If At First You Don't Succeed...

Aims & Learning Outcomes

The programme aims to:

• Give examples of trial and improvement as a method of solving equations.
• Provide entertaining lesson material, with opportunities for further exploration.
• Demonstrate a practical, problem-solving approach.

After watching the programme, students should:

• Recognise that making a sensible guess at a solution is a valid approach.
• Understand that the result of their first try can be used to suggest successive values to try, and that this process of refinement allows you to ‘home in’ on the solution.
• Recognise that algebra is useful for expressing the problem in these types of examples.
• Be aware that there are numbers, like square roots and *, that cannot be expressed as a terminating or recurring decimal but which can be determined to increasing degrees of accuracy.