Phrasing in LE2 (linear algebra)

[edlugie]

In the linear algebra LE2 learning objective, the phrasing is somewhat confusing. The question asks to "mark the entries where pivots should appear". I have some students interpret this to mean to box the leftmost nonzero entry of each row. Some box the positions where pivots would appear in the RREF of the matrix.

I'm guessing that the intent is the latter interpretation. If this is the case, I would suggest a different phrasing. Perhaps something like "mark the positions on this matrix where you would see pivots after the matrix is put into RREF". But I also don't quite like the intent of this. Asking students to imagine ahead to what the RREF will look like and then subsequently asking them setup questions about the RREF feels backwards to me. I think asking students to "mark the leftmost nonzero entry of each row" would be more in the spirit of getting them to recognize the key structure of RREF.

Just my two cents.