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Negative exponents.
Some of you will remember that we had quite a merry little time with negative exponents last year.
Christopher appears not to remember the first thing about negative exponents.
Fortunately for him, I have completed Saxon Algebra 1 in the intervening year, so I now do know a thing or two about negative exponents.
Another thing I know about negative exponents: if you're trying to give your 7th grader practice in negative exponents, it's practically impossible to locate free worksheets online.*
Still, I've managed to come up with a few things:
- Lecture Notes Math 097 : includes lots of problems with negative exponents & answers (pdf file)
- Professor Howard Sorkin notes & problems (pdf file)
- Glencoe Parent and Student Study Guide Pre-Algebra 4-7: Negative Exponents (pdf file)
- Glencoe Parent and Student Study Guide Algebra 1 18-2: Dividing Monomials (pdf file)
edhelper, too
The edhelper sheets are pretty good.
Canada Teacher
Wonderful resource:
These tools were made to save teachers time and money! Stop paying for all those reproducible forms and worksheets that are out there. Let’s share what we already have made and stop reinventing the wheel. You can help us by submitting your own forms, letters, and reproducible materials and by visiting the sponsors on the bottom right of each page.
The site has a math worksheet generator that will create simple worksheets on negative exponents. One glitch: the answer sheet appears first. When you click on "Generatore answer sheet" the worksheet itself comes up.
Don't let it fool you.
update:
I was wrong.
Christopher does, in fact, remember the first thing about negative exponents.
Just.
I'm despairing, thinking how much distributed practice he needs on every conceivable procedure and skill (forgetting concepts altogether).
Clearly we need to go back to KUMON.
Just as clearly, I'm not going to be able to get him there.
I just spent half an hour copying out individual knowledge-bits from Saxon Algebra 1.
I guess the plan is .... what?
Either I have to commit the list to memory (along with my list of pre-algebra skills) or put together some kind of Excel grid that allows me to see the most recent time he had distributed practice on a particular skill.
Actually, an Excel chart could be good.
To give you an idea, Christopher's Test Prep book lists 49 separate skills for one school year.
Saxon math, of course, breaks these skills down further than the Test Prep book. Saxon books typically have 120-130 lessons per book, with 1 to 3 concepts or procedures covered in each lesson.
So: at least 250 separate skills in each grade level book, each of which a student has lots of distributed practice doing.
I'm trying to duplicate Saxon without the Saxon.
Reactive teaching to the max.
_______________
* Ripley's believe it or not: I now own approximately $400-worth of pre-algebra, geometry, and algebra workbooks. I have discovered precisely one worksheet on negative exponents in the lot.
state test coming right up (2006)
throwing money at the problem
more stuff only teachers can buy
help desk 1
state test coming right up (2007)
help desk 2
my life and welcome to it
inflammatory
canadianteacher.com
progress report
despair
28 out of 30
all the answers are belong to us
email to the math chair
second request
teacher's manual
it would be unusual
6 comments:
“Reactive teaching to the max.”
I know I want to avoid reactive teaching. When I read your posts about this in KTM-1 last year, I was smack in the middle of some very unpleasant reactive teaching.
Besides the fact that it is so much work, both in the doing and in the trying to figure out what the heck the teacher is teaching, reactive teaching is hard on the psyche. I’m speaking for myself.
Reactive teaching brings back disconcerting memories of my own school years of those times when I was struggling and falling behind in a particular subject. You know, that nightmare of showing up for class, finding out there is a test, and you didn’t study? (And you’re barefoot, but I think that’s just my twist on this nightmare. lol!)
For me, reactive teaching generates that distressing lump in the pit of my stomach. Of course, I’m projecting my experiences onto my child. And I probably need to work on that more.
On the other hand, Saxon and Kumon generate a sense of accomplishment that comes from meaningful, (not arduous, not grueling) work. It’s a control issue, partly. It’s also a time issue. Wasting time, as I become older, becomes an increasingly evil sin. I mean, it’s sinful when someone else wastes my time. (When I choose to waste time, that’s not so bad.)
Catherine,
Reading through your efforts, especially this week, to bring Christopher up to speed in order to perform well on his upcoming test, leads me to ask the question:
In hindsight (20/20), what would you have done differently over the last few years? I imagine this is not an easy question to answer because, from what I recall, you’ve “discovered” many things along the path to today. “It’s always worse than you think.”
One thing you’ll likely say is to perform regular assessments, such as ITBS.
What else? More Saxon, more Kumon, more worksheets?
I’ll also add that by blogging you’re giving me lessons on how to handle all sorts of math (and non-math) issues. So maybe one thing you could have done differently is to have conjured up even more bloggers that could have shared their wisdom with you.
Besides the fact that it is so much work, both in the doing and in the trying to figure out what the heck the teacher is teaching, reactive teaching is hard on the psyche. I’m speaking for myself.
It is absolutely grueling.
And expensive.
I'm sure I'm up to $400 on fricking middle school math workbooks, and yesterday I could locate only SIX negative exponent problems.
So then I was back to surfing the web for worksheets.
Yes, I can write negative exponent problems myself, in theory BUT I don't have pedagogical content knowledge.
That is, I don't know the sequence in which I should write them; I don't know where to start; I don't trust myself not to miss certain incremental steps, etc.
I may have to go through Saxon Algebra 1 to figure out his sequence of instruction.
On the other hand, Saxon and Kumon generate a sense of accomplishment that comes from meaningful, (not arduous, not grueling) work. It’s a control issue, partly. It’s also a time issue. Wasting time, as I become older, becomes an increasingly evil sin.
That's a huge issue for me, especially with Christopher.
Childhood is so short; blink and it's over.
And the school thinks nothing of spending his time on anything they see fit.
Hey, that's a great "prompt"!
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