In this brief article, the author illustrates the flaws of FOIL (multiply the First, Outer, Inner, and Last terms of two binomials) and introduces the box method. Much like FOIL, the box method can become easy to use. Unlike FOIL, however, the box method is a more direct and visible link to using the distributive property to determine area, a…

This study examined whether students were reaching automaticity with single digit multiplication facts. A fourteen question interview was used to collect data. The first three questions asked the student basic information about themselves and their current math teacher. The next seven questions were math facts. The math facts chosen for the…

Many rules taught in mathematics classrooms "expire" when students develop knowledge that is more sophisticated, such as using new number systems. For example, in elementary grades, students are sometimes taught that "addition makes bigger" or "subtraction makes smaller" when learning to compute with whole numbers,…