Skip to main content

Revisiting Multiplication

If you watched my first multiplication video (here if you haven't yet), you'll remember that I said there was a high school application for the area model strategy of multiplying. 

We're going to take a look at that today.  Since many parents are currently in this situation




trying to recall what they can remember about high school math. 


For many parents, who do remember factoring quadratics from their high school algebra days, it probably wasn't their favorite memory.  I would bet that most people factored using the tried and true "guess and check" strategy - which works great IF you have a really strong handle on your multiplication facts.  If not, students struggled and were likely told that "upper level math" just may not be for them. When in reality, many of those struggling students struggle because they need to SEE WHY something works. 

When we connect multiplying (FOIL if that rings any bells) to factoring in 1 cohesive process, students can see that the two are directly connected AND they have meaning to WHY they work the way they do. 
Check it out.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Power of Yet (and I Don't Know)

 This one's for all the parents facing the "why...?" and "how...?" and "why not...?" and "do I have to...?" questions.  And for the teachers (and parents) who are uncomfortable with admitting they aren't the omniscient geniuses we'd like our kids (and students) to believe we are.  There is a LOT of power in the word YET.  And even more power (in my opinion) in admitting you don't know. Students of all ages need to know that they don't have to know everything - and the people in their lives don't know everything either.  Try it out.        It's OK to not get it, yet.        It's OK to not know. Let's find out together. 

Keep, Borrow, Change...Right?

Subtraction - Take Aways - Whatever you call it this is the first "big" hurdle for many students in a long race of mathematics. It turns out that this first hurdle is often the first time parents seem to get beyond frustrated with the MANY ways students are presented with solving a subtraction problem. All of the skills you'll see in this video are essentially shortcuts that many discover on their own through mental math and practice. By presenting them to students at a young age they become more and more comfortable with numbers and their reasoning and number sense improves overall.  Enjoy!