<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:courier,monaco,monospace,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: courier,monaco,monospace,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">One thing that always comes up when our math department discusses non-standard algorithms is <a href="http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/usnoadd.htm">long division of polynomials</a>. Doesn't seem like any non-standard algorithm is easily applied there.<br><br>Changing the focus a little: I've been thinking of the importance of student motivation in learning a programming language. I've always found <a href="http://www.pythonchallenge.com/">The Python Challenge</a> to be quite motivating to get me writing code and learning more about Python. I don't know how it could be done, but could a similar approach be used to supplement a middle or high school programming class? Any ideas?<br><br>Richard<br><br><div
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: Jay Bloodworth <jbloodworth@sc.rr.com><br><div>....<br><br>* (a + b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2, not a^2 + b^2. Here there is the<br>standard geometric area model for multiplication. Sometimes I present<br>multiplication with the model, sometimes not. It doesn't seem to change<br>the error rate.....<br><br></div></div><br></div></div><br>
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