Foundations First

It may seem obvious, which is why it’s one side of TriTutoring’s triangle: foundations, strategies, and effort. Still, so many disregard shortcomings in foundational learning and try to skip right to strategies. How can you learn to better analyze test questions that incorporate algebra if you don’t know the algebra? Strategies help, for sure, but getting those basics down first help the strategies come naturally.

When starting in a class or with a tutor, it’s easy to fall behind on what seem like the small details, however those little details will soon become the fundamentals upon which the complex topics are based.

One example of this is with Order of Operations (also known as PEMDAS). Starting around middle school, students are taught that operations (addition, multiplication, exponents, etc.) have to be done in a certain order. In fact, order of operations is the basis for many of those popular Facebook posts in which everyone is getting the wrong answer on a seemingly easy question. (5 + 3) ÷ 2 is (very) different from 5 + 3 ÷ 2. Do you know or remember why? It’s because P stands for Parenthesis, which comes first in order of operations. Suddenly, you’re in physics class four years later getting the wrong answer… did you forget PEMDAS?

Have no idea what I’m talking about? Learning about PEMDAS, reviewing PEMDAS, or just trying to get those Facebook posts correct? Check out TriTutoring’s video about PEMDAS! It’s never the wrong time to review the foundations!