Quadratics
Overview
My work on a quadratics unit is undergoing change!
After reviewing various international school curricula I decided to put together a comprehensive set of materials on this topic.
This website, in the lessons you see way below, contains my thoughts and approaches to teaching all that content. You can also download this content here as a single PDF document if you prefer.
A COMPREHENSIVE COMPANION GUIDE TO QUADRATICS: Fresh, Accessible and Human Notes for all who feel they never “got it.” Quadratics: A Comprehensive Companion Guide
For what I personally choose to teach, download this next guide instead. Most curricula would deem these notes as “incomplete:” Where is factoring? Why are you downplaying the quadratic formula? Why not call your graphs “parabolas”? See the Comprehensive Notes above for that content and my answers to such questions.
A CHAPTER ON QUADRATICS: Just the Notes I Choose to Teach College Algebra Module 8 QUADRATICS
And of course there is my favorite supplemental material, which is not in the curriculum:
ARE ALL U-SHAPED GRAPHS QUADRATIC? U-Shaped Graphs. See Experience 3 in this link.
ANOTHER OPTION
A unit on Quadratics is available as part of a comprehensive course in the Edfinity catalog. This is designed to be an affordable, ‘self serve’ course that also provides official recognition to educators for an online professional development experience. We offer a certificate acknowledging 12 hours of online training. On completion of the course, educators may also enroll their students in an identical Quadratics course for classroom instruction. We charge a modest sustainability fee for all these courses.
You may see sample videos and problems on the Edfinity course page here.
Lessons
1.0 SYMMETRY IS OUR FRIEND: Solving Quadratic Equations |
| 1.1 Setting the Scene: The Key Players of the Story |
| 1.2 Solving Equations by the Quadrus Method: Levels 1, 2, 3 |
| 1.3 Solving Equations by the Quadrus Method: Levels 4, 5, 6. (Victory!) |
| 2.0 The QUADRATIC FORMULA, DISCRIMINANT, AND ALL THAT (if you want it) |
| 2.1 Deriving the Quadratic Formula. (We’ve been doing it all along!) |
| 2.2 Counting Solutions and the Discriminant |
| 2.3 Practice, and the Opening Puzzle |
| 3.0 Deviating from the Story: BREAKING SYMMETRY (and crossing your fingers) |
| 3.1 Why Factor? Mersenne Primes |
| 3.2 Factoring = Breaking Symmetry |
| 3.3 More Practice; The Difference of Two Squares; The Opening Puzzle |
| 4.0 Optional Advanced Algebra: The FACTOR THEOREM, ROOTS, and more |
| 4.1 An Opening Puzzler |
| 4.2 Practicing Sneaky Algebra and the Factor Theorem |
| 4.3 Practice, The Difference of Two Squares (again), The Difference and Sum of Two Cubes |
| 4.4 Roots, and Rationalising Things |
| 5.0 GRAPHING: Setting the Scene for Symmetry |
| 5.1 What is a Graph? A Graphing Puzzler |
| 5.2 Another Graphing Challenge |
| 5.3 Steepness |
| 5.4 Practicing Graphing … Heading to a BIG IDEA! |
| 6.0 Symmetry is our Friend: GRAPHING QUADRATICS WITH ABSOLUTE EASE |
| 6.1 Putting the BIG RESULT to Use! |
| 6.2 The Full Power of Symmetry |
| 6.3 Practice |
| 6.4 More Practice |
| 7.0 EXTRAS that might be in your Curriculum: COMPLEX NUMBERS, FITTING DATA, PARABOLAS |
| 7.1 Complex Number Solutions |
| 7.2 Fitting Quadratic Equations to three data points |
| 7.3 Parabolas: Where are they in this story? |
| 8.0 ARE ALL U-SHAPED GRAPHS QUADRATIC? |
| 8.1 Are they? |
| 100.0 Edfinity Course Materials |
| 100.1 Edfinity Course Materials |
| Return to List of Courses |
Resources
Books
Take your understanding to the next level with easy to understand books by James Tanton.
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Guides & Solutions
Dive deeper into key topics through detailed, easy to follow guides and solution sets.
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