Math u see pre algebra question

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  • February 21, 2017 at 5:18 pm
    Rebekah
    Participant

    My daughter is currently using math u see pre algebra.  She is struggling with solving for the unknown (chapter 14.)  No matter how many times she works on these problems she just can’t seem to get more than half correct.  We have been working on this concept for about 3 weeks now.  I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.  We actually have moved on to chapter 15 just so she can have some successes (and so we can get through the book ; )  I know this is a very important chapter so any help is much appreciated!!!

     

    Thanks ; )

    February 21, 2017 at 8:30 pm
    art
    Participant

    My son is doing the same thing. We also went on while continuing to work on it. I just keep patiently explaining it and asking him what he thinks he should do next. I don’t know how long we’ve been working on it. Probably at least as long as you have or a little longer. He started to recognize it better a few days ago, so I guess it’s working. Eventually, I guess he’ll be able to remember what to do. He says they all look the same so he’s not sure what to do. I’m trying to help him remember that getting the variable alone is the underlying principle, and there several things you have to do depending on what the problem is like.

    February 21, 2017 at 9:03 pm
    beccawalker2000
    Participant

    My son also has struggled on this concept, though he is starting to get it much better now. I just keep telling him to put the numbers on one side, the letter on the other. That usually prompts him to be able to figure it out himself. We’ve worked and re-worked them as well.
    Have you thought of having her get on Khan Academy and listen/see to someone else present it? Sometimes a different way of explaining will help my son finally click with math concepts. Or maybe there’s a Youtube video or someone in your life who can walk her through it. I know my husband’s perspective on things can help when I can’t get the point across. 🙂

    February 22, 2017 at 5:43 am
    Melanie32
    Participant

    My recommendation is don’t move forward until this concept is mastered and the student is able to teach it back to you. Math U See is set up for mastery and if the student hasn’t mastered material, they will have trouble in future lessons. Then time has to be taken to backtrack to the point where understanding was lacking and teach from there all the way back to where you were before. Ask me how I know. 🙂

    We now stop at the teaching lesson and do not move on past the first practice page until we really understand the lesson. Sometimes it takes a page of doing the work before it really cements. If we don’t get that understanding from the video lesson and practice page, we read the lesson in the teacher’s manual. If we are still struggling, we do a google search for that concept and watch khan videos on that topic. So far, that’s as much as we’ve needed to do for any one topic.

    We are struggling with a lesson in Math U See algebra right now. Yesterday we watched the video, read the lesson, watched a Khan video and did a practice page. We still need further instruction so we plan on watching more Khan videos on the topic today. Khan will use multiple teaching videos to teach a concept that Math U See only has one short video for. Khan often goes more in depth.

    It is so worth it to stop and take the time to master the concepts before moving on! True understanding makes math enjoyable. Lack of mastery makes math a frustrating endeavor to say the least.

    February 22, 2017 at 8:53 am
    Tristan
    Participant

    I don’t have PreAlgebra in front of me right now. Can you give me a couple example problems from a page?

    Basically I tell my kids that the letter in a problem is the missing piece we don’t know the amount for yet. To figure out what it is we have to get the letter alone on one side of the equals sign. To do that we do the opposite of whatever is happening on the letter’s side of the equals sign so the numbers on that side can move to the other side of the equals sign. And to be fair we have to do the same thing to both sides. Here is my own example:

    2x + 20 = 40

    Step 1: Get any numbers on the letter side of the equals moved away. I see a plus 20 so I’ll subtract that 20 from the left side and also from the right. The problem now reads:

    2x = 20

    Step 1 continues because the letter is still not alone. Right now she is multiplying with the number 2. I have to do the opposite math function to separate them and move the number to the other side of the equals sign, so I will divide by 2 on both sides. 2x/2 leaves just x on the left. 20/2 leaves 10 on the right side. We now have x=10. Ta da.

    Now, if the problems you are seeing have the letter on both sides of the equals sign then step one is to get all letters to one side and all numbers to the other side. A made up example:

    2x + 20 = x + 30

    Here’s where we begin. I want to move the x on the right to join the x on the left. So because it is positive we do the opposite – subtract it from BOTH sides to be fair. We now have done x-x on the right (so x is gone) and 2x-x on the left leaves just x (2 of something minus 1 of something =1 of something).

    x +20 = 30

    We still need to get those numbers away from the x so we subtract 20 from both sides leaving:

    x=10.

    Not sure if that helps, sometimes just having them hear it a slightly different wording helps. And lots of walking them through step by step by step every single day problem by problem until it clicks. 🙂 It takes a lot of your time but if you want them to build the pattern correctly you need to oversee the practice for each problem for a bit.

    February 22, 2017 at 9:27 am
    Rebekah
    Participant

    Thank you all for your guidance.

    Tristin, the problems you listed, she understands.  It’s when the problems are very involved and long with exponents, parentheses and negative numbers that she gets tripped up.  Unfortunately, I don’t think my keyboard can type exponents so I can’t give you an example.  If we work them out, she can eventually get the correct answer, but I’m not sure if I would call that mastery.  Maybe I she didn’t master an earlier concept and that’s why she’s struggling.  I will go back and look…I have to admit, this can be so time consuming and exhausting…sorry to complain ; )

    I will look into the khan videos.  Maybe another perspective will help.  The most important thing is that she understands the concept.  Thanks for reminding me of that!!

    Thanks again!!!

    February 22, 2017 at 2:38 pm
    Melanie32
    Participant

    Today we watched all Khan videos we could find on consecutive integers and they still didn’t help us with our Math U See lesson because MUS is covering it via word problems. We googled consecutive integers word problems video and tried a couple before we found the right one. This took us about 15 minutes in all and we now understand the word problems and were able to complete the assignment with mastery.

    I just thought I’d share how today’s math went since we did have to look further than Khan academy. It was so worth it to take the extra time so that math could be completed with confidence instead of frustration! I’m so thankful for the abundance of free resources to help us out in this area!

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