Back Story | F.A.Q.

First and foremost, math must be learned in order. Each topic builds off of the previous one. In my experience, I've often seen students struggling with homework due to foundational gaps. If you are someone who really struggles with math, it may be helpful to build up a strong base by starting with our Pre-Algebra course and working forward.

Secondly, it is extremely important to understand that practice is essential to learning math. You can't learn math by just watching the video lessons. Just like if you want to learn the piano, you must play the piano. So if you want to learn math, you must do lots of math problems. If you want to get the most out of online video tutorials, it's best to watch the video, then rewatch and try the problems on your own. Once you understand all of the problems from the video lesson, move on to the practice test. Since someone else is doing all of the work in the video lesson, it's really easy to think you understand the lesson, only to completely fall apart when you try to practice.

I will note here that a large percentage of students don't do well with video lectures. It's really boring to watch someone else do math. There are students who can keep focus and work through it, but some simply can't. If you find yourself constantly daydreaming and unable to focus during a video lecture, switch to reading and working through the same section in a textbook. Since you are the one doing the work while reading, this approach keeps your brain active while you work through the material.

Lastly, you really need to consider a full plan if you are trying to learn math on your own. When you are in a school program, you have a teacher to give a lecture, provide homework, and then give quizzes and exams. For the person who is self-studying, they are really at a disadvantage because they have to gauge their own progress and find the motivation to keep studying day after day. When you are in school, you are forced to do the work or fail. With self-study, you are the only person keeping yourself on track. A strong suggestion would be to always work with a textbook and make sure you can answer all of the different types of questions for each section of whatever math course you are studying. If you can't, that means you need to redo that section until you can clear each different problem type in the given section. OpenStax.org offers free textbooks for math that are well-written. You can also buy used books on Amazon for a low cost.

Often, the follow-up question here is: what is the best textbook to use for a given subject? While some textbooks are better written than others, it really doesn't matter. A mediocre book that you read and work all the problems in is going to be a lot better than the world's greatest textbook that just sits on your bookcase and collects dust. Any textbook will work. Having more than one is usually a good approach, as sometimes a different explanation will click better.

All the courses on GreeneMath are designed with a textbook approach. So the lessons are based on a few different textbooks for the given class. Often, I get questions about why Algebra 1 topics are present in the Algebra 2 course. You have to think about Algebra itself as one really huge subject that is divided into these different classes to make it more digestible.

• Algebra 1 is the lowest level and includes introductory/foundational topics
• Algebra 2 contains all of the topics from Algebra 1 and introduces some additional topics
  • The topics from Algebra 1 are usually expanded on and covered with additional problem types
• College Algebra and Pre-Calculus deal with the more advanced topics
• Since College Algebra is a complete Algebra course, the introductory topics are in that course as well
  • With College Algebra, you are going to see every single topic from Algebra 1 and Algebra 2
  • The Algebra 1 topics are going to get minimal coverage, as this is a more advanced class
  • The focus will be on the more advanced topics, starting with functions and working forward

What creates the most confusion is that different school districts have different definitions of Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, College Algebra, and Pre-Calculus. Also, a lot of content is cut from school courses due to time. A Pre-Calculus book is usually around 1,500 pages and contains well over 250 topics. It is usually impossible to cover all of those topics in one single year.
In terms of our College Algebra and Pre-Calculus courses, they have the exact same Algebra content. The difference is only in the title, not the material. Most people don't realize that Pre-Calculus is just the latter half of College Algebra (starting with functions) with the addition of Trigonometry. You can always look through the different OpenStax textbooks to see what topics are included in each Algebra course and then make your decision from there.

• Algebra 1 (Open Stax)
• Algebra 2 (Open Stax)
• College Algebra (Open Stax)
• Precalculus (Open Stax)

Note: GreeneMath's Pre-Calculus course follows a different order than most textbooks. In Pre-Calculus textbooks, the Trigonometry section is generally in the middle of the course, whereas for our course, it is at the end. The Trigonometry portion is generally the hardest part and should be learned last, in my opinion. You can always use the syllabus from the OpenStax textbook linked above to follow the usual order.

