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A Teacher's Guide to Teaching Factoring (Part 1): Defeat the Dread & Ditch the Gimmicks
In my first few years of teaching Algebra 1 and 2, there were few things that I dreaded more than -THAT- time of year. It quickly approached and loomed on my curriculum map like a dark cloud: FACTORING QUADRATIC EXPRESSIONS. Why did I dread it? 😫 Factoring quadratic expressions is a complex process! There's a wide variety of special "shortcuts", and -believe me!- I've tried them all! Here's a quick look at a few of the "shortcuts" that I personally tried in my classroom: 👉 THE X METHOD : In this method, students drew a large X on their paper. In the top and bottom "elbows" of the X , they wrote the value of the product of a and c , as well as the value of b (coefficients from the quadratic expression form ax² + bx + c ). The left and right "elbows" of the X are meant for the factors that both MULTIPLY to the a×c and ADD to the b . Even typing how "The X" process works has me out of breath and likel
