I'm prepared to kill three birds with one stone:
- I'm shooting for a goal of 110 posts this calendar year to break my all time best record of 109 posts so 30 posts in 30 days will really help my count.
- I'm continuing an unintentional series about systems of equations from 2011 (how many solutions, graphing and substitution)
- Answering @k8nowak's January call to share the unsexy, borderline boring basics.
My normal way of teaching is to do INB pages together as a class as notes and then some kind of worksheet/structure/activity to practice. Since January I've been working really hard at not giving worksheets. But this, for some reason, is just one of my golden worksheets that somehow works like a charm.
It starts with really simple vertical addition problems that lead into elimination where one variable automatically cancels out. It just keeps building from there up until you have to multiply both equations and change the sign.
I give this out first before we ever do any notes. We do 1-5 together and then it's like you have unleashed the krakken and you can't get them to stop. Some of the problems have answer banks so they are not shown in the powerpoint. But honestly, I barely use the powerpoint anyway because they can't be bothered to look up from their papers to watch me.
It's love.
And I don't really even know why but this is probably the sixth year in a row that I've used it. After we finish this, I give them examples to put in their INBs (stolen from here) but it's more like an afterthought after all the time they've spent working these problems. (BTW this took about three full 47 minute class periods.)
It also seems to motivate them to rework problems when they mess up without me having to push for it. My guess is they like that it is answered with a nice and tidy ordered pair and they feel a sense of accomplishmeny when they finish.
But I'm just guessing.
It's definitely unsexy....and yet so satisfying!
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