MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
In order to figure out where to start when solving equations with a variable on both sides of the equals sign, we will need some useful methods and practice. There are many methods we use to solve for the variable when it appears in more than one place. Students need to know how to combine like terms and will need the skills acquired with practice solving multi-step equations.
One of the most difficult times of solving equations is when you have the variable or the letter on both sides of the equal sign. And it can be really intimidating because you don't know where to start. What we're going to look at is how what you want to do is just simplify each side of the equation on its own and then go ahead and solve. And by solve I mean do the same thing to both sides of the equation. When you see variables on both sides and you're asked to solve don't be intimidated just be sure to take it one piece at a time one side then the other side and then solve from there.
