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Succeed with maths: part 1

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Does maths feel like a bit of a mystery to you? Are you looking to improve your confidence in using maths in a variety of everyday situations? If so, this free course, Succeed with maths: part 1, is for you.

Beginning with the very foundations of maths, this course will start by looking at how numbers are put together, before guiding you through how to use percentages, fractions and negative numbers. Taking real-life examples you will have the opportunity to practise your new skills and build your confidence in using maths to solve problems in everyday life and the wider world.

This course will encourage you to not just mechanically follow the rules that are written to help with maths, but to also gain an understanding and appreciation of what lies behind these rules.

Transcript

Enrolling on the course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they're a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.

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The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey . Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback and suggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey . Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

This course is accredited by the CPD Standards Office . It can be used to provide evidence of continuing professional development and on successful completion of the course you will be awarded 24 CPD points. Evidence of your CPD achievement is provided on the free Statement of Participation awarded on completion.

Anyone wishing to provide evidence of their enrolment on this course is able to do so by sharing their Activity Record on their OpenLearn Profile, which is available before completion of the course and earning of the Statement of Participation.

Earn this free Open University digital badge if you complete this course! The badge can be displayed, shared and downloaded as a marker of your achievement. The badge is awarded for completing the course and passing the quizzes.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

use maths in a variety of everyday situations
understand how to use percentages, fractions and negative numbers in some everyday situations
begin to develop different problem-solving skills
use a calculator effectively.

