This interactive online sequence of activities comes from CT adult education teacher Connie Rivera’s website. The activities were developed by Connie in collaboration with MA adult numeracy and math specialist, Sarah Lonberg-Lew, who created the interactive elements using Desmos.
The progression was designed to help students develop a conceptual understanding of benchmark fractions (1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 1/10) and benchmark percents (100%, 50%, 25%, 75%, and 10%) through a series of interactive activities and visuals, including tables and circle graphs. The questions are really well-designed as they guide students through a general flow of playing around with the elements, making observations, looking for patterns and use those patterns to build a deeper understanding of percentages. The problems are engaging, accessible, and challenging.
The progression is organized into sections:
- Explore Part of the Whole (100% and 50%)
- Explore 25%
- Explore 75%
- Explore 10%
- Explore more percent building blocks
Here are just a few screenshots of the interactive elements your students are able to explore:
For this activity, students are dragging the slider to create a circle graph for each town described in the table:
