Lesson 3: Common Factors and Factoring Trinomials

Module 3: Polynomials

Launch

Are you ready?

Complete these questions in your course folder (binder). If you are experiencing difficulty, you may want to use the information and the multimedia in the Refresher section to clarify concepts before completing these exercises.

1. What does it mean to factor a number?
2. Determine the greatest common factor (GCF) of 60 and 72 by
a. listing the factors of each number
b. prime factorization
3. Multiply (3x + 2) and (x + 1) using
a. using algebra tiles
b. the area method
c. the distributive property
4.Verify your answer to question 3 by using the two-column method and substituting x = 3.

Once you have completed these exercises to the best of your ability, use the provided answer link to check your work.
Answers
If you feel comfortable with the concepts covered in the questions, move forward to Discover. If you experienced difficulties or want more practice, use the resources in Refresher to review these important concepts before continuing through the lesson or contact your teacher.

Refresher

The purpose of this section is to provide you with some resources to review in preparation for the lesson ahead. These resources may include videos, interactive applets, mini-lessons, and flash games to help you recall previously learned concepts. You can use these resources either before or after you try the Are You Ready? questions. Your teacher may also direct you to this section to review specific concepts.

You can review how to find the GCF of a set of number using a variety of strategies by looking at several examples in Module 2: Lesson1. Review “Find the GCF” to find out how to determine the GCF using prime factorization.

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Watch the “Mathcast 007 Greatest Common Factor” . You only need to watch the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds of this clip. You can also review Module 2: Lesson1 to see some other methods for determining the GCF of a set of numbers.

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Watch the “Mathcast 005 Using an Area Model to Illustrate the Multiplication of a Binomial and a Binomial” . Watch the video to see how you can use algebra tiles to model the multiplication of binomials.

Read

You can read about how to verify the product of polynomial multiplication by reading an example of how to do this in your textbook. 

Materials

 For this lesson, you may wish to use the set of algebra tiles that you borrowed from your teacher or that you created from the Algebra Tiles Template.

Alternatively, you could continue to use the “Arranging Algebra Tiles” applet.