Look over the lessons in Chapter 7 (not including 7-8 Work Problems). Why do you think the editors of this textbook put all of this material together in one chapter? What connects all of the lessons (be specific)? Are there any lessons in Chapter 7 that do not fit in the chapter? With what units should they be inserted into? Also, do you think other lessons could be added to this chapter? If so, which ones, and why? If not, why not?
(Yes, there are many questions to answer here. You will be graded on your ability to produce well-reasoned answers.)
I think the editors of this textbook put all of this material together in one chapter because they are all related to each other and thought that it would be easy for the student if they learnt similar types of concepts at once. The topic of decimals and fractions connects (almost) all the lessons in this chapter. For example, fractional equations and ratios are connected with fractions. To expand on some of these topics, like ratios, percent problems and proportions were added. Fractional equations are connected with work problems (they both include fractions that you have to simplify), which explains why it was put in this chapter. My partner and I think that the part about negative exponents and scientific notations don’t fit into this chapter. Even though the two lessons connect to EACH OTHER, decimals don’t really have much to do with these concepts, and fractions aren’t involved in it either. We can’t find anything that connects the two lessons with the other sections before. Negative exponents and scientific notation doesn’t really have anywhere to go. The only direct connections they have are each other, and there’s too little of it for it to be a chapter on its own. I think the authors of this math textbook just stuck it in ‘Applying Fractions’ because they couldn’t find anywhere else for it to go, and just put it in the chapter that deals with decimals because they have a little bit in common. Chapter 7 covers a LOT of information, so I don’t think more lessons should be added. Almost all of the lessons are explained very thoroughly so there’s no need for another lesson to back it up and give more information about it. Also, all of the concepts that are shown are new (never shown before in the textbook), so I think it wouldn’t be good for the student if a lot of information are thrown at them at once.
ReplyDeleteWe believe the editor of the textbook put these topics all together under a single chapter because he wanted to show how fraction could be used in several different areas. As in the title “Applying Fraction”, most lessons of Chapter 7 can be linked together under the term “fraction”. Lessons regarding percents, ratios and proportions are directly linked to fraction as percents can be transformed in to ratios, ratios can be expressed as fractions and proportions are when two different fractions equal one another. Also, lessons on fractional equations and clearing decimals are both linked to fraction because first, in a fractional equations we have to clear the fraction to find the solution and even in the case of clearing decimals, decimals are directly linked to fractions as they can be expressed in fractional form as well. We believe the two lessons on negative exponents and scientific notation go together within themselves, but do not fit under the roof of this chapter, because none of them are directly linked to fractions. The lesson on negative exponents will fit better under Chapter 4 which concentrates on exponents and polynomials, and the lesson on scientific notation should be further established in Chapter 5 Section 2, dividing monomials. There aren’t any other lessons currently in the textbook that could be added to the chapter, because under the title “Applying Fractions” the chapter does cover most ways fractions are used within our capabilities.
ReplyDeleteThe editors of this textbook put all of this material together in one chapter in order to not only prepare us for the coming units, but because they’re all connected through showing us what we can do with fractions. Each lesson becomes connected, although indirectly through various methods and steps we learned in the past six chapters such as multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting fractions. We think that the lessons on negative exponents and scientific notations don’t quite fit in for this chapter. These two lessons, we believe, should be made into a mini/bonus chapter in between chapter 7 and 8. That way it’s not quite in a specific, already given chapter yet it’s actually being applied. No, other lessons shouldn’t be added into Chapter 7 because it already has many lessons as well as the fact that each one is very detailed and gives us plenty of things to learn and remember. It applies all we need to know about applying fractions and the things that we’ll need to know in the future, and at the same time formats our grade level.
ReplyDeleteWe think the editors of this textbook put all this material in one chapter because maybe they thought that if they separated all the different topics in this chapter, the chapters would be too short so they wanted to put all the topics that don’t fit with another chapter in one big, random chapter. They might have also wanted to lessen the numbers in the textbook. Often textbooks put ratios, proportions, and percents together in one chapter. But percents can also fit with clearing decimals so it would make sense to add them to the chapter as well. Ratio and proportions are also related to fractional equations because ratios and proportions can be written as fractions so why not add fractional equations to this chapter as well. Scientific notation is related to negative exponents because negatives exponents can be used when writing in scientific notation but these two topics don’t really fit with any thing else in the chapter. We could argue that scientific notation is sort of related to clearing decimals since they both deal with decimals but the relationship between them isn’t really that clear. Which is why we think negative exponents and scientific notation shouldn’t fit in this chapter. Negative exponents and scientific notation should fit in Chapter 5 because in Chapter 5, we mentioned scientific notation really briefly so why not fit in there. Chapter 5 also deals with exponents so we could have fit negative exponents in there as well. We think that the topics in Chapter 6 could be added to this chapter because they all deal with fractions so it would make sense to put them together. However, we don’t think it SHOULD happen because there are already a lot of topics in Chapter 7 so too many lessons would be overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteRatios, proportions, percents, negative exponents, scientific notations, fractional equations, and clearing decimals were all part of lessons in Chapter 7. The reason we think the editors of this textbook put all these lessons together in one chapter is because decimals and fractions are related, they make the rest of the unit easier to learn, and there was no where else to put it. Fractions connect all the lessons in this chapter, by making decimals easier to express, and putting numbers in a better condition to calculate. Scientific notations and negative exponents do not fit in the chapter, because they are not related to other lessons in this chapter. Most lessons are connected with fractions, except this lesson. Scientific notations and negative exponents should be inserted into Chapter 4 in which all the exponents and polynomials are mentioned. There aren’t any other lessons that could be added to this chapter, because they are unnecessary. They would make the chapter more confusing, because there are many word problems, and there are also a variety of units.
ReplyDeleteWe think that the editors of this textbook put all this lessons together in one chapter because they are all related to one and another. Ratio and Proportion relates to fraction also percent is kind of ratio. Negative Exponent chapter is concerned about exponent fraction. Last, Scientific Notation chapter has relation with negative exponents to make some numbers that are large or too small such that to hard to read. It would make it easier to work and calculate. The Negative Exponent and Scientific Notation does not fit in with this chapter because they do not really related to fractions. Both of them works together but they should be put into chapter 5 which is easier to study exponents.It should be put into section 5.2 where studying the dividing the monomials. It talks about dividing the negative exponents. We don't think any other lessons should be put into chapter 7 because it would make it complicated.
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