Reply to 92% in 4 to 5 in Algebra 1 - teacher attributes success to "old-fashioned" algebra

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "92% in 4 to 5 in Algebra 1 - teacher attributes success to "old-fashioned" algebra "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

+1000 !!!!!

My child came home and said his teacher requested they ask their parents how two negative numbers multiplied form a positive product.  [b]I told him you just memorize it[/b], you get into math theorems and proofs using properties and identities later.  He said he was supposed to use "algebra tiles" I was like WTF are algebra tiles?

Me: "did the teacher explain what you were supposed to do", 
Him: "no, I think she couldn't figure it out, we talked about it with partners and just got confused"

So all this crap to develop a :deeper understanding" just confuses the kids.

[/quote]

"Don't ask why, kid. Just take it on faith that this is how it is." is not my personal philosophy for education.

Explanations:

https://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/minustimesaminus.html
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.negxneg.html
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/absolute-value/mult_div_negatives/v/why-a-negative-times-a-negative-is-a-positive[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics