Order of Operations Error Analysis Math Activity--Free Order of Operations Activity

 How to Practice Order of Operations?

Students love finding mistakes, especially mistakes the teacher or their peers make. I always had a tally on the board of how many mistakes that I made in math class. Finding mistakes is a higher level thinking skill because students have to understand the concept enough to be able to find where something went wrong.

One of my favorite activities for order of operations was having students look for errors when it came to solving the expressions. You can do this with little prep as long as you have a few order of operations problems and some dry erase markers like in this post. 

I also put together this presentation for 5th grade math. Each slide has an order of operation problem solved with two different answers. Students have to find which one is correct and you can take it a step further by ask him to find what mistake did someone make to get the wrong answer.

Now students are quick to find mistakes of their peers and their teachers, but when it comes to finding their own mistakes it can be a struggle. But however if we continue to expose them to common misconceptions and common mistakes and point them out hopefully they will remember them when they are solving problems on their own.

Here are some other resources for order of operations that you might be able to use. 

Order of Operations Error Analysis Task Cards (6th Grade)

Order of Operations Color by Number (5th Grade)

All my order of operations resources

Order of Operations Errors-Order of Operations Error Analysis Activity

We've been working on Order of Operations this week and my students have the Order part down, but it is the Operation part they need some help with. 

I did an activity where I asked students to purposely make a mistake when evaluating the expression. Then the class had to find their mistake.

Order of Operations Error Analysis

My students LOVED this. It went over so well and they all wanted to go up several times to try to stump their classmates with the tiny little error they made. 

Eventually, I found 3 students who had evaluated the expressions in 3 different ways and then had the class explain their mistakes. 

They made mistakes with the exponents, solving in the wrong order, ignoring grouping, not regrouping when adding and subtracting, etc. It shows that they know what type of errors are common and will hopefully be on the look out for it. 

I have a station that I will pull out next week where the students will get an expression solved two different ways and will have to sort them into correct and incorrect. That station is available in my store. If you have it, make sure to re-download it because I made some updates to it. 

Order of Operations

I am starting order of operations with my students tomorrow and Tuesday. I prefer not to just jump into algorithms with students without hooking them in or giving them some kind of real-world reason they are learning a new skill. 

Before teaching, my understanding of order of operations was the some people made some rules, decided that multiplication had to be done before addition and we all just blindly follow. Who "they" were was unclear to me. 

When we teach order of operations by just giving an expression and asking students to evaluate it, that is essentially what we are teaching: We are saying that these are just some rules you need to memorize. 

However, as I tell my students, in the real world there aren't signs that make you solve a math problem before you enter a room. Or you don't have to prove you can multiply before you take your driver's test. Instead, math comes up and you have to be able to take all you have learned and decide what is useful in that situation. 

So instead of telling students the order of operations, I introduce them to real life situations and ask them to write numerical expressions that tell the story with numbers. Then I ask them to evaluate those expressions using the knowledge they have of where the expression came from. My students learned order of operations last year without exponents, so they are not completely new to it.

I have created a presentation on Google Slides that will be the lesson I do with my students. 

Use it if you would like. If you would like to make changes to it, go to File and then Make a Copy for yourself to save to your Google Drive. 

Blog Posts I Love--Part Two

I need a better name for this. But this week I went searching for specific posts on Order of Operations. This is what I found in the process. Not every post is on Order of Operations.

Embrace the Drawing Board presents an interesting way to have a debate over the order of operations.

At Leaf and STEM Learning, who happens to be my math coach on my campus, she uses GEMA to remember Order of Operations. I used that in summer school and I did not have one student make any mistake in remembering the order of the operations they were to perform.

Insert Clever Math Pun Here talks about the trend to save the animals by not making mistakes in math. I am going to incorporate it in a math lesson coming up. There are some mistakes that make my heart twist. Like when a student says 3/4 is the same as .34. I want to throw my hands up in despair. Maybe the dramatic will help my students remember.

I really like this Order of Operations Puzzle at 180 Days of Math at Mesa. I can use it for a small group activity this week.

Finally, I like this Order of Operations Activity from Writing to Learn to Teach which gives students starting numbers and they are given signs and exponents to make expressions.

5 Dice

There are so many math apps out there and not all of them are awesome. And some are, but you can only do so much before you have to pay for full access.

5 Dice is a great FREE app that helps students practice all levels of Order of Operation. 

After students choose a level, they roll dice to get their starting number. 

Then they have to create an expression, using all the numbers, to hit the target number. 

Once students hit the target, they are shown the expression they made and how it is simplified. 

My students think it is fun and it is a great way to practice order of operations.