First we Understand - Visual Algebra 7-12

Have you ever seen the T-shirt that says "I used to be good at Math, until they brought the Alphabet into it"? All Math starts as a picture in your mind… a way to see the problem, a way to hold the numbers still while you look for the relationships that you can use to answer the question: Why? That simple word, the repetitive question of every three-year-old, is the key to unlocking the beauty of mathematics, but somehow, by High School, math is too often more about "finding answers" than about finding "why". It doesn't have to be that way. As we move from more concrete to more abstract, for our learners to keep up with the shifts, they must do more than blindly try to match the ‘right’ algorithms and the 'right' methods to the 'right' problems … … But First, we Understand