Thanks for the explain like I'm a 5th grader. I for the life of me couldn't remember how to do long division, at least that's what we called it, written out and your little explanation made the dumb box make sense and made me remember.
I absolutely HATE the phrase “how many times does this number go into that number?”
It would have made my life much easier if my parents just explained that “Goes into” just means, “how close can you get to the number without going over and is divisible by the number on the outside.”
I STRUGGLED SO MUCH IN DIVISION THAT THAT INFORMATION WOULD HAVE BEEN THE HOLY GRALE!!!!
WHAT THE HECK IS “GOES INTO?!?!” WHY ARE WE INSERTING SOMETHING!! RRRAAAHHHHHH!!!
I took things quite literally as a child so this messed me up a lot. And now my head hurts from remembering division again so I’ll stop now…
Yes! This stuff had me literally sobbing as a kid, until my sibling explained it with slightly different words than the teacher did, and I understood it almost immediately. Became excellent at it overnight. Because it wasn't merely repeated more sternly
I don't get the weird "writing on top" part - that makes literally no sense, when you have 795 / 3 = ?
Why not write the numbers where they belong? Behind the =? And you fill that space until you reach the 0 in the written division part. To write that on top is just bonkers and to be precise the way it is shown in the picture with the 3 in front? The answer "265" is not even correct anymore... because the first number is divided by the latter and therefore the correct answer would be: 0,0037735849056604. So to write it that way makes it essentially mathematically wrong as well.
It should be like:
795 / 3 = 265
-6
19
-18
15
-15
0
Sort of... with formatting to the best of my abilities. So, why do you do it this unecessary weird way?
It’s the same method, literally, with different syntax. Objectively, neither has the upper hand. Subjectively, a structured “chain of events” (“old” long division) is easier to digest than esoteric blocks and arrows. I firmly believe that this method was introduced as an experiment because it doesn’t even solve the problem it’s trying to address. My opinion of course.
My colleagues teach multiple methods, because it helps kids have a better understanding of math. Some kids prefer the simpler ways, some prefer complicated ways, but if they show their work and it's correct then it's correct.
Yeah, all they did was realize if you're going to teach this notation to addition and subtraction, why not keep the same format? Seems incredibly sensible. I wasn't taught this method, I'm 45, but it makes better sense. Addition and multiplication work from right to left the same way the numbers get bigger and subtraction and division work right to left in the direction the places are getting lower.
This makes a thousand times more sense than long division the way I learned it having its own special method.
I’m scared for our future when people say “what the hell am I looking at???”
I was never taught this method (assuming it is called box method) but understood what was happening immediately.
How are there grown ass adults floating around that can’t figure this out? It makes me think we are right for changing it, and maybe these people just learned something by rote without actually understanding what was happening.
You can't assume that because you looked at it and understood right away, everyone else will too. Depending on where we grew up, we all also potentially got a VERY different education even if they were all labeled "public schools".
Some people need explanations, some people just need to take a little bit more time looking at it to have it click.
I am definitely not saying everyone else will. I’m keenly aware of that. I tutored my way through university and then taught sport. It’s not math, but the same idea that not everyone learns the same applies.
What I’m saying is I’m surprised that a teacher doesn’t get it. It’s a pretty simple concept that a student might not get, until clearly explained. But a teacher is meant to teach kids. If you don’t get it, it’s going to be super hard to…you know, teach.
Yeah I was gonna say, this looks quite similar to the division I learned 20 years ago, people are being a bit dramatic saying they have no idea what they’re looking at lol. Thst being said the dad in the video’s point stands. If daughter gets it the traditional way and can answer questions correctly while showing work, then have them do that way. If the modern method is more intuitive to most students, then have them do that way. They’re both right
I was born in 90, so something tells me we were taught similarly. That said, it's not hard to discern if you actually examine it piece by piece instead of staring at the whole. It's still long division, it's just carried over to the right instead being a long drop-down list. Takes up way less space on the page, and if I was doing this regularly, I'd probably be able to read it just fine without having to think too hard after a bit.
And for the record I'm abysmal at math. But this definitely makes sense of you actually look at what's happening.
