Thursday, August 30, 2012

Matching By Factoring

This is a neat idea for a Friday, inside activity day or study hall. It's light, fun and still educational. The game is called Factoring by Matching.




How It Works:
  1. Using a large poster board (or even a dry erase board) create various expressions that you wish to have factored.
  2. Next, using index cards, write the factored form of each of the expressions (as well as some answers to problems that are not on the poster)
  3. Finally, have the students match the factored expressions with the correct original expression.






Ways To Implement it

  1. I think this project would work well with small groups of 3-4.
  2. You could use small posters for each group.
  3. I would also make sure students show their steps of factoring to avoid students from rushing or matching the correct factored expression by simply looking at the numbers i.e. guessing.

Notes:

1) To reach students of various abilities, make some posters with more challenging problems