How To Teach Algebra With Function Machines

Hi, I'm Felicity. And today we're going to be looking at how we can use function machines to teach algebra. So here we have a function machine. We start with the input, which here is an unknown value. It then has something done to it, the function, which in this case is times two. And then we have the output, which in this case is 24. Now, to figure out the unknown value, we. We can change this function machine into a simple equation. So in step one, that unknown value is represented by the letter B. We're then going to perform the function times 2, and then we have the output, which equals 24. Now, to figure out B, we need to perform the inverse function. So in step two, we'll start with 24, perform the inverse operation of times, which is to divide by two, which gives us the answer of 12. So we're saying that B equals 12. Now the final step is to put our equation back into order. And instead of using B, we'll put 12 times by 2, which we know equals 24. And so that we've checked that, we found the right value for the unknown value of B, and that's how you can use function machines to teach algebra.