How To Teach Algebra

Hi, my name is Charles and I am one of the math teachers from the Maxim Workshop. I am just going to now teach you how to do some math. Hi, in this video, I am going to show you how to teach algebra.

Now, the basis of algebra is association and then assigning. So, the first thing we want to do is associate particular objects that have similarities and then we will look at the convenience of assigning values to them or variables. So, just imagine if, in a particular school, we found that we had five people with the name John Smith, and we also found that we had nine people with the name Tim Matthews, and then we found that we had four people with the name Sam Peters.

Now, this has already shown us that we have associated particular individuals by similarities that they share within their names. Now, the next thing would be to assign a particular thing that allows us to shorten these similarities, so it is easier for us to relate to them time and time again. Now, a classic example of when you would do that is just when you would say, call your friend by a shortened name that he has, so give him a nickname pretty much.

So, that is pretty much what we are going to do with these names- just shorten them, and the easiest thing to do when doing that is just shorten them to their initials. So, we have got JS, we have got TM, and we have got SP. Now, the convenience that we have now, when we want to relate it to John smith, we can just say JS.

So, I will just rub this out and bring them together, JS; and when we want to relate Tim Matthews, we can just relate, call him by TM; and when we want to relate to Sam Peters, for all the Sam Peters', we say SP. Now, this is, first of all, we have shown how to associate, and now assign particular shortened versions of their names to these symbols here. That is the same principle in algebra.

What we want to do is get a particular thing that varies, so obviously, with the names here, the individuals that name are the variables. How many of them, is the measurement that we would take. So, if you looked at rainfall over the course of months, you might just call rainfall RF, and this becomes a lot more easier to use in maths, you do not want to always be writing that two times rainfall all the time, and just imagine in one of those papers where you have, you see, a certain question being answered, and you see a whole sheet being used to derive a possible answer.

You do not want to have to see this all the time, so we make a shortened of this and it becomes two times RF. Now, the one that you are going to be constantly using most of the time is 'x'. So, 'x' is a good term for the unknown, so when you want to relate to, say, the individual peoples' heights in your class, you might say, height is equal to 'x'.

Weight, which is another variable, might be equal to 'w', and if you are studying something like physics or chemistry, and even, say, biology when you want to know the time that it takes for a chemical reaction to take place, or the time that it takes for an athlete to run a certain distance, you might use the idea of small 't' for time. Obviously, these would have units of meters or centimeters, and this would have units of seconds. That is basically how to teach algebra. .