lewis student work blog week 10

Distributive Property was one heck of a topic to teach.  I introduced the topic to the students by breaking apart an array and showing them how the array can be broken into two smaller arrays, making it easier to solve two smaller problems.  I then showed then how the two products of the two smaller arrays added up to equal the total array.

The students moved on to practicing breaking apart multiplication problems without using an array.  Some of the students caught on quickly, while others had no understanding of what two do.  One major misconception I spotted across the board was breaking apart the factors.  The students were completing problems in which they knew the answers to, but could not break apart into two problems with one similar factor.  For example, if the problem was 10 x 5, they would break the problem into 4x10 and 2 x 5.  Yes, the products of the two problems equal 50, but  they are not broken apart from the original problem.  One thing I think would be helpful in this case would be for the students to draw the array out and break it apart first.  This would guide them to visualize the problem before writing the numerical representation of the problem.  After practicing this a couple times, I feel they would have a better understanding of this concept without the visual aid.