October 2013

One way to introduce ratios so they make sense to students

We know that students struggle with understanding ratios and reasoning proportionally. The cross-multiply algorithm doesn’t make sense to them. What can we do to help ratios make sense to students? Whenever I’m thinking of how to introduce a new concept, I like to start by thinking about what students already know that can be built …

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5 ways to make simplifying expressions make sense

Student mistakes are important.  It’s important to know what mistakes students make and why they make those mistakes. For example, last time, we looked at  why simplifying expressions isn’t so simple for students and why they tend to make mistakes like 2a +5b=7ab. When we can anticipate what mistakes students commonly make and why they make them, …

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