ABSTRACT
Many students see mathematics as a collection of independent events. Seeing mathematics as a collection of independent events hampers a student's growth to mathematical maturity. Decimals, improper fractions, and mixed numbers in multiplication, these connections abound in mathematics. Almost any two-factor multiplication problem is going to result in a product that could be expressing the area of a rectangle. Some students struggle to understand how squares can be used to express the area of a triangle. One of the strongest methods for teaching any subject is to take a new topic and relate it back to something studied earlier. The reference relaxes the student by making the new work sound familiar, and therefore the assumption is that it is not going to be too hard. One of the triangles has an area that is half of the area of the original rectangle, and the formula baseheight2orbh2 is established.
