Traditional teaching methods for elementary and intermediate algebra subjects involve students watching a professor demonstrate examples during a lecture. Students reinforce the techniques demonstrated by a professor by working similar problems as practice outside of class. While this technique is effective for students who excel as visual learners, it fails to meet the needs of many students taking elementary and intermediate algebra. Elementary and intermediate algebra are remedial math courses, intended to help students with less developed math skills prepare for a college algebra course.
The unified teaching method incorporates numerous teaching methods, providing information and reinforcement to students in a variety of ways. This method incorporates visual examples intended to work in conjunction with the auditory information provided by professors. The unified method incorporates group exercises, calculator techniques, section reviews, chapter reviews, multiple demonstrations of each technique and self tests along with tradition practice questions. The unified teaching approach provides multiple educational methods, hoping to reach each student. For instance, a student who has challenges learning from a teacher's examples can look in the book and find the same information explained in many different ways.
Updated teaching tools provide teachers with additional teaching techniques, and students with addition methods to learn the information. The unified approach uses technology for the students' benefit, providing online tutorials, online labs and online study guides. These techniques present the information to the student in more ways, hoping to be effective for students who learn best through electronic presentations. Additionally, these techniques allow students to see a visual demonstration of calculator functions, which is an important skill in both elementary and intermediate algebra.
While the unified approach is designed for students who benefit from the multiple method approach, the access to additional information and tutorials provides excellent reinforcement for even the most skilled students. For students who understand the material as soon as the professor explains it, the reinforcement develops a deeper understanding of the mathematical principles and may suggest additional methods for the applications of the information. As an example, a strong student who sees multiple examples of linear equations may begin questioning the effects of adding additional variables to the equation, a technique that will benefit her when she begins studying curves or conics.