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Mathematics and Logic - Skill and Concept Development

Questions: Will these ends and values motivate? Will smaller & more steps in site lessons and lesson ideas build skills and confidence?
Should we emphasize how ideas & methods depend on earlier ones? Does concept & skill mastery need to be checked to be believed? What is a Variable?
30 pages en Francais || Parents - Help Your Child or Teen Learn
Online Volumes: 1 Elements of Reason || 2 Three Skills For Algebra || 3 Why Slopes Light Calculus Preview or Intro plus Hard Calculus Proofs, decimal-based.
More Lessons &Lesson Ideas: Arithmetic & No. Theory || Time & Date Matters || Algebra Starter Lessons || Geometry - maps, plans, diagrams, complex numbers, trig., & vectors || More Algebra || More Calculus || DC Electric Circuits || 1995-2011 Site Title: Appetizers and Lessons for Mathematics and Reason

Mathematics Concept & Skill Development Lecture Series: Webvideo consolidation of site lessons and lesson ideas in preparation. Price to be determined.

Bright Students: Top universities want you. While many have high fees: many will lower them, many will provide funds, many have more scholarships than students. Postage is cheap. Apply and ask how much help is available. Caution: some programs are rewarding. Others lead nowhere. After acceptance, it may be easy or not to switch.

For students of reason in society, science and technology: Pattern Based Reason describes origins, benefits and limits of rule- and pattern-based thought and actions. Not all is certain. We may strive for objectivity, but not reach it. Postscripts offer a story-telling view of learning: [ A ] [ B ] [ C ] [ D ] to suggest how we share theories and practices.

Site's Best Lessons

For Logic

These online chapters may amuse while leading to greater precision and comprehension in reading and writing at home, in school, at work and in mathematics.

1 versus 2-way implication rules - A different starting point - Writing or introducting the 1-way implication rule IF B THEN A as A IF B may emphasize the difference between it or the latter, and the 2-way implication A IF and ONLY IF B.

Deductive Chains of Reason - See which implications can and cannot be used together to arrive at more implications or conclusions,

Mathematical Induction - a light romantic view that becomes serious.

Responsibility Arguments - his, hers or no one's

Islands and Divisions of Knowledge - a model for many arts and disciplines including mathematics course design. Site Theme: Different entry points may be easier or harder for knowledge mastery.

For Arithmetic

Deciml Place Value - funny ways to read multidigit decimals forwards and backwards in groups of 3 or 6, US-CDN, UK-German and Metric SI style.

Decimals for Tutors - lean how to explain or justify operations. Long division of polynomials is easier for student who master long division with decimals.

Primes Factors - Efficient fraction skills and later studies of polynomials depend on this.

Fractions + Ratios - See how raising terms to obtain equivalent fractions leads to methods for addition, comparison, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions.

Arithmetic with units - Skills of value in daily life and in the further study of rates, proportionality constants and computations in science & technology.

For Algebra

What is a Variable? - this entertaining oral & geometric view may be before and besides more formal definitions - is the view mathematically correct?

Formula Evaluation - Seeing and showing how to do and record steps or intermediate results of multistep methods allows the steps or results to be seen and checked as done or later; and will improve both marks and skill. The format here allows the domino effects of care and the domino effects of mistakes to be seen. It also emphasizes a proper use of the equal sign.

Solve Linear Eqns with & then without fractional operations on line segments - meet an visual introduction and learn how to present do and record steps in a way that demonstrate skill; learn how to check answers, set the stage for solving word problems by by learning how to solve systems of equations in essentially one unknown, set the stage for solving triangular and general systems of equations algebraically.

Function notation for Computation Rules - another way of looking at formulas. Does a computation rule, and any rule equivalent to it, define a function?

Axioms [some] as equivalent Computation Rule view - another way for understanding and explaining axioms.

Using Formulas Backwards - Most rules, formulas and relations may be used forwards and backwards. Talking about it should lead everyone to expect a backward use alone or plural, after mastery of forward use. Proportionality relations may be use backward first to find a proportionality constant before being used forwards and backwards to solve a problem.

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www.whyslopes.com >> Volume 2 Three Skills For Algebra >> Foreword Next: [Chapter 1 Introduction to Chapters 2 to 6.]   [1][2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]

Foreword

Volume 2, Three Skills for Algebra

Logic, that is a mastery of rule- and pattern-based reason is needed in all disciplines. In particular, it may lead to precision reading and writing. If you cannot read precisely, how will you understand and how will you see errors in your own work or that of others.

The first chapter on logic or rule-based reason shows the difference between one- and two-ways implication rules. Not seeing this difference is a source of confusion. Seeing the difference is a first step towards the better understanding of the implications, suggestions, rules or information met in daily life, at work and in school or college. The initial chapters on reason talk about chains of reason, about islands and divisions of knowledge and about longer chains of reason.The last chapters on logic connect the ideas of a rule being true or not with the common ideas of a rule being obeyed, disobeyed and/or not disobeyed. (In retrospect, there should also be a discussion of when a rule applies or not. In the latter case, the rule is vacuously true -holds vacuously.)

Altogether, the logic chapters provide a unique mathematics-free introduction to the direct and indirect definition and rule-based thinking that appeared in Euclid's work a long time ago (2300 years ago)

Three Skills
For
Algebra

understanding and explaining
reason and math
Volume 2

by
Alan M. Selby
Ph. D.

Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-9697564-2-9

Three Skills for algebra are as follows.

