Sunday, September 27, 2009

Expressions vs. Equations?

Have you ever had difficulty helping students to understand the difference between expressions and equations? Between evaluating and solving?

I tried something new this past week with my 7th graders: I wrote various algebraic expressions on index cards then asked the students to evaluate them. "How?" They asked. They didn't know what the variables equaled: EXACTLY!

I then gave them a dice and said that they needed to record what they rolled so that I would know what each variable was equal to. This highlighted the fact that variables can be anything.

What have you done to help students understand variables and the difference between expressions and equations?

--Lauren

Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Dennis RichardsOctober 18, 2009 at 12:27 PM

    A simple explanation of a strategy that paid off for students.

    I hope someone with experience in teaching math responds to your question:

    "What have you done to help students understand variables and the difference between expressions and equations?"

    Dennis

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)