Goal for this year in College Algebra: #EndSimplify

I want to be transparent about what students should do. Expand, contract, write without negative exponents, write WITH negative exponents. "Simplify" is subjective and overloaded.

Materials I'm working on attached.

That should have said "condense", not "contract" ... though it's kind of funny that these are the words we've chosen. If we can condense expressions, can we evaporate them?

The negative exponents one grinds my gears in particular because I'd MUCH rather take the derivative of 2x⁻³ with the Power Rule than 2/x³ with the Quotient Rule.