Math and Texting? OMG!

I am very much immersed in the lesson study process.  Lesson study is the new PLC.  I made what I thought were some great connections in lesson study this week.  


First, what is lesson study?  Lesson study is a chance for a group of teachers to  get "more time" to delve deeper into a standard with their students.  


My group's lesson study is adding fractions with unlike denominators.  A strength of this lesson study cycle has been that our group consists of teachers at three different grade levels- 5th, 6th and7th.  Until Tuesday, we were literally lost in the minutia of fractions- LCD, GCF, numerators, denominators, simplest form, equivalent fractions, can you really call a fraction improper?, mixed numbers, decimals, ratios, division, addition, multiplication, subtraction, like terms, proportions, divisibility, 1/2=0.5=50%, relating fractions to decimals and percents and vice versa, 3/4 = 3 one fourths, etc.  


We have sorted through the minutia and have finalized our lesson.  We will watch one of our colleagues teach this lesson on February 7.  We will observe the lesson.  Our observations will be guided by certain parts of the Standards for Mathematical Practice.  I am excited about applying some of these practices to our lesson observations.  


Standard #6: Attend to Precision, is one I will focus on individually.  


Attending to precision in all parts of math is similar to attending to precision while one is text messaging.  For example: I asked one of my students, how did you get 8/16 to 1/2? The student said, "I divided by eight."  Unfortunately, this student wasn't attending to precision.  I pointed out that if I divided 8/16 by eight, my answer would be 1/4.  So when simplifying 8/16 to 1/2, I would actually divide the numerator and denominator by 8/8.  


Similarly, in texting, if I texted you IDC, but meant to text you IDK, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally.  Similarly if I texted you BFN, but meant to text you BFF, I would have hurt your feelings- unintentionally.  In math, as in texting, we can have the best intentions, but without attending to precision we have inaccurate data and hurt feelings. Math should make people happy, just as texting should.  I think that if we teach our students how and why to attend to precision, they will be happy and precise mathematicians/texters!