Education Technology


Reduce It!

Activity Overview

Students write augmented matrices for systems of equations and then solve the system by writing the augmented matrix in reduced row-echelon form.

Key Steps

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    Problem 1 gives students the opportunity to be walked through the reduced row-echelon form of an augmented matrix to solve a 2 × 2 system of equations.

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    They use the rref command to confirm their answers and then extract from the matrix the solution to the system.

    Students think about the reduced row-echelon form of augmented matrices for systems in which there are infinitely many or no solutions.

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    In Problem 2, students perform the elementary row operation to reduce the augmented matrix for a 3 × 3 system to reduced row-echelon form. They should check their work with the rref command.