General Information
Benchmark Instructional Guide
Connecting Benchmarks/Horizontal Alignment
Terms from the K-12 Glossary
- Equal Sign
- Equation
Vertical Alignment
Previous Benchmarks
Next Benchmarks
Purpose and Instructional Strategies
The purpose of this benchmark is to provide explicit opportunities for students to deepen understanding by justifying their solutions and explaining strategies they have chosen, as well as developing an understanding of the equal sign (MTR.6.1, MTR.4.1).- Instruction may present equations in different forms, such as a + b = c or c = a + b (MTR.2.1).
- Instruction focuses on understanding and supporting, not only identifying whether or not an equation is true.
- Instruction helps students understand that the equal sign does not mean to compute, but relates quantities to one another.
- Instruction includes the use of context to provide a purpose for adding or subtracting, and to support and scaffold student drawings (MTR.7.1).
Common Misconceptions or Errors
- Students may think that “equals” just means to compute, and may not recognize equations and expressions represented in non-standard ways, such as with pictures or manipulatives.
Strategies to Support Tiered Instruction
- Instruction includes opportunities to write an equation given sets of pictures or manipulatives. Alternatively, students can work in reverse, pull a card from the stack that represents the sum and generate as many equations as possible to match the sum.
- For example, students are given a set of cards and they write an equation to represent the quantity of objects on the cards and their sum. In this case, 3 + 5 = 8.
- Teacher models manipulatives to represent equations.
- For example, the teacher models an equation, then gives students two-color counters or snap cubes to use to represent equations. Given the equation 4 + 2 = 6, students build a set of four and a set of two and then count to determine the sum.
Instructional Tasks
Instructional Task 1
Decide if each equation is true or false. Draw a picture or write a new equation to defend your answer.Instructional Task 2
Lamar says that there are 6 blue marbles and 7 green marbles. Jackie says that there are 13 marbles? Who is right? Draw a picture and write an equation to prove your answer.
Instructional Items
Instructional Item 1
Draw a picture to show that 17 = 7 + 10.*The strategies, tasks and items included in the B1G-M are examples and should not be considered comprehensive.