People sometimes feel compelled to tell me how much they hate math. When I ask when this started, many point to algebra (the rest say fractions, but we can talk about that another day). We know that many students struggle when they get to algebra. Researchers have been studying how to ease this transition through …
Using diagrams to ease the transition to algebra Read More »
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been working with both students and teachers on algebra tasks. One of the things we have been doing is writing rules for different geometric patterns. For me, identifying key questions that will guide students towards meeting the learning target for the day is one of the most important things …
Asking questions that help students think algebraically Read More »
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, …
5 ways to make simplifying expressions make sense Read More »
“…some seemingly simple ideas are not always as simple for students as they seem to adults.” -Lesley Booth How often have you seen students make the following type of mistake? 2a +5b=7ab My guess is that if you teach algebra, you’ve seen this mistake more than once. If we believe that students do things that …
In my last post, I suggested a way to build on what students already know to introduce the equal sign. Let’s say you followed that plan and your students are now proficient in using symbols to describe a quantity as equal to, greater than or less than another quantity. What do you do next? Use …
I’m certainly not the first person to talk about the importance of the equal sign. Researchers have been talking about it since the 80’s and discussions about the equal sign have made the rounds on the blogs and twitter (most recently Justin Aion posted about strings of equal signs here) Often, the concept of equality …
Equality: How elementary school teachers can help algebra teachers Read More »