Lesson plan: the binomial expansion and nCr

This is the second lesson of two; in the TAM resources you will find a lesson plan for
introducing the binomial expansion which focuses on Pascal’s triangle rather than n C r . This
lesson is designed to follow on from that.

Aim: To know how to use n C r in the context of the binomial expansion and to understand
why these values give the coefficients.

The main ideas in this lesson:

1. Pascal’s triangle isn’t very useful when the index is large; another method is needed
n!
2. Where the formula n Cr  comes from
r ! n  r !
3. That Pascal’s triangle is really a way of showing all the values of n C r
4. Why expanding  a  b  involves choosing and hence n C r
n

5. Ensuring students have sufficient practise using this idea

Optional
You might want to include an explanation of why n C r values automatically have the
‘Pascal’s triangle property’ that adjacent ones add to the one below; i.e. n Cr  n Cr 1  n 1 Cr 1

Take a particular example to illustrate (as shown on the final slide below).

Explanation 1: Manipulate the fractions of factorials as shown

Explanation 2: You wish to select 4 of the 10 objects A to J.

You could either include A and choose 3 of the remaining 9
( 9 C3 ways) or avoid A, choosing all 4 from B to J ( 9 C4 ways).
This covers every possible combination with none counted
twice so we have 9 C3  9 C4  10 C4 .

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Introduction (5 minutes)
Last lesson we used Pascal’s triangle to generate coefficients in the expansion of  2  3x  .
5

What is the expansion of  2  3x  ? How would you find an approximate value of 1.75 ?
5

A problem arises if you want to expand  2  3x  . We need a way of finding the coefficients
37

without writing out 37 rows of Pascal’s triangle. That’s what we’ll do in this lesson.

A counting problem (20 minutes)

First think about this problem.

 You want to choose 2 class representatives from 26 pupils. How many pairs are there?
You have 26 choices for the first person, leaving 25 pupils from whom you will make your
second choice. But choosing Ann then Beth gives the same pair as choosing Beth then Ann.
26  25
So we need to divide by 2 to find the total number of pairs:  325 .
2
 What if you wanted to choose 3 representatives?
You have 26 choices for the person, 25 for the second and 24 for the third. But the triplet
ABC would have arisen in six ways: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA. So we need to divide
26  25  24
by 6 to find the total number of triples:  2600 . Important point: why 6? This is
6
asking how many ways are there of ordering three letters, A, B and C. You have 3 choices
for which one to write first, leaving two for the next and then the last is determined. So there
are 3  2 1 ways and this is written 3!
26  25  24 26  25  24 26!
So is really and it will be helpful to write this . We use the
6 3! 3!23!
notation 26 C3 and say ‘26 choose 3’.
Spend time carefully discussing choosing 3 from 10:

Repeat for C 7 (You find this turns out to be the same: selecting 3 is the same as choosing
10

7 to leave behind) and 6 C 4 .

Direct students towards the n C r calculator button and ask them to write down 5 C1 , 5 C2 , 5 C3
and 5 C 4 . Discuss why both 5 C 0 and 5 C5 are equal to 1. Point out that these make up the 5th
row of Pascal’s triangle and that this is what Pascal’s triangle is really about.

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The link between the binomial expansion and choosing (10 minutes)

Now back to expanding 1  x  . What has this got to do with ‘choosing’?

n

Important point: When you multiply out brackets you are taking one term from each bracket
and multiplying them together. You do this with every possible combination of terms.
Think about the coefficient of x 4 in the expanded form of 1  x  . You must have taken x
9

from 4 of the brackets (and therefore must take 1 from the remaining 5 brackets). This can
be done in 9 C4 ways.

So what is the term containing x 3 in the expansion of  2  3x  ?

7

You must take  3x  from 3 brackets – and this can be done in 7 C3 ways – leaving you with
no choice but to take the 2 from the remaining 4 brackets.

So the required term is 7 C3  24   3x   35 16  27 x3  15120 x3
3

Using nCr (20 minutes)

Textbook questions or questions from Integral. For example see Exercise level 2 in the
student resources:

You might want to include the question: what are the tens and units digits in 3176 ?

Plenary (5 minutes)

Tell me three ways of finding the coefficient of x 2 in the expansion of  2  x  .

5

[Expand by hand, use Pascal’s triangle, use the binomial coefficients 5 C r ]
Change one number in 1  1x  so that the coefficient of x in the expansion is 32.
4

 2  1x 4 , 1  8 x 4 , 1  1x 32 
 

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 1

1 1

1 2 1

1 3 3 1

1 4 6 4 1

1 5 10 10 5 1

 2  3x   1 25  5  24   3 x   10  23   3 x   10  22   3 x   5  2   3 x   1  3 x 
5 2 3 4 5

 32  240 x  720 x 2  1080 x3  810 x 4  243x 5

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 10  9  8
10 C3 
6
10  9  8

3!
10  9  8  7!

3! 7!
10!

3! 7!
 120

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 Pascal’s Triangle

1 1

1 C0 1 C1 1 1

2 C0 2 C1 2 C2 1 2 1

3 C0 3 C1 3 C2 3 C3 1 3 3 1

4 C0 4 C1 4 C2 4 C3 4 C4 1 4 6 4 1

5 C0 5 C1 5 C2 5 C3 5 C4 5 C5 1 5 10 10 5 1

n!
n Cr 
r ! n  r !

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 2  3x   ............  ___ x  ..............
7 3

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 76
What are the tens and units digits in 31 ?

 30  1  3076  C1 3075 11  ...  C74 302 174  C75 30 175  176
76
76 76 76

76  75
 3076  76  3075 1  ...   302  1  76  30  1
2

 100k  2280  1

 100n  81

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 9! 9!
9 C3  9 C 4  
3!6! 4!5!
4  9! 9! 6
 
4  3!6! 4!5! 6
4  9! 9! 6
 
4!6! 4!6!
9!
  4  6
4!6!
10!

4!6!
 10 C4

10 C4 ABCDEFGHIJ

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