Writing & Solving Equations in with Slides

Algebra 1 students had a quiet activity to do when they finished their first test. We were about to begin our chapter on solving equations, but I also know that solving equations should have been covered pretty thoroughly in prior years (7th-8th). So I created a Collaborative Slides and shared it with students.

At the top of each slide, I added an integer -1 through 30 (I didn't include zero, but it was an oversight and I will in the future). I shared the same slides presentation with BOTH of my Algebra 1 classes so all 55 students would be working on the same document. Each student had to write three different equations that required more than one step to solve, where x was equal to the value at the top of the page. I was able to flip through the slides and see who really understood this concept before I even taught a bit of it. The next day I had students Google "Random # Generator" and change the parameters to 2-61.

They would randomly get a number, which would correspond to the # of the slide in the presentation, and would solve a problem on that page. THey could choose which of the three problems. If they found one that was incorrectly written, they would need to write a new equation that was correct. The kids were very engaged in this activity.