In Exploring Playgrounds, participants can interact with footage of seventh graders:

• constructing big ideas related to multiplying fractions
• making connections to multiplication's commutative property
• uncovering the relationship between fractional parts and a changing whole

System Requirements for CD-ROM

Windows/PC

Pentium II Processor

266MHz (or higher)

Windows 98 (or higher)

64 MB RAM (more recommended)

SVGA Color Display (or better)

4x CD-ROM Drive (or faster)

Sound Card

16-bit Flash(tm) Player and Acrobat Reader

Quicktime 6.0 (or higher)

MacIntosh

PowerPC Processor

G3/233MHz (or higher)

System 9.2 or 10.2 (or higher)

64 MB RAM (more recommended)

SVGA Color Display (or better)

4x CD-ROM Drive (or faster)

Sound Card

16-bit Flash(tm) Player and Acrobat Reader

Quicktime 6.0 (or higher)

Seventh graders multiply fractions, making connections between fractional parts and a changing whole, generalizing strategies from one problem to all fractions.

MAARTEN DOLK is a researcher and developer of mathematics education at the Freudenthal Institute in the Netherlands, where he has been involved in the development of professional materials for teachers and for student teachers. He also has directed an inservice project in the Netherlands for teacher educators and staff developers. His work in the United States is related to the inservice of primary school teachers. He is the coauthor of the Young Mathematicians at Work series.CATHERINE TWOMEY FOSNOT is Professor of Education at The City College of the City of New York and Director of Mathematics in the City. She twice has won the "best writing" award from AERA's Constructivist SIG and she was the recipient of the "young scholar" award by Educational Communication and Technology Journal . She is an author of several books on mathematics education, most recently, the Young Mathematicians at Work series.