Interpreting multiplication and division

This lesson develops the concept of interpreting multiplication and division. This includes working with calculations that involve non-integers. An outcome of the lesson is that students will be better able to select the correct operation to perform when solving word problems.

An initial activity has five questions set practical contexts that require either multiplication or division to solve them. Students sketch pictures to help them. The activity will help to determine any weaknesses students have with the concepts.

There is a collaborative activity where there are cards showing:

• A calculation
• A practical situation involving pizza
• A picture card representing a calculation

Cards are collected in groups. Some of the situations lead to the same answer.

There are pre-lesson and post-lesson formative assessment tasks. Detailed teacher notes give suggestions on questioning and how to use the resources. Full solutions are given for each of the sections.

This is a concept development lesson from the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service, a collaboration between UC Berkeley and the Shell Centre team at the University of Nottingham. Further information on the collection is given here.