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The idea of this tool is to focus your student(s) on the correct process of 'doing the same to both sides' to keep the equation balanced, whilst preventing misconceptions in how the algebra works.
Once your student is confident in the strategy of what to do to both sides, you should then also ensure they can predict what will appear on the screen before they press the 'Apply Operation' button. They could write it down, or they could just speak it to you. Another option is to have students working in pairs and they take it in turns to say what operation to do and to tell their partner what will appear on the next line (before then pressing the button).
Another way of working is for the student to write down each step before then checking it on the computer. The advantage here is that this will let them check every step of their method as they go and immediately identify where any errors or misconceptions are (rather than just getting the wrong answer at the end and not knowing why). It also guides them on writing down their method, not just their answer. The danger here is students who write down the step after the computer has done it for them without thinking about it themselves first - they might think they can solve equations well, but when they then have to do it for real, on paper, without a computer, misconceptions and errors may appear.
If you have individuls or pairs using this page in a class, you can use the table at the top to see how well they've been doing as you circulate around the room. You can see how many they have correct at each level and then a total count of how many correct, and a total 'score'. Levels are highlighted once 3 or more solutions are achieved, so you can check progress at a glance. After 4 correct answers in a row a student is prompted to 'Level up'. The total score is obtained by multiplying how many correct on each level, so by doing a variety of levels it is easier to get a better score. The per-level count is number correct dot current streak; streak meaning how many correct in a row.
If you wish to link to this page, you can add ?level=12 at the end of the url to jump straight to level 12 for example. Alternatively you can just tell your students to jump themselves straight to the appropriate level. To help you judge what might be appropriate for your student(s), here is a list of descriptions for each level. Some of the level increases are quite subtle, perhaps moving to negative answers or fractions and some increases just add variety, mixing questions from previous levels.
If you're a parent or other type of teacher for a single student, you may like to know that the score automatically zeros at the start of each new day. The 'History' button at the top right will let you see scores over previous days. Whilst it might be tempting to set your son or daughter a daily task to get a certain score etc. be careful. It's not like practising tables. Your daughter/son/student will get significantly more out of this if you go through it with them and they tell you what will appear before pressing the button. If they are self motivated to then write down their steps before pressing the button that is then fantastic for them to progress - but setting a 'target' when unsupervised may result in short-cuts that whilst partly beneficial, may miss out on the full opportunity for learning.
Use this to perfect your strategy knowing that everything you are allowed to do is mathematically correct. Whilst you can't learn bad mathematical habits or develop misconceptions by using this page, if you don't understand what is happening or are getting frustrated for other reasons, please seek help from a teacher to explain what you're seeing here.
Once you feel confident with the strategy to be getting questions correct you should try really hard to then have the self discipline to predict what will appear on the screen, so you can predict what the operation you have chosen to apply actually does. Try and say the whole line, such as "Three ex equals eighteen" and anticipate any simplified fractions. Knowing which operation to use and having a 'strategy' is critical when solving equations for real, but it's only half the job; you also need to know how the operations work and how to apply them correctly and accurately. Finally, see how efficient you can be by solving equations in fewer steps if you can.
You should also notice the method written in brackets over on the left side. This shows you what you should write on paper when doing these yourself for real. Do you also see the way each step is on a new line and how the = signs line up underneath each other. This is considered good 'style' and you should try to do this yourself. For the perfect style, leave a bit of a gap on the left so your equation goes nicely down the centre of your page, and remember to write the question (and check you copied it correctly) when solving any equation. What ends up in the green box is what you should be aiming to write on paper.