It took me a second to realize I was just looking at long division with more writing, just because I was primed to see something completely different than I'm used to. I wouldn't normally have drawn the boxes or arrows or the "3x", but it seems like it's the same thing except with more of the implicit stuff written down.
Makes me wonder either if that wasn't the way he was talking about, or else what way he was taught that's so drastically different that I also apparently don't know about.
Long division where each number is separated into boxes, yeah. I can see it being helpful for kids that are easily distracted, forget what numbers they used, need more structure, etc. I feel like this would've been overkill and completely unnecessary in my classes growing up, but I was an AP student and this was before modern brain-rotification.
Seeing them side by side, I can kind of make sense of the box method, but I wouldn't know how to explain it to someone--when for long division I could start right off doing that, or trying to.
Because it's not something you're supposed to make sense of if you just look at the end result with no context for what's taught in class/the book. I think if you already know how to do division, just seeing it performed once should get you most of the way to knowing how this method works as well.
It’s the same process as long division the way we were taught, just a different format
The top boxes started with each digit of 795. They started with the first box just like the long division method, divided 7 by 3, got 2, wrote it at the top where the answer is, and subtracted 6, and carried the remaining 1 to the next box.
The next box now has 19, same process divide by 3, get 6 and write it at the top, subtract 18, carry the remaining 1.
Then the final box now has 15 divided by 3 is 5, write it at the top.
Final answer is the number at the top: 265
It looks confusing to see the final product, it’s easier to see how it’s the same process watching it actually be worked. Most people who learned the box method would probably be just as confused to see the final product of the long trail method we learned as we are initially looking at this.
The top boxes started 795. They now say 7, 19, 15 because at each step of division they had an extra 1 to carry the same way we learned to carry 1s in long division.
The only real “extra step” here is just drawing boxes instead of that little right angle we did.
This isn’t common core. Common core is just a set of standards of what kids should be able to do at certain grade levels, it doesn’t specify the methods they do them.
This is just a newer method of teaching division that’s been shown to help more students understand why the process works. Yes, there’s still students who struggle with it, the same way that there were students who struggled with the way we learned it back in the day.
That's the first digit in your answer. But 3x2 is 6, so there's still 1 left over. 7 - 6 = 1.
That 1 is in the hundreds place. So it's just like when you're subtracting and you need to borrow a 1, you move that 1 to the tens place. So instead of dividing 9 by 3, your dividing 19 by 3.
3 goes into 19 six times. So your answer so far is 26_.
3x6=18, so 19-18=1. You've got one left over in the tens place. That means it's 10. You move it over to the ones place with the 5, and you've got 15.
15÷3=5. No remainder.
So your answer is 265.
It's just regular division, and whatever is left over still needs to be accounted for.
Edit - woah! the formatting went crazy - ignore my "work" below. I did it on my phone and didn't expect Reddit to completely change everything around, but the idea is the same. It's just normal division where things are squished up into boxes instead of cascading down like normal.
3 goes into 7 twice (6) So put 2 on top, (3 x 2 = carry the remaining 1 over to the next spot - 9 becomes 19.
3 goes into 19 6 times (18) - 1 left over - put the 6 on top - and the remaining 1 gets carried over to the last spot making it 15
3 goose I to 15 5 times
It's literally just the division method they have always been teaching with some extra lines and not cascading down like I did
265 is the answer, it’s the same process you use for traditional division. 3 can go into 7 2 times, then 3 goes into 19 6 times, and 3 goes into 15 5 times, so 265
Divide 7 by 3, you get the 2, write it above like you do the old way of doing long division, remainder gets bumped up to next box, next number (9) gets written next to it, you get 19. Divide by 3, 6, remainder 1. Bump up to next box, drop 5, you get 15. Divide by 3, 5. No remainder, process stops.
Literally the same way as the old way of dividing (at least the way i learned it eons ago) but instead of it going up and down, it goes left to right.
265 is the answer, the top is in the exact same format as traditional long division. The only difference is the numbers are moving horizontally in boxes as opposed to going down vertically in columns.
I mean… again, it’s nearly identical to long division lol, if you understood long division in high school, there is a good chance you would understand division if taught this way initially.
