I’ve spent many years working exclusively with 8th graders who struggle with math in some way or another. Sometimes they struggle because they lack background knowledge. Other times they struggle because they aren’t ready to understand, and sometimes their own fixed mindset holds them back. Teaching solving multi-steps equations can bring out the worst for struggling students. There are a lot of steps students need to keep track of and even more details. [Read more…] about How to Teach Solving Multi-Step Linear Equations with Interactive Notebooks
multi-step equations
How to teach multi-step equations like a boss
Teaching multi-step equations the first time to 150 8th graders was my most epic fail as a teacher. Teaching it to them the second time was my 2nd most epic fail as a teacher. It was embarrassing because I was co-teaching with a new teacher and I was supposed to be the expert. Yikes! [Read more…] about How to teach multi-step equations like a boss
Activities to Make Practicing Multi-Step Equations Awesome
My history with teaching multi-step equations hasn’t been a pretty one, but spoiler alert, there’s a happy ending. A few years ago I was co-teaching with a relatively new teacher and I felt a lot of pressure to show him the ropes. I was new to the 8th grade math standards. Everything was going well for the first month of school until we got to solving multi-step equations. We worked for two full weeks and taught students just how multi-step equations had been taught to us. The kids bombed the unit test. It was devastating. Then, we had a chance to reteach the majority of the kids and we tried something else. It also failed. It was a humbling experience to say the least. [Read more…] about Activities to Make Practicing Multi-Step Equations Awesome
