options: Ratios & Proportional Relationships: students learn to recognize, describe, represent, and reason with ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and percent.

Number & Operations in Base Ten: students learn to work with the base-ten system and build place value understanding.

Number & Operations - Fractions: students learn to understand fractions as numbers and may work with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Measurement & Data: students learn to work with data and measure attributes such as time, money, length, area, and volume. They may learn to compare measurements to operations and convert between different units of measure.

Modeling: students learn to choose and use appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze real-world empirical situations, improve decisions, and report on their conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Geometry: students learn to classify geometric figures by their properties, and understand and compare the relationships between them. Students develop and use formulas to compute lengths, areas, and volumes, and they use transformations to generate new shapes and compare existing ones. Geometry can be studied with and without coordinates.

Statistics & Probability: students learn to analyze and produce data distributions, and build understanding of univariate and bivariate data. They learn to interpret data, make statistical inferences, justify conclusions, understand rules of probability, and use probability to make decisions.

Operations & Algebra: students learn to solve problems using algebraic thinking and operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They may learn to identify and explain arithmetic patterns, evaluate or manipulate numerical expressions, and reason with equations and inequalities.

Number Systems and Quantity: students learn to understand the complex number system and reason quantitatively.

Functions: students learn to define, use, and evaluate functions to model relationships between quantities.

Counting & Cardinality: students learn to know number names and the count sequence, count to tell the number of objects, and compare numbers.
problem_activity: Activity
The purpose of this lesson is to increase fluency in solving equations. Students will solve equations individually and then compare differing, though accurate, solution paths in order to compare their work with others. This will help students recognize that while the final solution will be the same, there is more than one path to the correct answer that uses principles of balancing equations learned in previous lessons.
Launch
Arrange students in groups of 3–4. Give students quiet think time to complete the activity and then tell groups to share how they solved the equations for
\(x\)
and discuss the similarities and differences in their solution paths.
Representation: Internalize Comprehension.
Activate or supply background knowledge about solving equations. Encourage students to use previously solved equations as guidelines to determine appropriate steps.
Supports accessibility for: Memory; Conceptual processing
Representing, Conversing: MLR2 Collect and Display.
As groups discuss their work, circulate and listen for the language students describe the similarities and differences in their solution paths. Write down different solution paths that led to the same result in a visual display. Consider grouping words and phrases used for each step in different areas of the display (e.g., “multiply first”, “divide first”, “subtract
\(x\)
from the right”, “add
\(x\)
from the left”). Continue to update the display as students move through the activity, and remind them to borrow from the display while discussing with their group. This will help students develop their mathematical language around explaining different solution paths to solving equations.
Design Principle(s); Maximize meta-awareness
Student Facing
Solve these equations for
\(x\)
.
1.
\(\frac{12+6x}{3}=\frac{5-9}{2}\)
2.
\(x-4=\frac13(6x-54)\)
3.
\(\text-(3x-12)=9x-4\)
Student Response
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Student Facing
Are you ready for more?
I have 24 pencils and 3 cups. The second cup holds one more pencil than the first. The third holds one more than the second. How many pencils does each cup contain?
Student Response
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Activity Synthesis
Students should take away from this activity the importance of using valid steps to solve an equation over following a specific solution path. Invite students to share what they discussed in their groups. Consider using some of the following prompts:
“How many different ways did your group members solve each problem?”
“When you compared solution paths, did you still come up with the same solution?” (Yes, even though we took different paths, we ended up with the same solutions.)
“How can you make sure that the path you choose to solve an equation is a valid path?” (I can use the steps we discovered earlier when we were balancing: adding the same value to each side, multiplying (or dividing) by the same value to each side, distributing and collecting like terms whenever it is needed.)
“What are some examples of steps that will not result in a valid solution?” (Performing an action to only one side of an equation and distributing incorrectly will give an incorrect solution.)


correct_option_index: 7