DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING IN LEARNING LINEAR EQUALITY OF ONE VARIABLE THROUGH CONTEXT

The aim of this paper is how to develop the students’ understanding in learning linear equality of one variable through context. It has mathematical problem that students could understand in learning linear equality of one variable. In this article, we will discuss one part of activity out of five activities that we have developed. This activity focused on how students could link the contextual problem into solving of the linear equality of one variable, especially on how to bring students understanding into formal form. The participants of this research were twenty-five students in class of VIIc MTs Diniyah Puteri Pekanbaru. The method of this research is design research. It has three phases consist of preparing of experiment, experimenting in the classroom, and conducting the retrospective analysis. While experimenting in the classroom, the collected data indicated that the students faced some difficulties. They could not understand while connecting the contextual problem into the formal form. Otherwise, the starting activity showed that they interested counting the datum of “Card Family”. They interested to count and compare the datum and gave any strategies that we expected. The diversity of students’ answering can be discussed with the other students to obtain the best result. The closing of experimenting classroom, students was guided to get formal form likely variable in mathematics and the equality. Keyword: Linear Equality of one variable, design research, PMRI