The student is viewing the equation in the wrong way, he needs to put the equation in standard from / correctly first in order to be able to find the slope.
The straight line formula is
looking at the formula in that form m=gradient (slope) , and c is the Y intercept.
so putting the above equation in the correct form
so m = -4 meaning that -4 is the gradient aka slope, and 3 is the y-intercept!