Equivalent Expressions
- coachsalinasmathtu
- Nov 21, 2023
- 1 min read
As a high school math teacher, I've seen many different tricks and shortcuts for solving linear equations of a single variable. Some of these include "letters to the left and numbers to the right" switch equals to minus parenthesis and put in desmos and check where it crosses the x-axis. Even though I understand why these work and why we sometimes feel these are the only ways to get students to succeed at solving equations, I feel we do a disservice to our students if we don't at least try to explain to the them how to solve equations by using inverse operations and keep "equivalent expressions" equivalent.
As I was tutoring a student in preparation for the SAT Math portion, I realized we as Algebra teachers must try our best to help our students understand inverses as we can use inverse operations to solve for any variable in an equation. We should also make sure we teach our students that if you have an equivalent expression you can always substitute one side for the other in any other expression or equation.
These are just a couple of suggestions to Algebra teachers that I feel can go a long way in future mathematical success for our students.
Until the next time, this is Coach Salinas with a couple of things to think about.
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