Follow through grading

[Anonymous]

Our daughter has a teacher that does math tests where each question builds on an answer from a previous question. So if you have an error in the calculation for question number nine, you automatically get the next 16 questions wrong even if you applied the correct principles and demonstrated knowledge of the content in those 16 questions but used an inaccurate incoming factor. This type of testing obviously can be easily devastating to test scores and seems to value correct answers on early questions much more than demonstrating overall learning.

Our daughter asked the teacher to do follow through grading so if she applied the correct principles and demonstrated she would have otherwise done the subsequent problems correctly she would get credit for them but the teacher said no.

Has anyone else experienced this and if yes does anyone know if MCPS has a policy on either follow through grading or limiting how much tests can build on previous answers? These are not small parts of the grade we are talking about and this is becoming increasingly frustrating.

We’ve stressed the importance of quadruple checking answers in this type of format but it is really quite foreign to our experience at MCPS (or really anywhere).

[Anonymous]

HS teacher here. You should bring it up with the head of the math department or the appropriate assistant principal. Teacher should not be double penalizing students for wrong answers. AP tests are careful not to apply multiple penalties.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a post that doesn’t fully tell the truth, how many questions are in a test? Maybe 30, and 16 of them are connected!!! Doubtful it’s true, most likely a few follow from one another, usually it’s one single question with its own subsections.

If the grading is automatic, ie computer score then there’s no partial credit, you just need to check to make sure no mistakes are made.

Going to the principal is silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a post that doesn’t fully tell the truth, how many questions are in a test? Maybe 30, and 16 of them are connected!!! Doubtful it’s true, most likely a few follow from one another, usually it’s one single question with its own subsections.

If the grading is automatic, ie computer score then there’s no partial credit, you just need to check to make sure no mistakes are made.

Going to the principal is silly.

If the teacher is doing this, it's very lazy and inappropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a post that doesn’t fully tell the truth, how many questions are in a test? Maybe 30, and 16 of them are connected!!! Doubtful it’s true, most likely a few follow from one another, usually it’s one single question with its own subsections.

If the grading is automatic, ie computer score then there’s no partial credit, you just need to check to make sure no mistakes are made.

Going to the principal is silly.

Well that’s not what OP said. She said that every question relies on the previous answer. I have never encountered this and it doesn’t seem fair.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve reached out to the school for clarification/assistance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a post that doesn’t fully tell the truth, how many questions are in a test? Maybe 30, and 16 of them are connected!!! Doubtful it’s true, most likely a few follow from one another, usually it’s one single question with its own subsections.

If the grading is automatic, ie computer score then there’s no partial credit, you just need to check to make sure no mistakes are made.

Going to the principal is silly.

I know especially since the worst they can get is a 50%.

[Anonymous]

I would take this account by the DD with a grain of salt. All problems? Every test?

Whether or not it is a bad practice, it doesn’t sound like “teacher laziness”. The teacher would have to write 30 related problems. That’s harder than writing 30 unrelated ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would take this account by the DD with a grain of salt. All problems? Every test?

Whether or not it is a bad practice, it doesn’t sound like “teacher laziness”. The teacher would have to write 30 related problems. That’s harder than writing 30 unrelated ones.

+1
This story sounds fishy.
OP, there's no policy as there shouldn't be. Teachers need some kind of freedom to teach as they see best, but your concern is a legitimate one to bring up to the school. I can see how this could penalize certain types of students such as those with special needs a lot because they could make a careless error that would cost them a lot of points even though they understand the concept. I see this as more of an equity concern.

Are you sure you're not misunderstanding the issue? As students get into higher levels of math the steps to solve problems multiply. DC's teacher has problems like this where a 30 point problem out of 100 may be on that requires multiple steps all dependent on the first step. Usually the teacher gives some kind of partial credit even if the answer is wrong but it might be 10 out of 30.

[Anonymous]

When I was in school (a MCPS W school) this was normal. My undiagnosed dyscalculia and I severely struggled.

No solutions, just sympathy, OP — I would definitely raise it. If you haven’t emailed the teacher and have just relied on your daughter, I would do that first. Ask for a rationale, and then cc the department chair/RT on your response to their response (or the follow up if they don’t respond)!

My advice is the same if the teacher renegs, the. You just cc up the chain as a thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was in school (a MCPS W school) this was normal. My undiagnosed dyscalculia and I severely struggled.

No solutions, just sympathy, OP — I would definitely raise it. If you haven’t emailed the teacher and have just relied on your daughter, I would do that first. Ask for a rationale, and then cc the department chair/RT on your response to their response (or the follow up if they don’t respond)!

My advice is the same if the teacher renegs, the. You just cc up the chain as a thank you.

Ok, Karen, would you like to speak to the manager?

Teachers can’t set up question that depend on one another as intermediate steps, because of snowflake kids and their helicopter parents. You want to know what their rationale is? Let me take a wild guess, it’s so they verify that your precious learned the material covered in class.

[Anonymous]

The OP needs to explain the issue better. Is the problem including follow through questions? To me that’s clearly fine.

Is it how many questions are follow through? 16 out of how many? Are all 16 following from one to the other, or broken onto 4 question each having 3 more follow through questions. Either are fine in my view, nothing to be gained by contacting the department or principal.

[Anonymous]

What grade is this? I've seen this at elementary and early middle school as tests that are structured kind of like puzzles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OP needs to explain the issue better. Is the problem including follow through questions? To me that’s clearly fine.

Is it how many questions are follow through? 16 out of how many? Are all 16 following from one to the other, or broken onto 4 question each having 3 more follow through questions. Either are fine in my view, nothing to be gained by contacting the department or principal.

Read it again. The OP is very clear. Every question relies on an answer from the question before. They are all linked. And at least 16 questions per the example. It’sa pretty easy concept to grasp, yet PPs are all incredulous.

[Anonymous]

There should be more details. If it’s a high school math question (above Algebra) with 16 linked results, I am incredulous and I would be genuinely interested in seeing that test, so please post the actual question.

If we’re talking about those elementary school questions, as a previous poster said, where you perform simple arithmetic sequentially on the previous result, then going to the principal over it is just laughable.