Portfolio Entry 1

               Hello I am A.J. Davis, and I am an 8th grader here at the Dayton Regional STEM School. Math is one of my most challenging classes. You know, the class with the bunch of numbers and the confusing algebraic expressions and equations. Yep, that’s the class I am talking about. Although I am not terrible at math, I still struggle with lots of math concepts.  I am also good with other math terms! I will go more into detail about those in a little bit. I still struggle in some areas of math but one that I have really grown in would have to be the Say It with Symbols Unit. This unit is where we took tiles that were different shapes and sizes. These different shapes represented different variables, like x or x squared. During this time, we used tiles to represent expressions, we also used the tiles for other stuff, like simplifying expressions or solving equations. Although this was not easy for me at the beginning, I got slowly better at it over time. I am almost getting to the point where I don’t even have to use the tiles to solve equations. I am now able to help people with their questions instead of asking them myself. That is why I think that I have grown in the algebraic tiles unit in general.

               The algebraic tiles unit was hard for me, but it was easily understandable once you looked at it a different way. An example of me growing could be in 3.1. In this investigation we were given an expression or an equation, and we were expected to break down it and tell what each number was for and what each operation meant. For example, Independent and Dependent Variables. The independent variable can change on its own were the dependent variable depends on the independent variable. WE also simplified some expressions and equations using the algebraic tiles. Which was a big help throughout this whole project. Algebraic tiles were there to help us through the process of simplifying an equation or expression. Even though I can now do it without them, it was a big help when learning it for the first time.

               For my second artifact, I am going to use 3.2 Solving equations in my book “Say It with Symbols”. I chose this because this is another thing that I have done using algebraic tiles. In this investigation (which is like an assignment that we do in our book) we used the algebraic tiles to solve for x and equations. This was difficult at first because I have never used tiles to solve an equation. Although it was difficult at first I quickly caught on to how to do it. We had a key telling us that the x squared tile was this tile and the x tile is this one. Using that key we would solve the equation with the tiles. Some equations took a lot of tiles, and some took very few. That just means it is going to take a little bit longer to solve it. I think that I have grown in solving equations because I came into this unit, not knowing how to use the tiles to solve the equations. Now getting ready to start a new unit, I can almost solve the equations without using tiles. I now understand really well how to solve the equations, people have asked me to help them. The great thing is I can actually help them now.

               In conclusion I, have grown in solving equations and expressions using tiles. Now that I can do most of this stuff without tiles, shows that it can come in handy later in the future. If I have an amusement park, which I sure hope I do because I would totally love that. Then I can soon find the average of how many people come to the park and how many people go to the roller coasters. If I know that x people come to a roller coaster in 1 day. If I add another roller coaster, then will get an x amount of people to ride that roller coaster. I can figure out how many people will ride that roller coaster using averages. Before I had a hard time understanding equations and how to solve them. But this unit has shown me another way to look at it. Which has brought me to a new strategy in solving equations, one that is much better and much simpler. I would not have learned it, if it were not for the algebraic tiles unit.