Appetizers and Lessons for Mathematics and Reason (www.whyslopes.com)
||Définition d'une variable || Algèbre || Arithmetique || Logique ||La raison basée sur les règles et modelés||

Online Volumes
1,  Elements of Reason.
1A. Pattern Based Reason 
1B. Math Curriculum Notes
2. Three Skills for Algebra
3. Why Slopes & More Math

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More Site Areas 
1. Help Your Child or Teen Learn 
2. Solving Linear Equations
3. Fractions Ratios Rates Proportions & Units
4. Euclidean Geometry
5. Analytic Geometry/Functions 
6. Number Theory
7. More Calculus
More Site Areas 
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9. Qc Maths  Education  
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15. Algebra, Odds & Ends, Etc
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to work online with others.

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YOU are better than YOU think. Show yourself  how:  

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Read  logic chapters 1 to 5  in online volume Three Skills for Algebra  for greater skills & confidence in  work 
and study

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 Logic chapters 1 to 5  re- appear not in sequence, as is or longer,  in  Volume 1A,  Pattern Based Reason, Bon Appetite.

Logic Mastery
 Amazing, Amusing, Amorous,  Delicious, Delightful, Edifying, Strengthening Elixir. 
It eases work & learning difficulties Makes the hard easier. Opens eyes. Leads to greater precision.
in reading and
writing

Logic mastery makes the hard, easier. Logic mastery  leads to better, stronger and richer comprehension.  Logic mastery  improves reading and writing.  Logic mastery ease learning difficulties.  Logic mastery gives a headstart.  In sum, logic mastery  will develops critical thinking, improve reading and writing, and give a firmer base for work and studies at many levels. Good luck.


After logic  (a) continue reading Three Skills for Algebra, chapters 8 to 14  and do so alongside site area on solving liinear Equations ; or (b) see this calculus starter lesson and Volume 3, Why Slopes  & More Math, chapters 2 to 6;

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Caution: Site advice is approximately correct, for some circumstances, not all. That leaves room for thought

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What may be learnt and when depends on how skills and concepts are developed. Making the hard easier and clearer will allow earlier & richer development of skills and concepts.


Try the Twiddla Whiteboard. In principle, it  allows to people to draw and chat together online on a copy of this webpage or a clean sheet. The chat may be via text or audio.  Visit www.twiddla.com to set up whiteboards to work with the webpage of your choice.

For online automated help in senior high school maths & calculus, visit  quickmath.com  For Automatic Calculus and Algebra Help with derivatives, integrals, graphs, linear equations, matrix algebra, visit calc101.com  With  overlap, each site quickmath & calc101offers a different range of services, some free, some not, all based on webmathematica. Good luck.

 

Stick Diagrams is a new invention for visually providing a context for the solution of equations in one unknown. Worked examples follow with and then without stick diagrams 

(i) x + 20 = 29
(ii) 2x + 5 = 20
(iii) 3x + 10 = 32
(iv) 5a + 16 = 3a+ 24
(v)  (½)x + 8 = 24½
(vI)  (¾)a + 16 = (¼)a+ 24
(vii) (¾)q + 17 = 32
(viii) 13 =[2/3]x +7 twice
(x) Animated Examples
(i) Integral Coefficients (A)
(ii) Integral Coefficients (B)
(iii) Fractional Coefficients
(iv) With parameters

See if you can follow the solutions and the solution checks in them.  

Each Example comes with one or more silent movie (animated gif) solutions of further examples.

If you do not follow the use of parameters  do not worry.   Take peak at Chapters 15 in Three Skills for Algebra. It will give you a second perspective on solving linear equations starting with examples simpler than you have mastered in this site area, but that second perspective also may also help you understand the following example.  It is an example from the end of Chapter 15.

