Making Algorithms Meaningful

Summary and Implications Sharon help here!
Text Box: Summary and Implication of Partial Products Lesson. The main points of this lesson are: The Partial Products Algorithm can (should) be taught in schools to encourage a deeper understanding of the more traditional multiplication algorithm and for place value in general. It is educationally valuable because: Has place value understanding built into the procedure Adding of partial products becomes natural addition process instead of using a 0 as a place holder No carrying of products (magic place value tricks involving carrying) This algorithm works with no further teaching, no matter how many digits are in each factor. That is, we don’t have to first learn “Two digit” multiplication, then “three digit multiplication.” The partial products are “Friendly” numbers to add. Hence, the algorithm can lend itself to supporting students’ efforts to compute mentally. A related representation of the partial products algorithm is the array model, which can be naturally extended beyond products of two-digit factors Implications: How