Learning Algebra I as a 12-year-old

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As many of you may know from my previous articles, that I am really interested in AI! I have been investing a lot of time into learning more about this technology to become legitimate in the area. To do this I needed to not only know to have the technical understanding to build Machine Learning projects but also understand the theory behind different Machine Learning concepts and algorithms. But, I learnt that to understand the theory behind Machine Learning you need to have a really good understanding of math! Now, to actually be able to understand the math behind these concepts I needed to have an understanding of Linear Algebra and Calculus!

Since I am still in Grade 7 I did not have an understanding of these concepts that were really important in Machine Learning(school didn’t come in use this time 😊). So, to be able to learn a lot of these concepts I had to learn the fundamentals which were Algebra. I did have experience with Pre-Algebra and basic algebra from school, although this course mostly had concepts that I had never learned about before. In this article, I want to talk about how I was able to learn Algebra I in 1 month with more than 60 hours of learning the material and talking about my journey in learning Algebra I.

Here is a breakdown of the article for easier navigation:

1. Introduction

2. The technique that I had while approaching some of these concepts in Algebra I

3. Failures/Learnings from this experience

4. Conclusion

Introduction:

To start I want to mention that before learning Algebra I, I used a textbook to help me review Pre-Algebra before starting Algebra I. The book that I used is called Basic Math and Pre-Algebra For Dummies and it gives me a refresher on the fundamentals needed for Algebra.

Here is the book that I use to learn Pre-Algebra.

After finishing this book I started to learn Algebra I at Khan Academy which contains about 14 different sections on different Algebra concepts like Linear Equations, Systems of Equations, Quadratics, Functions and more! The course started with basic concepts of Algebra and even some review for Pre-Algebra. This part was quite easy to be able to understand as it was a review for me. But, as I progressed into the course the concepts that I started to learn got more difficult like Linear equations, Systems of Equations which were concepts that I was unfamiliar with although after watching the videos multiple times and doing the exercise I was able to grasp some of these concepts. Although, is I progressed to ending of the course some of the concepts were really difficult like Quadratics: Multiplying and factoring and Quadratics: Functions and Equations.

The techniques I used to approach these units:

There were a few techniques that I used that would allow me to learn a lot of these concepts efficiently and also with a good understanding. Some of the techniques that I used, a lot of them I learnt while doing the course.

Here are some of the techniques:

1. Take notes on things that are difficult and important to know, don't take notes on everything that you learn.
2. Give 100% of your attention to the videos/material to understand it well.
3. You can learn a lot from just doing.
4. Don’t care about your score for the exercises that you do, focus on understanding.
5. If you don't understand the concept rewatch the videos that cover the material and take a look at a solution they have done to understand how to do the question.

The first technique is a really important technique that allowed me to learn concepts effectively. If you take notes on everything that you learn about, then it would take you really long to learn about different concepts. Instead, just take notes on something new that you have learned about or some important detail.

The second technique is having a lot of focus when you are learning the material, and if you give it all of your attention then you will be able to understand the material really really well. This will give you a really good understanding of the material, and you will be able to speed through the exercise without any problem! I learnt this when I was distracted for a few minutes while watching one of the videos and I wasn't able to get a good understand of the concept that was taught. This will also allow you to be a lot more efficient as well.

The third technique is what it says, you can learn a lot from just doing. You might think that after watching the videos or learning the material you understand the concept, but there is a chance that once you do the exercises then you might not be understanding how to solve such problems. A good technique is to do a lot of these exercises until you feel like you have learned a pattern or a trick to doing these problems and you can do a lot of the problems correctly. This tells you that you really have a good understanding of the concept!

The fourth technique is something a lot of people don’t really understand. A lot of people want to just get a perfect on the exercises and the tests. But, what I believe is more important is having a really good understanding of the concept. So, I would generally do and even re-do some of the exercises until I can get most of the questions right and I feel like I have understood how to answer the questions well.

The fifth technique that I used was something that I learnt later on when doing the exercises for difficult concepts(I told you I learnt a lot from the experience😂). When learning a lot of these difficult concepts, I would not be able to do the questions for that concept. So, I would keep trying to the questions over and over. It would literally take hours(I am not kidding seriously 😲)! One thing that I learnt is that after doing a lot of practice questions if you still can’t do the questions then you may need to re-watch the video a few times to get a better understanding of the concept.

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Failures/Learnings from this experience:

I had a lot of failures from this journey of doing the course, and these failures created lots of room for improvement for the next math courses that I do or any other time when I am learning something new! One thing that I learned is that I really need to have 100% of my attention during the times that I am watching videos or looking at the material this is because sometimes I would be distracted and I would not be able to understand the material as well. This would also save me time as I would not have to go back and look at the material again. This would also allow me to effectively and efficiently complete the exercises and quizzes the course had. If I had 100% of my attention on some of the material, then I would be able to learn a lot faster!

I learnt is that you should always take notes on material after you have done going over it! The reason why you may want to do this so that you can get a good understand of the material and actually learn the concepts. While watching the videos I would try to take notes at the same time, but actually, that was distracting me and I wasn’t able to understand the material as well. So, if you go back to the material and take notes than that would then you will be able to learn a lot of the concepts effectively. After learning about this, I was able to understand the concepts much better and also have good notes on the concept!

Another really important thing that I learnt is that you need to give yourself a reasonable amount of time and material to work through every day. This really depends on what your schedule looks like and how much time you can commit to doing this math course. I gave myself 2 hours to work on this course per day, and also a good chunk of the unit to work on that day. The problem is, is that especially once you get to more advanced units you want to give yourself more time to learn the concepts as they are more difficult. I would get a little stressed out about how I would do all of the parts that I planned for on a certain day. If I had given a reasonable amount of time for learning the concepts, then even if it took longer I would get an even better understand of the units.

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed doing this course even though it was difficult and I am confident that with my Algebra knowledge, it will be easier for me to be able to learn more about Machine Learning especially the theory behind it!

If you are interested in also doing the Khan Academy Algebra I course then you can use this link to find the course: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra

Well, you have made it to the end of the article👋. If you liked this article and got some insight from it, it would be great if you can give it a few claps! Other than I hope to see you in my future articles!