Lesson 1

Properties of Exponents

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Lesson Narrative

This lesson is optional because it revisits below grade-level content. If the pre-unit diagnostic assessment indicates that your students know this material, this lesson may be safely skipped.

In this lesson, students review exponent rules that they developed in grade 8 where the exponents in question are integers. In upcoming lessons, students use these exponent rules to connect radical expressions with rational exponents.

Students look for and make use of structure when they analyze the exponents in expressions to decide whether they are equivalent (MP7). Students analyze repeated division to extend the definition of exponents from positive integers to all integers (MP8).


Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Comprehend why the properties of exponents hold for positive integers.
  • Generalize from repeated reasoning to see how exponent properties help us extend the definition of exponents from positive integers to all integers.

Student Facing

  • Let’s use integer exponents.

Learning Targets

Student Facing

  • I can evaluate expressions with integer exponents.

CCSS Standards

Building On

Building Towards

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