Planning GuideGrade 7
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Preservation of Equality

Strand: Patterns and Relations (Variables and Equations)
Outcome: 3

Step 3: Plan for Instruction

Guiding Questions

  • What learning opportunities and experiences should I provide to promote learning of the outcomes and permit students to demonstrate their learning?
  • What teaching strategies and resources should I use?
  • How will I meet the diverse learning needs of my students?

A. Assessing Prior Knowledge and Skills

Before introducing new material, consider ways to assess and build on students' knowledge and skills related to preservation of equality.

Ways to Assess and Build on Prior Knowledge  Word

B. Choosing Instructional Strategies

Consider the following strategies when planning lessons.

  • Build on understanding of equality from previous grades, using the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
  • Have students use balance scales to illustrate equality and then connect the concrete to the pictorial and symbolic representations.
  • Use balance scales and alge-tiles together with an unknown weight, such as a film container filled with pinto beans, to illustrate equivalent forms of a given equation. Have students draw the diagram and write the symbolic representation.
  • Use balance scales and alge-tiles together with an unknown weight, such as a film container filled with pinto beans, to illustrate the solution of equations in which the answer is a whole number. Have students draw the diagram and write the symbolic representation.
  • Use the pictorial representation of alge-tiles on balance scales to solve equations in which the solution is a negative integer.
  • Have students solve problems by writing the appropriate equation, illustrating the solution concretely or pictorially using balance scales and recording the solution symbolically. This addresses the mathematical process of problem solving included in the Specific Outcome.

C. Choosing Learning Activities

Learning Activities are examples of activities that could be used to develop student understanding of the concepts identified in Step 1.

Sample Learning Activities
Teaching an Understanding of Preservation of Equality Download Activities  Word