Saturday, 3 August 2013

Posters for BODMAS / BIDMAS Misconception

It's a great mneumonic, but it can lead to the misconception that division is done before multiplication, when actually they should be done at the same time reading left to right, like a sentence.

The same applies to addition and subtraction.

Today's home-made offerings are posters to remind learners of this.

The first states the theory and the second models an example using the 'Drop it Down' method I use to teach Order of Operations.







They can both be downloaded here from TES.
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2 comments:

  1. Unknown7 August 2013 at 00:53

    If the logic of your argument is accepted, then the order of groups DM and AS could provide for a more memorable acronym: BIMDAS/BOMDAS.

    Apart from being less awkward to say, it is internally consistent to express the "increasing functional operators" of Multiplication and Addition before the "decreasing functional operators" of Subtraction and Division.

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    1. @TheMathsMagpie7 August 2013 at 08:08

      Hi Mark and thanks for your comment.

      I think my main issue is that the acronym itself has led to students having misconceptions - it's one of those that's partially true - just like "2 positives make a negative" is also sometimes incorrectly applied.

      I like the idea of discussing with them that there are different acronyms that they could make - going to use that thanks!

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