7. What's the big deal? Why shouldn't we use the = sign this way?
14 × 2 = 28 + 2 = 30
This is something that makes sense only in one direction: left to
right, so it reinforces the idea that the = sign is a left to right
symbol rather than a "same as" symbol.
It's hard for students to switch gears from writing to calculating,
let's not make it any harder!
A great slogan I stole from Nancy Nutting is
"Math people can do things forwards and backwards--as long as they
tell the truth!"
It means, you can write your equations in either order:
1 + 4 = 5 or 5 = 1 + 4
as long as the amounts on both sides of the = sign are the same.
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