Unit
Solving Equations
MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
Equations are fundamental to Algebra, and solving one step equations is necessary for students in order to learn how to solve two-step equations, and other multi-step equations. Solving one-step equations means finding the value for the variable that makes the statement true using additive and multiplicative inverses.
Hi guys today we're going to work on solving equations, but before we do I want to review a couple definitions. The first thing is that an equation is a mathematical statement that two expressions are equal. And there's some tricky in there cause you have equation and expression, pretty much equation means it has an equal sign, an expression is something just like this 3x+2 there is no equal sign that's an expression. As soon as I add a equals 5 now it becomes an equation, cause I have two mathematic or two expressions that are equal to each other that's an equation.
The solution is the number that makes the equation true, so like for example if I were to put 10 into that value for x and multiply 3 times 10 then add 2 I would not get the answer 5, that's not a valid solution. The solution is the number that would make it true. In our case I can just do this in my head real quick, I'm going to tell you guys that our x number would be one. If I put one in there that would be my solution. I'm I'm going to show you guys today how I did that in my head.