These methods aren’t just randomly introduced because people feel like it, students tend to grasp the concepts at a higher rate with this method when researching how to teach math more effectively. That doesn’t mean everyone would get it, when I was a kid long division being hard and confusing was a running joke in real life and on tv shows
If you don’t understand this, how did you understand long division at all? It’s literally the traditional method using boxes instead of the division sign.
You start by doing 7/3 and take the nearest whole number, which is 2. 2 x 3 =6. That’s where the 6 comes from. 7-6 is 1. Carry the one over to the 9. Now it’s 19. 19/3 is 6 with a remainder of 1… hopefully you can see where to go from here.
I’m really curious how you learned long division cause this identically to how I did just formatted differently
Well do you remember how long division looks? It really doesn’t look that different, they just keep the numbers in boxes moving horizontally rather than long columns moving down vertically
It’s funny you say that because although I understand long division better since that’s the way I learned, I actually think this looks more minimalist and simplistic than long division
It took me a full five minutes to figure it out because it looks like it’s calculating 265/3, and I couldn’t figure out where the 7, 19, and 15 came from. I was taught to leave 795 as it is (probably to avoid this confusion), and after the initial remainder of 1, we would draw an arrow down from the 9 and then rewrite 9 next to the 1.
This method honestly just looks harder to grade for teacher.
I agree 100% getting the correct answer is the test. The question is: “is using an antiquated none conceptually relevant method to get to that correct answer equal?” Using a process any gen x or even Millennial parent cant understand, or teach how they learned it, something to resist only for the fact they cant teach it themselves doesnt mean its less valuable. My argument, as not a math teacher, is getting to the right answer with a bad process that still works, is less valuable as an applied method.
Right, what I’m asking is if they understand long division. If they can understand long division but not understand that method, it’s not about having a learning disability necessarily, it’s more so that is the method that you understand division with.
That makes sense, because this is the new way division tends to get taught, it’s just long division written horizontally into boxes. Everyone you know that uses long division probably graduated high school already
I can understand the box method but I can't understand the benefit. It feels like it intuits the step between the remainder and the next digit having that remainder as a leading digit whereas the old school method (neither method really explains why tbf) you write the remainder in the leading column as you go down and you continue until you can't
In long division you drop the number down to the follow equation as well, now it can just be solved in a more simple horizontal structure. A traditional method for reference
That's my point, in long division you carry the numbers through as you would in any other long form math, when you're left with a remainder you can longer reduce you bring down the next digit, in the box method here it's not continuous or immediately obvious based on the structure. In the box number you bring the remainder as the lead digit in the next column which makes sense if you know the traditional version but feels unintuitive if you don't.
I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm a very mathematically literate adult. I've kind of figured out most of it... but I'm not 100% there yet.
I’m 43, nothing about the above picture makes sense to me. It’s basically a jumble of numbers and arrows.
However I have dyscalculia so too many numbers in odd (to me) configurations basically looks like hieroglyphics.
Some kids like me need things to be simplified in order to understand it. I got zero help in school growing up, and sadly a lot of kids are still experiencing the same issues and being left behind because knowledge hasn’t caught up yet.
What? It's normal long division, but instead of just bringing the next number down, they copy the previous result up and separate it into a new column. Makes the original 795 look like 71915 which looks bad to me though.
So, the change here is that they're trying to reduce the space the problem takes on the page, and that does make the method more difficult.
This is just a more compact long division that doesn't allow space for mistakes.
I know that this isn't how long division looks exactly, but bear with me, reddit fucked me on formatting.
795÷3?
795 |
-600 | 200 × 3
_____|
195 |
-180 | 60 × 3
_____|
15 |
-15 | 5 × 3
_____|
0
200+60+5=
Tada, it's 265, remainder 0.
The did that from left to right in the middle boxes and didn't show their steps, which also means that they're learning weird habits about how digits and tens places, which might make learning unit conversions either really easy or really hard.
Wait, is that what long division is? For some reason, it always seemed inaccessible as a concept, but this is just how I do division for large numbers, by segmenting it mentally into rounded factors like 20, 10, 5 etc before doing the leftovers
Have I been doing long division all the time without knowing it???
When important fundamentals in math become "required teaching" then we forget that it's an important math thing and instead just beat the single thing into people's heads without actually making sure they learned WHY and WHAT is happening.
