One of my kids is taking a pre-algebra class, and didn’t understand what was allowed for cancelling in algebraic expressions (eg in the numerator and denominator). I’ve found that I get less arguments if I find an educational video that presents the necessary material, vs if I try to present it myself. But that means I have to find the right educational videos, the ones that have all of the details, all of the situations that might apply.

With cancelling in algebraic expressions, I specifically needed the video to cover when you could pull components out, and when you can’t; this was something that most of the videos online weren’t covering. If I hadn’t known I needed that specific thing, I would have just sent my kid off to watch any old cancelling video, and they wouldn’t have gotten the material they needed. Since I did know exactly the “gotchas” I was looking for, with persistence I eventually found “Algebraic ‘cancelling’ – Do’s and Don’ts”, which had exactly all of the details we needed.

Any time you’re trying to learn something new, you need to find out not only what you’re allowed to do, but what you shouldn’t (or in the case of math, can’t) do. And finding that online can be a draining and time consuming pursuit. It’s far easier to be able to go to an expert to get the exact information that fits your situation.