Today I'm going to look in the chapter about factoring. This chapter doesn't scare me as much as quadratic equations, but I'm still going to have my pen and paper handy.
This chapter begins with the description of terms for algebraic expressions. After naming the expressions "a one-term expression a monomial, a two-term expression a binomial, and a three-term expression a trinomial," the professor describes the roots of the terms, mono=one, bi=two and tri= three. He also gives examples of the roots, like monorail (one rail), bicylce (two wheels) and tricycle (three wheels). These examples remind me of a Greek and Latin root class I took in college, the roots of the words can help you figure out the meaning, this applies to math as well as English.
As I keep reading, I'm having trouble keeping up with all the terminology, "multiply a monomial by a binomial." I stopped, read it over and went back to my notes. Then I thought of writing out an example of a monomial by a binomial. I wrote: 3 x (4x + 7) which I solved = 12x + 21. Now that I had numbers to visualize the words, I understood what they were talking about.
Next, we came across multiplying two binomials. This lead to the FOIL method. I was reminded of my last blog, and how I had to look up the FOIL method to help me with quadratic equations. I think this would have been a helpful chapter to review before doing quadratic equations.
Now to do some practice with factoring.
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factoring is def not as hard as the quadratic formula but it takes some practice to understand the method. Oh man and how much fun did you have when FOIL came right back up in the lesson. you saw how important multiplication is to the overall understanding of algebra. I encourage you to try another lesson of your choice just to see how much you can get into it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dedicating your time