Notes for Teachers

  1. Most students understand the use of stick diagrams in solving linear equations.  One recent student could not see the equivalent between the stick diagrams and equations, but he could use the diagrams to solve.  More examples might have helped.  Not all is certain in mathematics education. 
  2. A vertical pair of equal-length sticks (line segments) with the second below the first is use to represent an equation in which the length of a line segment is the unknown.  A sequence of operations easily seen and understood may shorten or lengthen or multiply each stick by the same amount, so that a sequence of stick pairs or equation results.  The aim is obtain a pair of equal length sticks with one has the sought for length and the other have a length given by a number. That solves the equation. The solution method here employ subtraction, multiplication and division to shift from one pair of equi-length sticks to another pair in order to solve for or isolate the unknown. Some students will not catch on to the idea that operations should lead from one pair of equi-length sticks to another.
  3. A  three column table summarizing the operations appears in each example and is followed a check of the solution obtained. By checking, students know at the end of their calculation whether or not a mistake has been made in obtaining a solution.  The first column in the table presents a sequence of stick diagrams. The third column gives the corresponding equation. The  middle describes the operation in going from one pair of sticks to another (or one equation to another). Ideally the description is written in a way that it describe the operation on a pair of sticks and the corresponding equations well. The filling in of the table introduces the notion that what is done to one stick or one side of an equation has to be done to the other side as well to maintain equality of the lengths each stick or equation represents. 
  4. The equations here and in the exercises may be solved without using the stick diagrams. Some students may see the stick diagrams and decide not to use them.  But their use introduces the notion that what is done to one stick or one side of an equation has to be done to the other side as well to maintain equality of the lengths each stick or equation represents.  Ask students who see the stick diagrams and decide not to use them to have patience and to take the time to demonstrate they mastered stick diagram usage.  Implicit in their usage are all the rules of algebra for solving equations. Those  rules will be formally given later with reference and illustration by the stick diagram method of solving equations. 
  5. Students should be required to check that the solution they obtained satisfies the original equation, and be told explicitly if the right hand side does not equal the left hand side for your solution that they have to look for the error (or if time is short, acknowledge their solution is wrong). Finding that the the right hand side does not equal the left hand side and saying nothing, or worse claiming to have done the problem points to a lack of comprehension.
  6. In class or a solution given by a student, the three column table may be filled in one row at a time and one row after another with no work before it. However in these webpages, the solution is provided in paragraph form step by step before the three column table is written to summarize the proceeding.
  7. The examples here involve only  unit and  simple fractions ¼ ½ ¾ mainly because they easily inserted typed on the keyboard. Other fraction, proper and improper, and mixed numbers appear in the exercises. 
  8. The stick diagram method here employs only subtraction, division and replication of segment lengths.  Magnification and reduction of diagrams is also useful to fit them in the width of a column. Example equations are chosen so that all coefficient and terms in the stick diagram method remain non-negative. The objective of the stick diagram method is not to solve all linear equation, but to lead students to solving linear equations by operations on equations by themselves without any geometric representation by stick diagrams.  Using parallel arrows would be a method to extend the representation to include positive and negative coefficients in equations, preferably selected to have non-negative solutions.
 

www.whyslopes.com
Solving Linear Equations 

|(Feb 14, 2005)

a secondary I to V reference  for  solving linear equations and for  recognizing word problems in essentially one variable whether you like it or not, skill in arithmetic with fractions is a must for algebra. .

Area Entrance
Proper Use of Equal Sign
A. Letters and Lengths
B.. Solving Linear Eq'ns.
C. Solving Linear Eq'ns
D.Almost One
E: 2D Systems - Sub Method.
E:  Continued
E: Still More
F. Larger Systems


Area Entrance
(i) x + 20 = 29
(ii) 2x + 5 = 20
(iii) 3x + 10 = 32
(iv) 5a + 16 = 3a+ 24
(v)  (½)x + 8 = 24½
(vI)  (¾)a + 16 = (¼)a+ 24
(vii) (¾)q + 17 = 32
(viii) 13 =[2/3]x +7 twice
(x) Animated Examples
(i) Integral Coefficients (A)
(ii) Integral Coefficients (B)
(iii) Fractional Coefficients
(iv) With parameters


Up
Proper Use of Equal Sign
A. Letters and Lengths
B.. Solving Linear Eq'ns.
C. Solving Linear Eq'ns
D.Almost One
E: 2D Systems - Sub Method.
E:  Continued
E: Still More
F. Larger Systems
 


Arithmetic Videos

Decimal Addition Methods
Decimal Subtraction Methods
Decimal Multiplication Methods
Decimal Division Methods


Fractions
Primes
Greatest Common Divisors

Least Common Multiples

Square Root Simplification

Site books and further webpages on learning and teaching mathematics and pattern based reason may develop critical thinking, improve reading and writing, and give a base for learning or teaching high school and college mathematics.

Great_Expectations: If you can learn to follow a multi-step methods in any subject precisely, you can do so in other subjects, as well.

Good news: Site pages  identify what you need to study.

Bad news: Site pages do not explain everything  

Worse news: Learning takes time, yours

Lesson Plans and Ideas for Teachers & Tutors:

Secondary I - fractions & allied concepts (decimals, percentages)

Secondary II - Algebra  (arithmetic versus algebraic methods, backward use of formulas and proportionality equations)

Secondary IV - Functions to Trig & Statistics

Calculus Intro 

Algebra Lesson Notes - All levels


 

 



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