I would give you a piece of chocolate if you could get my 7th graders to remember this stuff. I give an assignment and have a group of kids that raise their hands and go, 'Okay, so what's the list again?' Argh, why can't they remember thinks like a negative times a negative will always be positive? I am teaching integers completely differently next year... I just need to figure out a better way to do it. Any thoughts, anyone?
Same signs - add.
ReplyDeleteDifferent signs - subtract. Take sign of bigger number.
Oooo...I know this is SO important for kids to get. This is what I struggled with until 9th grade, making math hell for me until I figured this out. Then Algebra became one of my fave subjects!!
ReplyDeleteI am so with you! NOOOOOOOO list!!! There is enough stuff to memorize. I am struggling with this as well. My number one pet peeve is 9th graders that ask me, is -3 -5 the same thing as (-3) + (-5)?
ReplyDeleteFor starters, the ONLY place you will see these nice parenthesis and all of those addition signs are in a MIDDLE SCHOOL TEXTBOOK. Once they hit Alg I, they will never see it presented that way again. It is -3 - 5 FOREVER. And when they start simplifying stuff of their own, they will be lucky if it is even that pretty! So, I am not even going to give them the problems out of that book when it comes to this.
I am working this out now. I had a 7th grade "focus group" at my house the other day. Not a one of them remembered these rules even though they all said they had been taught the rules and used them. These kids have enough to memorize - I am not throwing this at them too. LOL!
Stay tuned...