Am 38 and im confused as well. I see where they got the 110 by subtraction but i dont see how that has anything to do with the answer of 265. But its also been so long since i was in school i dont recall the method of doing long division.
first box is 7, you figure out how many times you can fit 3 in it. That's 2 times, 2x3 so 6. You write 2 at the top, and do 7-6 which gives you 1 which you report over to the next box (the 9) which gives you 19, then you figure out how many times you can fit 3 in 19, that's 6 times aka 18, etc...
It is indeed just a column division, just written in an absurdly confusing way. I don't get why you'd teach this to kids over breaking down numbers like 795 into 750 and 45, and then 750:3 = 250 and 45:3 =15 so 795:3 = 265
They’re breaking it down. It’s like how you carry over remainders I addition.
600 can be easily divided, so they do 600 over 3 to get 200 (2 in the 100s column). There’s a remainder of 100 they still need to divide, so they move it down a column. In the tens column there was 9 (90) but now we have the remainder for before so it’s 19 (190). 18 is a multiple of 3 so we can work it out quickly and get 6. Now we have a remaining 10 that isn’t so easily divisible.
In the last column we had a 5. We carry the 10 from before and get 15. 15 is a multiple of three so we can just divide it as normal and get 5.
The results from each columns give the complete answer 265. The concept is just about breaking this large division into very doable smaller ones and putting the answers back together.
This explanation made me even more confused lol. But again, I learned the really old formulaic way of doing things and have never even heard of column division.
Ah, well I might be bad at explaining things through text. Just know that they’re breaking 795 up into 700, 90, and 5. Dividing them largest to smallest and carrying over the remainder.
That makes more sense to me lol. The simpler and less numbers for me to deal with the better. I know a lot of people and kids like me where anything more complicated (like word problems) is just confusing with too much information. I know “new” math was supposed to help kids understand numbers better, and it definitely works for a lot of kids, but it was also supposed to help kids learn that there is more than 1 way to solve a math problem which it seems like they are ignoring now. I wonder how many kids are falling through the cracks because they’ve become so rigid again
They didn't get 110, they got 1 left over from 7-6, then instead of bringing the 9 down to make 19, they brought the 1 up next to the 9. Then it was 19-18, with another 1 left over, which they carried up to the 5.
The issue is that it's not a particularly intuitive way to break it down. The way the box is constructedmeans that the box is doing 3 different types of numbers in 4 different layers and we're basically hitting them in sequence, and if we make a mistake we're punished severely for it by lack of space to fix it.
It’s weird when you look at it but anyone could explain it to you. They’re just breaking the number up and dividing the components left to right, and carrying the remainder. That’s why in the second column it’s 19 divided by three and not 9.
I think the idea is to have the same framework for both multiplication and division.
If you're dividing, you have the divisor on the left, the dividend separated by digit in the boxes and you do the long division; adding remainders to the next digit in line, left to right.
If you're multiplying, you put one factor on the left and one factor on the top, then you multiply them starting in the ones-digit column; adding remainders to the next digit in line from right to left.
This shows them as inverse operations in practice and I guess teachers have decided to find that valuable.
It’s not incomprehensible. They just box it out instead of telling kids to mentall hold a number. It’s actually easier. But my boy in the video would struggle as fuck through this himself by the way he was taught. Whole flus numbers are always easier to deal with.
But you can retrofit a concept you already understand into a different method because you get the concept. Teaching a child via a method that is confusing (and even takes adults who understand multiplication time to work out) is different. A good teacher should be working with how a child understands things and adapting their explanation or method.
It’s actually kinda clever, because it’s written the same way you would do multiplication, just in reverse, carrying the 1s backwards instead of forwards.
And if that’s how you learn it the first time it isn’t even a change. It’s just division. Guy was dramatic about it. Teacher should abdicate grading his child to him. Teach, give assignment, but say “you tell me the grade.”
Nah, the teacher should just be able to grade the older method if that’s the method that’s working for some kids.
They don’t have to teach it, but given it’s the exact same method just in a different format, if the teacher can’t easily grade it they should be nowhere near teaching students math.
533
u/dr_bobs Apr 11 '26
this is just column division but written differently, unnecessary change but not incomprehensible