Enter course

First Published: 30/11/2021

Updated: 30/11/2021

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Course content

Introduction and guidance
- Current section:
  Introduction and guidance
  Succeed with maths – Part 1 is a free badged course which lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours' study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week’s study.You'll start with the most familiar territory of how numbers are put together and look at addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. In the following weeks you'll move on to look at fractions, percentages and ...
  - What is a badged course?
  - How to get a badge
- Acknowledgements
Week1Week 1: Solving puzzles
- Current section:
  Introduction
  In this first week you will be focusing on some introductory maths activities. Some of these problems may seem more like puzzles than mathematics, and others will clearly fall into the category of maths problems. To help you there will be hints for you to use, if you need them. All of these puzzles bring up points about how to engage in maths and what is useful to know. In the following video, the course author Maria Townsend introduces you to Week 1:After this week, you should be able ...
- 1 Puzzles and real-world maths
- 2 Problem solving
- 3 Understanding numbers
  - 3.1 Parts of the whole – decimal numbers
- 4 Addition
- 5 Subtraction
  - 5.1 Subtracting one number from another
- 6 Multiplication
  - 6.1 Everyday multiplication
- 7 Division
- 8 Does order matter for multiplication and division?
- 9 This week's quiz
- 10 Summary of Week 1
- Acknowledgements
- Week 1 practice quiz
Week2Week 2: Working with numbers
- Current section:
  Introduction
  In this week you will extend your work from Week 1 by looking at decimals again. You will also learn about powers (or exponentiation). When using all the mathematical operations you’ve studied so far, it is important to know what order to carry these out in, just like you would when making a piece of flat pack furniture. If you start in the wrong place, you may not end up with a correctly finished wardrobe, or correct answer. You will look at the correct order to carry out calculations, ...
- 1 Fractions and decimals
- 2 Rounding
- 3 Getting to know your calculator
  - 3.1 Another calculator activity
- 4 Exponents or powers
  - 4.1 Calculator exploration: exponents
- 5 Order of operations
- 6 Using maths in the real world
  - 6.1 Maths cycle in practice: insulating the attic
- 7 Problem-solving strategies
- 8 This week's quiz
- 9 Summary of Week 2
- Acknowledgements
- Week 2 practice quiz
Week3Week 3: Parts of the whole
- Current section:
  Introduction
  You encountered fractions briefly in Week 2, when you looked at how to show them on a number line and related them to decimal numbers. This week you will continue your exploration of fractions and look at them in more detail. First, you’ll look at what a fraction is and then look at different types of fraction. Some of this may seem a little like maths for the sake of maths but much of this week’s study is to provide a solid foundation for carrying out calculations using fractions. So stick ...
- 1 Fractions
  - 1.1 Folding paper
- 2 Equivalent fractions
  - 2.1 Working with equivalent fractions
- 3 Fractions of a group
  - 3.1 Thinking more about fractions
- 4 Mixed numbers
  - 4.1 Improper fractions
- 5 Fractions – bringing it all together
- 6 This week's quiz
- 7 Summary of Week 3
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 3 practice quiz
Week4Week 4: More parts of the whole
- Current section:
  Introduction
  This week you will continue to study fractions and will perform calculations with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. To do this, you’ll use what you learned in Week 3 about equivalent fractions, mixed numbers and improper fractions. Fractions can often cause anxiety. Our aim is that, by working through this week, you will understand how calculations with fractions work rather than try to remember a set of rules. Understanding will make you feel much more confident...
- 1 Adding and subtracting fractions
- 2 Multiplying fractions
  - 2.1 Multiplying mixed numbers and fractions
  - 2.2 Practical multiplication
- 3 Dividing fractions
- 4 Fractions on your calculator
- 5 This week's quiz
- 6 Summary of Week 4
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 4 compulsory badge quiz
Week5Week 5: Relationships among numbers
- Current section:
  Introduction
  News reports often mention the results of surveys and studies in ‘per cent’. Literally, ‘per cent’ means ‘per one hundred’, so ‘25 per cent’ means ‘25 out of one hundred’. A per cent is just a specific kind of fraction – one that always has 100 as its denominator.This week, you will start your study of percentages. This will continue in Week 6, when you will use percentages in a variety of different everyday situations. Whether you are shopping around for the best deal, or reading an article...
- 1 Percentages
- 2 Writing a percentage as a fraction or decimal
- 3 Writing a decimal as a percentage
- 4 Writing a fraction as a percentage
- 5 Converting between percentages, decimals and fractions
- 6 Finding a percentage of a number
- 7 What percentage is it?
- 8 Facts and figures
- 9 This week's quiz
- 10 Summary of Week 5
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 5 practice quiz
Week6Week 6: Percentage calculations and ratios
- Current section:
  Introduction
  This week, you will continue your study of percentages. After a refresh of some of last week’s ideas, you will turn your attention to carrying out calculations with percentages. A lot of the time you see percentages in everyday life, they are about something changing – money off in a sale, or how much house prices have risen. These are the sorts of calculations you’ll be doing this week. This will help you to feel confident in using these calculations in everyday situations. Finally, you’ll ...
- 1 Using percentages
  - 1.1 Finding a percentage of a value
  - 1.2 Money
- 2 Percentage increase or decrease
- 3 Percentage points
- 4 Ratios
  - 4.1 Ratios in recipes
- 5 This week's quiz
- 6 Summary of Week 6
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 6 practice quiz
Week7Week 7: Negative numbers
- Current section:
  Introduction
  For the final two weeks of this course you are going to look at numbers that are less than zero; that is, negative numbers. You will probably be familiar with these in relation to temperatures below zero, and in banking, when any debits are made. Here you will explore the use of negative numbers and how to work with them. As well as these everyday uses of negative numbers, they are also very important in some academic study, such as science and technology. If you go on to further study, ...
- 1 Understanding negative numbers
- 2 More practical uses of negative numbers
  - 2.1 Determining if a value is positive or negative
- 3 Addition and subtraction on the number line
- 4 Adding and subtracting negative numbers
- 5 Rules for negatives
- 6 Calculator exploration: negative numbers
- 7 This week's quiz
- 8 Summary of Week 7
- Acknowledgements
- Week 7 practice quiz
Week8Week 8: Sharing maths with others
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Last week you learnt about adding and subtracting negative numbers. But what about the other two operations – multiplying and dividing? It is possible to imagine what might happen when multiplying a negative number by a positive number by thinking about owing money. For example, if you currently owe £100 but your debt triples, that means you owe £300. So that suggests –100 × 3 = –300.But what does –4 × –2 mean? Or –15 ÷ –5? You’ll find out more this week.You’ll then finish off this course by...
- 1 Multiplication and division with negative numbers
- 2 Calculator exploration: exponents with negative numbers
- 3 Wrapping up negative numbers
- 4 Reading and writing mathematics
  - 4.1 Writing mathematics
  - 4.2 Understanding a solution
- 5 This week's quiz
- 6 Summary of Week 8
- Where next?
- Tell us what you think
- Acknowledgements
- Week 8 compulsory badge quiz

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Khya Baldwin 1 April 2025 9:10PM

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I learned so much

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Eliah Browne 9 June 2024 1:49PM

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A fantastic course to determine where my weaknesses and strengths are in mathematics. Will be continuing to part 2.

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Succeed with maths: part 1

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