This topic teaches the students how to factor special cases of trinomials. This series of six lessons covers factoring perfect square trinomials, factoring the difference of two squares, and factoring the sum and difference of cubes.
The student continues to learn more about factoring, and is introduced to factoring polynomials of a higher order than quadratics in this series.
This lesson introduces the student to factoring perfect square trinomials. The lesson first describes the definition of a perfect square trinomial. Then, the student sees how to factor perfect square trinomials where the leading coefficient is one.
This lesson shows how to factor a perfect square trinomial when the leading coefficient is not one.
In this lesson, the student learns how to multiply conjugate pairs. The student first learns what a conjugate pair is and then they learn how to multiply a conjugate pair together. The lesson also describes this phenomenon as a difference of squares.
This lesson builds upon the foundation of the previous lesson to describe factoring the difference of two squares. The previous lesson is used to remind the student how the multiplication of a conjugate pair creates a difference of two squares. Then, the instruction shows how to factor the difference of two squares.
This lesson describes the makeup of a difference of cubes. The student sees how a difference of cubes is factored. Then, the student learns the formula for factoring a difference of cubes.
This lesson teaches the student how to factor a sum of cubes. The lesson shows the formula for factoring a sum of cubes expression and provides a mnemonic for remembering the signs in the formulae for factoring a difference of cubes and factoring a sum of cubes.