Solving Equations

What it is: Thin-sliced practice for solving one-step and two-step equations, all on one screen. Each round is a question type. The slices are the steps inside each round: each step changes just one thing from the step before (which side x is on, or one operation), and a group moves on after two in a row. How to run it: one device per group at the whiteboard, passed around like the marker. The device makes and checks the problems; the thinking and talking happen at the board. The rounds: - Round 1, Adding and Subtracting, and Round 2, Multiplying and Dividing: positive numbers only, so these two rounds fit grade 6. - Round 3, Two Steps: Rounds 1 and 2 put together. - Round 4, Mixed: any form from Rounds 1 to 3. - Bonus, Negative Coefficients: an extension for groups that finish, and a preview of the next lesson. What each part is for: - Same numbers, one change: the first problem of each step keeps the numbers from the problem before, so students see exactly what the one change does. After that the numbers are new, so they see the method always works. - Two in a row, so one lucky answer doesn't move a group on. - First tries only, so the streak shows what the group can really do. - No hints on the device: after a miss, the group stays on the same problem and works it out with each other and the boards around them. - Mixed checks: each round ends with a mixed stehat hits every form once before any repeats (3 in a row), so students decide what kind of problem it is instead of repeating the last move. Round 4 needs 5 in a row to unlock the bonus. - A reference back before the biggest jump: Round 3's first problem comes in two parts (what the x-term equals, then x) and doesn't count toward the streak. - Every group gets its own numbers, so strategies can travel between boards (knowledge mobility) but answers can't. - Whole-number answers, never 1, so the focus stays on the new step and there are no lucky guesses. - The round names say what's new, which gives you words for consolidation afterward.

By Aaron Veek