  1. We can talk about numbers and quantities. The words or adjectives used here may be used in mathematics after arithmetic. There is more to mathematics than just doing arithmetic.
  2. We can describe calculations that might be done (or postponed) with words alone or with an (algebraic) shorthand notation. The description of calculations that might be done is also part of mathematics after arithmetic. There is more to mathematics than just doing arithmetic.
  3. We can change the way a number or quantity is computed. Some rule-based reason is required here. There is more to mathematics than just doing arithmetic.

The first skill, talking about numbers and quantities, use words to describe them, gives a unique comprehension of numbers and quantities apart from but parallel to the the shorthand role of letters and symbols in mathematics. The separation here is needed for a clearer, more precise understanding of& the shorthand, symbolic, way of writing and reasoning that we call algebra.

Alan Selby
Montreal, 1995

Three Skills For Algebra - the Best Chapters

The following logic and algebra chapters may make the hard easier. Chapter 7 will test and enrich arithmetic skills - catch a few errors.


Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Selby, Alan M,
Understanding and Explaining reason and math
Contents: v. 1. Elements of Reason - v. 2. Three Skills
for algebra - v.3. Why Slopes and more math.
ISBN 0-9697564-4-5 (set) -
ISBN 0-9697564-1-0 (v. 1) -
ISBN 0-9697564-2-9 (v. 2) -
ISBN 0-9697564-3-7 (v. 3) -
1. Mathematics–Philosophy. 2. Reason.
3. Algebra. 4. Calculus. I. Title. II. Title: Elements of reason. III.Three Skills for algebra. IV. Title: Why Slopes and more math.
QA8.4.S44 1995 510’.1 C95-900945-0

Reprinting may lead to new ISBN numbers

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www.whyslopes.com >> Volume 2 Three Skills For Algebra >> Foreword Next: [Chapter 1 Introduction to Chapters 2 to 6.]   [1][2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]

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Road Safety Messages for All: When walking on a road, when is it safer to be on the side allowing one to see oncoming traffic?

Site Reviews


1996 - Magellan, the McKinley Internet Directory:

Mathphobics, this site may ease your fears of the subject, perhaps even help you enjoy it. The tone of the little lessons and "appetizers" on math and logic is unintimidating, sometimes funny and very clear. There are a number of different angles offered, and you do not need to follow any linear lesson plan. Just pick and peck. The site also offers some reflections on teaching, so that teachers can not only use the site as part of their lesson, but also learn from it.

2000 - Waterboro Public Library, home schooling section:

CRITICAL THINKING AND LOGIC ... Articles and sections on topics such as how (and why) to learn mathematics in school; pattern-based reason; finding a number; solving linear equations; painless theorem proving; algebra and beyond; and complex numbers, trigonometry, and vectors. Also section on helping your child learn ... . Lots more!

2001 - Math Forum News Letter 14,

... new sections on Complex Numbers and the Distributive Law for Complex Numbers offer a short way to reach and explain: trigonometry, the Pythagorean theorem,trig formulas for dot- and cross-products, the cosine law,a converse to the Pythagorean Theorem

2002 - NSDL Scout Report for Mathematics, Engineering, Technology -- Volume 1, Number 8

Math resources for both students and teachers are given on this site, spanning the general topics of arithmetic, logic, algebra, calculus, complex numbers, and Euclidean geometry. Lessons and how-tos with clear descriptions of many important concepts provide a good foundation for high school and college level mathematics. There are sample problems that can help students prepare for exams, or teachers can make their own assignments based on the problems. Everything presented on the site is not only educational, but interesting as well. There is certainly plenty of material; however, it is somewhat poorly organized. This does not take away from the quality of the information, though.

2005 - The NSDL Scout Report for Mathematics Engineering and Technology -- Volume 4, Number 4

... section Solving Linear Equations ... offers lesson ideas for teaching linear equations in high school or college. The approach uses stick diagrams to solve linear equations because they "provide a concrete or visual context for many of the rules or patterns for solving equations, a context that may develop equation solving skills and confidence." The idea is to build up student confidence in problem solving before presenting any formal algebraic statement of the rule and patterns for solving equations. ...
For Geometry

Maps + Plans Use - Measurement use maps, plans and diagrams drawn to scale.

Euclidean Geometry - See how chains of reason appears in and besides geometric constructions.

Coordinates - Use them not only for locating points in the plane or space.

Complex Numbers - Learn how rectangular and polar coordinates may be used for adding, multiplying and reflecting points in the plane, in a manner known since the 1840s for representing and demystifying "imaginary" numbers, and in a manner that provides a quicker, mathematically correct, path for defining "circular" trigonometric functions for all angles, not just acute ones, and easily obtaining their properties. Students of vectors in the plane may appreciate the complex number development of trig-formulas for dot- and cross-products. Lines-Slopes [I] - Take I & take II respectively assumes no knowledge and some knowledge of the tangent function in trigonometry.

What is Similarity - another view of using maps, plans and diagrams drawn to scale in the plane and space. May buildings in space are similar by design.

For Calculus

Why study slopes - this fall 1983 calculus appetizer shone in many classes at the start of calculus. It could also be given after the intro of slopes to introduce function maxima and minima at the ends of closed intervals.

Why factor polynomials - this 1995-96 lesson introduces calculus skills and concepts. It may also may be given to introduce further function maxima and minima both inside and at the ends of closed intervals.

Check Arith. Skills - too many calculus and precalculus students do not have strong arithmetic and computation skills. The exercises here check them while numerically hinting at equivalent computation rules.

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