Video Transcript: Start Here: Welcome to Algebra!

Hi, everyone. My name is Andrew Vanden Heuvel, and I'm a science and math professor here  at the Christian leaders Institute. Welcome to algebra. I'm very excited to be sharing this class with you. And even though I'm the instructor, you won't see much of my face in this class.  There are so many excellent resources for teaching algebra that we're going to make use of  some of those resources that are throughout the internet. What I want to do in this brief  introduction, video here is just share with you why I'm so passionate about mathematics, why  you should be excited about math, as you go through this journey with the Christian leaders  Institute, and a little bit about how this course is going to work in practice. The first thing I'd  like to share with you is that I've had the luxury of really studying mathematics throughout  my college and beyond. I earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics, and went  on to get my master's degree in astrophysics. And all the way along, I had the opportunity to  see how mathematics is woven into the universe that God has created. You know, often you'll  hear Christian scientists and mathematicians say that math is the language of God. Because  regardless of what language you speak, math can be used to describe the world that God has  created. And I can tell you that throughout all the advanced math courses that I took all the  way through differential equations in abstract algebra, which was my lowest grade by the  way, abstract algebra, crazy math, but even throughout all of those advanced math courses,  you could see the patterns and the consistency, and how this, this math would fit best when  looking at the natural world. And I want to just demonstrate this for you by showing you one  of my favorite videos is called Nature by Numbers. And it's brief, I'm just gonna play it here.  And, and kind of describe it a little bit as it plays, there's just some pretty music playing in the background. But what it will do is, it'll illustrate how the natural world has so many  illustrations of numbers that describe it. So as I play this here, I'll just kind of explain a little  bit of the math that you're seeing, just to make it a little richer, starting with 0, 1, 1, 2. And  what this is illustrating is called the Fibonacci sequence. Now when you add numbers together in this way, you get this pattern of numbers. And what this illustration is now showing is how  using the same number pattern, the Fibonacci sequence, if you created a spiral outward,  using this pattern of numbers, with squares that are the area that matches those numbers,  you get a certain type of spiral. And that spiral is actually found in certain living organisms, in  particular, what we're going to see is that that spiral, the Fibonacci sequence spiral is found in an ocean creature, that's called the Nautilus. You can see that being built here. Who'd ever  imagine that this particular spiral would be found in the natural world, right? That this pattern  has significance to this living creature. Another example, this is called the golden ratio. And  what you'll see here is the the equation of where this comes from, all right, and if you take  this ratio, and apply it to a circle, you take just that portion of a circle, you get this angle of  137.5 degrees. And if you were to keep going this amount, around in a circle over and over  and depositing a little point at each at each of those spots, you keep going keep going, you  get a pattern of dots. And this pattern of dots, if you do it enough times looks exactly like the  seeds that you see in a sunflower. So again, we have this special number, this special pattern  of ratio, and we find it in the natural world. I'll just leave it there. You can watch the rest of  this video if you'd like to. But I hope this gives you just a little taste without having to major in mathematics and take years and years of math courses. You can get just a little taste of how  numbers really are written into the fabric of nature. And so we can see that this is this is a  part of God right God has created this structure and these patterns, these mathematical  patterns into nature. And so just like with all of the subjects that we study, studying math is  good, right? studying math is good because God made it. Now in the same way, I have to say, just because studying math is good, doesn't mean it's easy. Right? And, and studying math,  even algebra here, this introductory level, can be really challenging, depending on your  previous experience in math. And so I've tried to build this course in a way to make it as  manageable as possible. All right, and I want to show you some of the tools that we're using  to do that. So if you look at the course with me, what you'll see at the start is the introductory material, which you should certainly read through and be familiar with. And then you'll see  the course is broken down into 12 units. The first two units are sort of foundational and are  reviewing some of the key math concepts that that you'll need to have mastered before  you're able to move into the algebra content. Now, this might be a review for you. In fact, 

large portions of this course might be review for you. So I encourage you, if you feel confident in that subject to just skip ahead to the quiz, and try the quiz. And if you're able to  successfully pass the quiz, because you already know that math, well, that's fabulous, then  continue on. If however, you know that you're not going to be successful on that particular  quiz, then you'll definitely want to use the resources that are provided. There are two types of resources that you've been given here. The first is what I call video/practice. And this is from  the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy has a whole host of videos, but almost more  importantly, practice quizzes that you can use to review these concepts. So if I were to go to  this one right here, video practice combining like terms, what that'll open up in a separate  window is a series of videos. It's not just one video, but it's actually a sequence of videos. So  if you're looking at this on a computer, you'll see that sequence listed on the left hand side,  the little play icon is telling you that these videos go in sequence. And the star is telling you  that this is a practice quiz, right, so you work your way down through that list. If you're  looking at it on a mobile device, you will see this list of videos and practice assignments. At  the very bottom of your screen. If you keep scrolling down past the video, you'll see it listed at the bottom. So I encourage you to watch the videos, and to definitely complete the practice  assignments. So these practice assignments are the foundation of what our course quizzes  are. So if you can successfully complete these practice questions, then you will do well on the  quizzes in the class. If you cannot do these practice assignments, then you won't be able to  do well on the quiz in the class. So you want to review the videos and practice some more.  Now in addition to these videos and practice, throughout the class, you'll also find readings  that go along with these videos and practice these readings, I view them as a supplement,  right. So if you're really struggling with one of these concepts from the videos and practice,  then you might want to turn to the reading to get additional examples, and a description that  walks through how you would go about solving these types of problems. Or you might find  that you prefer the reading to the videos and that you want to read through them and look  through those written examples instead, however you want to use these resources is  completely up to you. For each quiz, I've given you two attempts. And there's a time limit of  45 minutes which should be more than enough time to complete the questions. Okay, that is  the essentials that I wanted to show you in this class. I hope you have a wonderful experience learning about mathematics. And by the end I know that you'll feel a sense of  accomplishment for having having taken on this challenge and reason to it. Alright, thank you