Comments on I Want to Teach Forever: Two Review Games: Multiplying Polynomials and FOIL...

This is amazing! I am a first year teacher and th...

2011-08-31T00:15:42.745-05:00

This is amazing! I am a first year teacher and this is greatly appreciated!

Ms. D: Who said anything about guess work? Neithe...

2010-12-03T14:15:28.594-06:00

Ms. D: Who said anything about guess work? Neither of these activities are supposed to involve any guess work. Please see my earlier comment above. I'm well aware of the box method, and it's certainly a strategy that could work for many students.

Factoring doesn't have to be guess work. I te...

2010-12-02T22:58:03.544-06:00

Factoring doesn't have to be guess work. I teach factoring using the box method. I have the students factor out the GCF and any negative signs then we create a 2 by 2 box.

We put the first term in the upper left corner and the last term in the bottom right corner. We multiply the first and last coefficient and then find factors of that number that add to our middle coefficient. Those two numbers go in the remaining boxes and then on the outside of the boxes they fill in the factors.

You could google the method and see problems worked out. Try it out!

Thank you for sharing these games. Kids always lea...

2010-07-13T15:39:04.122-05:00

Thank you for sharing these games. Kids always learn better when there is a fun component to the teaching.
Keeping with the FOIL discussion, I recently posted a free video with Edward Burger talking about FOIL. It's definitely a handy mnemonic!

http://blog.thinkwell.com/2010/07/prealgebra-multiplying-binomials.html

Mr. D, Thank you so much for posting your games an...

2010-05-02T19:49:45.316-05:00

Mr. D,
Thank you so much for posting your games and ideas on here. They proved to be some helpful ideas since I will be giving a quiz over Polynomials in the coming week! This is my second year teaching, but first teaching Algebra. So thank you so much for the resources.

Aaron: When you're given a quadratic equation ...

2009-11-16T13:54:53.748-06:00

Aaron: When you're given a quadratic equation (in the form ax^2 + bx + c) and you're asked to factor it, un-FOILing it is what you have to do. As you said, Calculus would be pretty difficult without it, because you have to be able to factor just about anything.

You can use the quadratic formula to solve quadratic equations, but factoring (un-FOILING) works most of the time and is, I think, easier to remember than the QF.

Another way to look at it is that it helps you understand and review using FOIL itself, because you're working the process backwards. Like just about everything in math, knowing how to do things backwards and forwards means you really understand the process and will be able to do the more difficult problems that lie ahead.

I have to disagree with you that it's guesswork--you're not picking numbers out of thin air, you're using only the factors of whatever the constant c is. Those factors have to add up to the middle term (b), so there's only one possible answer, not a guess. If you're good with number sense, you can solve a lot of these types of problems mentally.

On the other hand, I'm sorry that you were told there's no guesswork in math--I think that's completely wrong. Estimating, rounding and finding out reasonable answers are all forms of guessing and absolutely essential to understanding math. In fact, the better you are at using this number sense from a young age, the easier math becomes as you get older. It's unfortunate that you were steered that way.

Now I'm not going to lie to you and say that everyone is going to need to factor equations like this on a day to day basis. But this particular skill is necessary for calculus, and if you're going to do anything related to science, engineering, economics, medicine, etc, you need it

If you need some help making sense of this, I can probably help you or point you towards some resources. If you're set in your idea that there's no point to it, well, I can't really do much for you.

What the HELL is the point and purpose of doing th...

2009-11-15T18:30:30.033-06:00

What the HELL is the point and purpose of doing the opposite of FOIL? It's meaningless guesswork and time filler that takes forever. It's a real roadblock that I can't get around. I was told as a child that there is NO GUESSWORK in mathematics, and yet HERE WE ARE! THis is not math because it is not guesswork. Does it have ANY real world applications, or is it important in calculus PERIOD and for WHAT REASONS?

As an Algebra I math teacher in the seventh grade,...

2009-03-14T07:58:00.000-05:00

As an Algebra I math teacher in the seventh grade, I am thrilled to find your blog this morning. Thank you for sharing these great resources so unselfishly.

I will be a reader from now on.

http://www.recessduty.wordpress.com