How to factor out the GCF with stories
At various times when I tutor, I find myself explaining the same concept repeatedly over several weeks.
Recently it has been that way with — drumroll please … factoring out the GCF from polynomials.
One reason I’m getting so much “experience” with this is that many kids find this process very difficult. It’s not hard to see why. First of all, the process of finding the GCF is, in itself, somewhat tricky. Then too, factoring out the GCF from all terms in a polynomial is a multi-step process; students need to get each step right, and then they need to perform the steps in the correct order. If that alone were not enough to tax children’s minds, students also get confused by the difference between how to multiply pure numbers (constants and coefficients), and how to multiply variables. (more…)
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