A Good Math Teacher

What makes a good math teacher?

 

Connection. An important quality in a good math teacher is the ability to help students form connections with the subject. Teachers must make sure students understand the concepts rather than just memorizing the equations.

 

Can you provide an example?
Say I am learning how to solve linear equations for x. Pretend I am a novice algebra student.

Question:

Solve 2x + 5 = 50.

What is the approach to make sure I know what to do on my own?

 

Solve 2x + 5 = 50 -> take a look on what you have here, unknown variable and two known numbers
what you need to do-> find x that make given equation true
first thing to do is isolate unknown variable by adding -5 to both sides
then you got
2x=45........now you need to recognize what math operation to use to find x

 

What about explaining what you are doing step by step? Remember, I am a student that never seen an algebraic equation.

Take 2x = 45.

We can divide both sides by 2 to find x.
We can also multiply both sides of the linear equation by the reciprocal of the coefficient of x.

Yes?

 

We can divide both sides by 2 to find x

 

What about what I said about the reciprocal?

 

of course, you can multiply the of the coefficient of x, but that would be confusing for someone who is just learning to solve equation
term "divide" is much easier to understand than term "reciprocal"

 

Very good.