Tag Archives: math

Teaching Math

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Probably one of the most dreaded subjects in school is math. Many students fear this subject and perhaps rightfully so. This post will provide some basic tips on how to help students to understand what is happening in math class.

Chunk the Material

Many math textbooks, especially at the college level, are huge. By huge we are talking over 1000 pages. That is a tremendous amount of content to cover in a single semester even if the majority of the pages are practice problems.

To overcome this, many have chapters that are broken down into 5 sub-sections such as 1.1, 1.2, etc. This means that in a given class period, students should be exposed to 2 or 3 new concepts. Depending on their background this might be too many for a student, especially if they are not a math major.

Therefore, a math teacher must provide new concepts only after previous concepts are mastered. This means that the syllabus needs to flexible and the focus is on the growth of students rather than covering all of the material.

Verbal Walk Through

When teaching math to a class, normally a teacher will provide an example of how to do a problem. The verbal walkthrough is when the teacher completes another example of the problem and the students tell the teacher what to do verbally. This helps to solidify the problem-solving process in the students’ minds.

A useful technique in relation to the verbal walkthrough is to intentional make mistakes when the students are coaching you. This requires the students to think about what is corrected and to be able to explain what was wrong with what the teacher did. The wisest approach is to make mistakes that have been experienced in the past as these are the ones that are likely to be repeated.

The verbal walkthrough works with all students of all ages. It can be more chaotic with younger children but this is a classic approach to teaching the step-by-step process of learning math calculations.

Practice Practice Practice

Daily practice is needed when learning mathematical concepts. Students should be learning new material while reviewing old material. The old material is reviewed until it becomes automatic.

This requires the teacher to determine the most appropriate mix of new and old. Normally, math has a cumulative effect in that new material builds on old. This means that students are usually required to use old skills to achieve new skills. The challenge is in making sure the old skills are at a certain minimum level that they can be used to acquire new skills.

Conclusion

Math is tough but if a student can learn it math can become a highly practical tool in everyday life. The job of the teacher is to develop a context in which math goes from mysterious to useful.

Algebraic Expressions and Equations

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This post will focus mainly on expressions and their role in algebra. Expressions play a critical role in mathematics and we all have had to try and understand what they are as well as what they mean.

Expression Defined

To understand what an expression is you first need to know what operation symbols are. Operation symbols tell you to do something to numbers or variables. Examples include the plus, minus, multiply, divide, etc.

An expression is a number, variable, or a combination of numbers[s] and variable[s] that use operation symbols. Below is an example

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Expressions consist of two terms and these are variables and constants. A variable is a letter that represents a number that can change. In our example above, the letter a is a variable.

A constant is a number whose value remains the same. In our example above, the numbers 2 and 4 are constants.

Expression vs Equation

An equation is when two expressions connected by an equal sign as shown below.

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In the example above we have to expressions. To the left of the equal sign is 2a * 4 and to the right of the equal sign is 16. Remember that an expression can be numbers and or variables so 16 is an expression because it is a number.

Simplify an Expression

Simplifying an expression involves completing as much math as possible to reduce the complexity of an expression. Below is an example.

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In order to complete this expression  above you need to know the order of operations which is explained below

Parentheses
Exponents
Multiplication Division
Adition Subtraction

In the example above, we begin with multiplication of 8 and 4 before we do the addition of adding 2. It’s important to remember that for multiplication/division or addition/subtraction that you move from left to right when dealing with these operation symbols in an expression. It is also important to know that subtraction and division are not associative (or commutative) that is: (1 – 2) – 3 != 1 – (2 – 3).

Evaluating an Expression

Evaluating an expression is finding the value of an expression when the variable is replaced with a specific number.

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Combining Like Terms

A common skill in algebra is the ability to combine like terms. A term is a constant or constant with one or more variables. Terms can include a constant such as 7 or a number and variable product such as 7a. The constant that multiplies the variable is called a coefficient. For example, 7a, 7 is the constant and the coefficient while a is the variable.

Combining like terms involves combining constant are variables that have the same characteristics for example

  • 3 and 2 are like terms because they are both constants
  • 2x and 3x are like terms because they are both constants with the same variable

Below is an example of combining like terms

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In this example, we first placed like terms next to each other. This makes it easier to add them together. The rest is basic math.

Conclusion

Hopefully, the concept of expressions makes more sense. This is a foundational concept in mathematics that if you do not understand. It is difficult to go forward in the study of math.

Basic Algebraic Concepts

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This post will provide insights into some basic algebraic concepts. Such information is actually useful for people who are doing research but may not have the foundational mathematical experience.

Multiple

A multiple is a product of n  and a counting number of n. In the preceding sentence, we actually have two unknown values which are.

  • n
  • Counting number

The n  can be any value, while the counting number usually starts at 1 and continues by increasing by 1 each time until you want it to stop. This is how this would look if we used the term n,  counting number, and multiple of n. 

n * counting number = multiple of n

For example, if we say that n = 2 and the counting numbers are 1,2,3,4,5. We get the following multiples of 2.

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You can see that the n never changes and remains constant as the value 2. The counting number starts at 1 and increases each time. Lastly, the multiple is the product of n and the counting number.

Let’s take one example from above

2 * 3 = 6

Here are some conclusions we can make from this simple equation

  • 6 is a multiple of 2. In other words, if I multiply 2 by a certain counting number I can get the whole number of 6.
  • 6 is divisible by 2. This means that if I divide 2 into six I will get a whole number counting number which in this case is 3.

Divisibility Rules

There are also several divisibility rules in math. They can be used as shortcuts to determine if a number is divisible by another without having to do any calculation.

A number is divisible by

  • 2 when the last digit of the number 0, 2, 4, 6, 8
    • Example 14, 20, 26,
  • 3 when the sum of the digits is divisible by 3
    • Example 27 is divisible by 3 because 2 + 7 = 9 and 9 is divisible by 3
  • 5 when the number’s last digit is 0 or 5
    • Example 10, 20, 25
  • 6 when the number is divisible by 2 and 3
    • Example 24 is divisible by 6 because it is divisible by 2 because the last digit is for and it is divisible by 3 because 2 + 4 = 6 and six is divisible by 3
  • 10 when the number ends with 0
    • Example 20, 30 , 40, 100

Factors

Factors are two or more numbers that when multiplied produce a number. For example

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The numbers 7 and 6 are factors of 42. In other words, 7 and 6 are divisible by 42. A number that has only itself and one as factors is known as a prime number. Examples include 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. A number that has many factors is called a composite number and includes such examples as 4, 8, 10, 12, 14.

An important concept in basic algebra is understanding how to find the prime numbers of a composite number. This is known as prime factorization and is done through the development of a factor tree. A factor tree breaks down a composite number into the various factors of it. These factors are further broken down into their factors until you reach the bottom of a tree that only contains prime numbers. Below is an example

 

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You can see in the tree above that the prime factors of 12 are 2 and 3. If we take all of the prime factors and multiply them together we will get the answer 12.

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Conclusion

Understanding these basic terms can only help someone who maybe jumped straight into statistics in grad school without have the prior thorough experience in basic algebra.