Algebraic Addition

Junievicz, Alex Kelly H.S.
650-5900


Objective To re-invent the wheel in a manner so that there is: 1. Transfer from other knowledge of the student; 2. Minimal relationship to previous math; 3. Conventions of Minus used in business. To get the student to realize the rules of signs without the turn-off that he/she may have gotten previously. Apparatus Needed: Play money Play IOU's Dice One red, and one black for each student Procedure Before class give several students the play money, and IOUs. After attendance take a loan from one of the students and have that student take a loan from another. On the overhead list each student's holdings. Have the beginning balance and the transactions using the brackets to stand for negative-- (but using the terms owned, and owed, the accountants use debits as +[owned] and ( ) for -[Owed]--By having the students borrow from each other to give the teacher the money there will be a negative number-- the student owes more money. A sub objective could be to balance the student's own check book. For practice problems have the students make their own by rolling the dice. The black being + and the red being -. Thus they will have random problems especially suited for the slower student since the numbers will be less than 7, and not zero. This can later lead to some motivation for statistics and surely will delight some of the gamblers in the class. Conclusion Since this approach was thought of in the SMILE program and not tested in the actual classroom I am presenting it as an alternative for the slower classes, possibly a support class. I have used the text book method, then, for the students still having trouble, passed out the rules to rote memorize, and, while working with the individual student invoked a loan approach (borrow, and "paid" so as to end up with money owed). Maybe starting with this approach we can work around the students' inconsistency of minus, and negative.
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