Reply To: 1-4 – Why The Unit of Measure Matters – Discussion

[Lisa Hudson]

Lots of rich information in this segment. For the classroom, my biggest takeaway is the need to label all units. As I watched the examples, I was reminded of a study of unit rates in which we might have something like 4 doughnuts for $1 versus $0.25 for 1 doughnut. This really shows that a numerical response alone is not good enough, especially as the mathematics becomes more complex.

I also latched on to the idea that all units are iterations or partitions of a base unit – easy to see in both the area model with the large blue square and small green square as well as the meter/centimeter/kilometer model. These connect back to the ideas of magnitude of number as well as the fractional representations!