Welcome, students. This is the first of many lessons. We'll have six lessons each week, and each lesson consists of several parts:
An introductory paragraph that explains what we'll cover.
1-3 embedded videos explaining the topic and going through examples.
A link to more example problems, which students can watch for more support.
A homework assignment, which students access via WebAssign.
Make sure you get a feel for how these lessons are set up so that you can access all of the content. The most difficult content to access is WebAssign, since students need logins and access codes, so make sure you read the announcement about accessing WebAssign.
Just a quick note: For the first few weeks, I'm going to be jumping around between the first couple of chapters of the book because I don't think the order that the book covers these topics is the most natural. However, once we get to Chapter 2, we'll be moving through the chapters more-or-less in order.
Also, please take good notes in a notebook as you watch these videos. Start each lesson on a new page, label each lesson, and work out your sample problems in the notebook as well. This way you can have everything well-organized and refer back to it when it's time to review for quizzes, tests, and the final exam.
Today we're going to begin our journey into algebra by reviewing how to solve linear equations. This first video reviews the properties of equality, which are the rules that tell us what we're allowed to do when solving equations. It also covers some very basic examples of equations.
After watching that video, please click on the following link to work on some example problems. These videos include several more complicated examples, so even if you found the problems in the above video to be simple, you'll want to look at some of the examples in the videos below:
Videos: Solving Linear Equations (Click on any example problem to view a YouTube video of a step-by-step solution.)
Next, we'll look at solving equations with fractions, as well as identities and contradictions. It's particularly important that you understand the method for solving equations with fractions: students who don't follow the rule (multiplying both sides of the equation by the LCD) tend to make numerous mistakes.
Now that you've learned how to solve equations with fractions, and you've seen examples of identities and contradictions, please click on the following links to go through some example problems on each of these topics. If you don't feel very confident with these problems, watch each of the videos from start to finish. If you do feel confident with these problems, try to solve each one first, and then use the video to check your answer. Then, if you've made a mistake, you can watch the video to figure out what it was.
Videos: Solving Equations with Fractions
Videos: Identities and Contradictions
Please note that each lesson is going to be set up similarly: there will be between 1 and 3 embedded videos that explain the concept and go through a basic example or two, as well as links to videos that cover a wide variety of example problems. My goal is to provide you with a lot of videos so that you have plenty of examples to look at, so you can understand the content, as well as my expectations for each type of problem.
And lastly, there will be a homework assignment in WebAssign for each lesson that we cover. The first three homework assignments each week are due on Friday evening at 11:59pm (PT), and the last three homework assignments each week are due on Sunday evening at 11:59pm (PT). This assignment's name is "Solving Linear Equations."