« I'll Corrupt My Own Kids, Thanks | Main | Connor's Math Work 2007/11/16 »
November 11, 2007
Connor's Math Work 2007/11/12
Right before Halloween, I gave Connor some work on equations (Dolciani p24 part A odd problems and all part C problems). This was a little difficult for him. Well, really it was only the part C problems that were difficult. In those, you have to insert the operation that makes the equation true given the constants provided in the problem. Like this:
x ? 17 ? 13 = 24 ; 20
(For those of you who have forgotten, or never seen, the semicolon followed by a set is the notation for what possible solutions can be used. So in this case, that is directly equivalent to saying 20 ? 17 ? 13 = 24. The solution is +, - — as in 20 + 17 - 13 = 24.)
Anyway, other than that, he seemed to grasp it. Now I'm not so sure. After going through the next lesson, on inverse operations, he seemed to constantly not get two things: you cannot do something to one term in an expression without doing it to all terms in an expression, and you cannot do something to one part (side, in this case) of an equation without doing it to all parts.
Let me make that more concrete: he said that the first simplification step for a=2a-5 was to subtract a, giving 0=2a-5. Then he tried to divide by 2, giving 2a/2 -5 on the right side...um, no. So I talked him through the rule several times, each time with a different example, and hopefully he gets it. We'll see tomorrow, as he does the Dolciani 1-7 problems on p28, evens from part A odd problems, part B odd problems and all part C problems. OK, this will likely take him 2 days, but we'll see.
Oh, and if you're wondering why the delay, it was because of the week eaten by the Lego robot competition.
Posted by jeff at November 11, 2007 10:19 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/2552