What's the Best Way to Teach Trinomial Factoring?

That's the question Liz Burris sought to answer in her Mathematics Education capstone project. However, after researching different factoring methods, analyzing student data and surveying Frederick County Public School educators, she concluded math educators have quite varied beliefs about the matter. In the end, Liz arrived at her own opinion: a combination of sum-product, guess and check, grouping, use of manipulatives and scaling methods. Her paper was published in The Banneker Banner, Vol. 28, no. 1. Liz is currently a substitute math teacher for the Boyertown Area School District in Pennsylvania. She and her husband recently welcomed their first child.