So I'm in one of those unfortunate circumstances of being a dad trying to help his son with math but have never taken any upper level math classes. I'm pretty good at figuring a lot of stuff out if I understand what we're trying to accomplish, but I need something tangible to go by.

Basically I'm just trying to figure out what slope refers to in a math equation. Is it just the fact that when you put coordinates on a graph it creates a sloped line?

What the hell does m represent?

I can copy/paste the actual problem we're working on but I'm more looking for a way to understand it, not the actual answer.