Typical High School Algebra II

 Another session with several high school girls doing typical high school algebra out of a common textbook.  These girls are, as it turns out, 14. This one was there just for the fun of it, but it soon became clear she had an aptitude for algebra brought about by her not really having any anxiety over it because she was in a different (and lower) level class.

We played around with algebra concepts and got quite a lot done. Perhaps too much for one session.

Earlier we did do some factoring and completing the square where we see

x² = 9

and

(x + 1) ² = 9 are EASY once you understand a little about squares an square roots. We also played with completing the square.

Earlier on we did spend some time solving equations like you see in this video.

Here we see the notation without the symbols, there is an extraneous 15 there which she used to help her figure out the factors we didn't set these equal to anything and solve for X we just factored polynomials.

This girl--well spoken, obviously intelligent--has some issues with math due to a "F" or two on tests. She was able to make easy things hard because of her perception. Fortunately, she had a couple of friends there who were "getting it" which helped her think, "if they "get it" I can "get it" too." This is yet another reason to tutor in small groups.

"Whether You Think You Can or Can't, You're Right"~Henry Ford

Laughter is the best cure for math anxiety.

Covering negative expressions requires a password, I talk about the concept of opposites and combining however on the screencast, if you want more on how to do "the negative ones" you need to get a password which only costs a buck.

Here is a the screencast, talking about group learning algebra and more.
The thought you want to instill in the group is:  "this is fun and easy."



I have the same videos on screencast0matic and on Youtube as a back up hopefully if one is down the other is working...the name of this video is "Crewtonn Ramone Typical High School Algebra II"

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” ~Albert Einstein