Nearpod! Formative assessment in progress!

Today our lesson was about solving absolute value equations and inequalities.  Instead of giving notes, demonstrating solving, and then giving practice, I prepared sets of problems already worked out.  I asked students to study them, to take time to notice was was happening in each problem, to share their noticings, and then work a sample using their ideas.

So our first set looked like this:

Students shared their "noticings" and outlined the steps they saw.  One student wrote: "The distance between the five numbers and -4 can be positive or negative so you create 2 equations.Second once you set up your 2 equations with a positive and negative y, you solve for x.Third you should have two different answers for x." All of their statements are captured on Nearpod - an amazing app!


When they worked out examples, I shared their work with the class and we talked about strengths and misconceptions.

One misconception was "making one" by dividing by 10 on each side of this equation.  Several students throughout the day said that it was not possible to divide 0 by 10.

We talked briefly about fact families.  Can we multiply 10 by any number and get 0?  Can we multiply 0 by any number and get 10?


A second misconception was about absolute value equaling a negative number.

This student said the solution was not possible because 7x can't equal a negative number.

We discussed the solution to the equation 7x = -3.

Then we discussed the difference between |7x| = -3.




Tonight I can look back through all the slides again to see students' thinking and to determine key ideas to reinforce in our next class.

I can see Nearpod being a definite go-to teaching tool!  Nearpod and GoFormative have similar qualities.  Now to determine in which situations one is better than the other!