Browsed by
Month: November 2015

AMATYC 2015 – First Impressions

AMATYC 2015 – First Impressions

Comments 0 Comment

You can always see which way the pendulum is swinging at AMATYC. Lots of sessions on tablet/smart phone apps, getting online students more engaged, and various pathways approaches. So different from my first AMATYC. I have seen, firsthand, how mobile technology can impact the classroom. A couple of weeks ago I was introducing my students to the graph of a parabola. I wanted to graph a parabola using Desmos, have my students observe the results, and tell me which points…

Read More Read More

Factoring Trinomials (x^2+bx+c): Sometimes You Should Start With b, Not c

Factoring Trinomials (x^2+bx+c): Sometimes You Should Start With b, Not c

Comments 0 Comment

In today’s class we ran into the trinomial This can be challenging for students just learning to factor because they are not familiar with the factor set of 208. Traditionally I recommend that students follow the 10-second rule: If you cannot find the correct factor pairing within 10 seconds, you should move on to listing all factor pairs of c. This would result in the following pairs: That means that students need to try 13 potential factors (1 through 13)…

Read More Read More

Factoring – A New Approach

Factoring – A New Approach

Comments 1 comment

This semester I have been trying to help my students discover mathematics, rather than having everything coming straight from me. My goal is to get them to think more while also gaining confidence in their own abilities. One topic that has always given my students trouble is factoring trinomials that have a leading coefficient other than 1. Here’s what I tried. We had spent the day before factoring trinomials that did have a leading coefficient of 1, and my students…

Read More Read More