you get  "3  1" and "2  2" and "2  1  1"  and "1  1  1  1."
The ordered partitions of 4 would include the same numbers but in all of the
possible orders.

 -Suzanne A., for the Teacher2Teacher service

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