ChatGPT could be the biggest help ever invented for someone trying to learn math on their own. In the past, if you were stuck on a problem, you had to find a similar problem in a textbook or workbook and match things up. Otherwise, you would have to wait to find someone who could explain the steps of the problem. For quite a while now, we have had these calculators that show the steps for math problems. It didn't work for every type of problem, but it was extremely helpful if you got stuck on a common problem. With ChatGPT, now you can see the full steps, and then ask follow-up questions or for things to be explained in a different way. When used correctly, this is probably the biggest advance since the mass printing of workbooks.
I should note here that ChatGPT could also be the biggest hindrance to learning math. If you are using ChatGPT or other tools to do your homework, it's a really bad thing. Doing math on your own is the only way to learn. Getting help when stuck on a problem is the correct use for ChatGPT.

On each main course page, you will notice checkboxes that sit next to each course item. You can check the checkbox in order to track your progress. Whether the checkbox is checked or not is saved to your browser's local storage. Depending on your browser and whether you are in private mode or not, this information might be cleared when you close the browser. For most people, it will work just fine; for others, you may have to adjust your browser's settings. Please note, GreeneMath doesn't have any control over your browser's local storage. I would love to move to a server that allows GreeneMath to set up a login for each person, but that's too expensive and simply not possible at this time.

On the math practice section, a trophy icon will appear only after you have successfully completed the associated test. This value is saved to your local storage and could be inadvertently cleared out.

No, this site is now funded by a mix of ad revenue and money generated from working on side projects. I am no longer selling any premium courses on Udemy or any other platforms.

No, GreeneMath's courses follow a general guideline for high school and college math.

In terms of courses, the site has reached a conclusion. Originally, I had planned to finish up the Pre-Calculus solution videos for the practice tests and then add in some important topics that I felt were missing. At that point, I was going to move on and make a full Calculus course.

Video lectures/solution videos take quite a bit of time to produce. You have to write a script, type out the problems, create images, links to Desmos, film, edit, and go back and reshoot any mistakes. Right now, the funding simply isn't there for me to do this. In the past, I was able to bring in enough money from YouTube, memberships, ads on this site, and Udemy. Now, most of that revenue is either gone or basically a small fraction of what it was. At this point, I am doing a lot of side projects to make up the money. So for now, I will continue to add in computer-generated practice tests, as that is all I have time for. If in the future, I find a reliable and consistent source of funding, I will return to producing video lectures/solution videos. I don't see that happening as AI is basically taking over everything in education at the moment.

No! GreeneMath.com owns the exclusive rights to all of its content. It does not share its content or grant exceptions to non-profit organizations or schools for any reason. Using the YouTube for education player will remove the ads. You can also just play the video with an ad blocker enabled.

If you want to use our video lessons with your class, you may link to any YouTube video or video lesson webpage. Additionally, you may use the embed code from the official GreeneMath YouTube video to include our video with your lesson. You may not download our videos for any reason. As mentioned above, you can use the YouTube player for education to avoid having students see ads.

Yes! You may link to our website and our videos. Please note, our content is available for non-commercial personal use only!

Hardware: Dell XPS Computer, Shure MV7 Microphone, and Wacom Cintiq Pro

Software: Camtasia Studio, Microsoft OneNote

GreeneMath.com is custom-built by me (John Greene). There are a few extremely helpful libraries and programs, such as jQuery, ASCIIsvg, David Lippman's Graphing Tools, Inkscape, MathGV, and MathJax, that are used for animations and displaying math equations.

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If you find an error in content and you are confident in the error, please send an email using the form below. Please use ChatGPT or a trusted resource to verify first. I receive a lot of error messages that are just a lack of understanding. I will not be able to respond, so I will thank you in advance. Note: Our email form is only available to users in the U.S. due to mass spam.