# Tag Info

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### Dividing by zero

You asked: "How do/would you explain why division by zero does not produce a result." Any such explanation that is not rooted in student understanding would be talking to ourselves, not to ...
• 7,385

### Dividing by zero

Have the students tell you that division by zero is a non-sequitur. This is possible at any age where division is understood at all. Teacher: If there are eight cookies and four children, how many ...
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### Dividing by zero

In third grade we taught division using repeated subtraction. To divide 6 by 2, subtract 2 until you get to 0. 6-2=4, 4-2=2, 2-2=0. It took 3 steps so 6÷2=3. This can also be shown on a number ...
• 7,055

### Commonly taught method divides by zero

The method is mathematically incorrect, but whether it is wrong or not, depends on whether people know what they're doing or not. The possible division by zero is a mistake, yes. But it is a mistake ...
• 824

I do not think that such tricks are helpful: in fact I believe they are deeply damaging. These types of basic relationships should not be memorized: they should be derived on the fly from an ...
• 20.7k

### Dividing by zero

Dividing $1$ disk into $\frac{1}{n}$-ths ($\frac{1}{3}, \ldots$), leads to $\frac{1}{1/n} = n$ pieces ($3,\ldots$): As $\frac{1}{n}$ approaches $0$, the number of pieces $n$ grows without bound. The ...
• 28.3k

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### Dividing by zero

I think it's important to explain students that formally it's not defined, but also give them motivation for why it is not defined. Yes, definitions are in some sense arbitrary, but we have ...
• 356

### How to teach quick multiplication and division in head?

I have 2 ideas for you. First, I have helped a student get number intuition by getting him to building factorisation lattices. For instance, 12 can be represented by a 2D, 2 node by 3 node grid/...
• 2,588