Middle school grading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A large, and often overlooked, part of mathematics is the ability to speak "the language" of mathematics correctly. If your education taught you only to value a correct answer, you probably did not study much advanced math, where the focus is (rightfully) less on a single, ultimate, final number, and more on the actual proof and application of logical processes to come to a conclusion. Mathematical proofs have a grammar and syntax all their own and the study of more advanced mathematics should rightfully focus on a student's ability to use them to communicate the process of finding solutions correctly, as well as expressing those solutions in the correct form.

If mathematics was only concerned with answers, there would be no need to study it at all, since calculators and computers can find solutions much more quickly and accurately. If you want your child to learn mathematics well, then she will need to pay attention to these small errors and correct them, same as she would fix spelling mistakes in Language Arts. You would not argue that spelling and grammar make no difference in writing, as long as you can understand the conclusion, would you? So why are you promoting that idea for mathematics?

Yes. But if the work is correct and all they forgot is x=, why should they be docked? They should not be docked full points and some teachers do this. A kid can get the work correct and the answer correct and can get a bad score.

Why should they get credit? If the work is incorrect, it is incorrect. Do you also argue your child should get partial credit on spelling tests based on only forgetting one letter?

Also, your child is not getting a bad score because they forgot to write "x=" one time. They would need to do it multiple times to get a bad score, and if they are REPEATEDLY making this mistake, they deserve a score that reflects it.

Sorry if a kid takes a math quiz with and did all the math correctly and got the answer correct but did not present it in the format the teacher wanted such as x=4, they should lose a 1/2 a point, not a full point. Everything else they did is correct. That is the benefit of partial credit.

The next time someone asks why the US is lagging behind other countries in mathematics, I'm going to show them this comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A large, and often overlooked, part of mathematics is the ability to speak "the language" of mathematics correctly. If your education taught you only to value a correct answer, you probably did not study much advanced math, where the focus is (rightfully) less on a single, ultimate, final number, and more on the actual proof and application of logical processes to come to a conclusion. Mathematical proofs have a grammar and syntax all their own and the study of more advanced mathematics should rightfully focus on a student's ability to use them to communicate the process of finding solutions correctly, as well as expressing those solutions in the correct form.

If mathematics was only concerned with answers, there would be no need to study it at all, since calculators and computers can find solutions much more quickly and accurately. If you want your child to learn mathematics well, then she will need to pay attention to these small errors and correct them, same as she would fix spelling mistakes in Language Arts. You would not argue that spelling and grammar make no difference in writing, as long as you can understand the conclusion, would you? So why are you promoting that idea for mathematics?

Yes. But if the work is correct and all they forgot is x=, why should they be docked? They should not be docked full points and some teachers do this. A kid can get the work correct and the answer correct and can get a bad score.

Why should they get credit? If the work is incorrect, it is incorrect. Do you also argue your child should get partial credit on spelling tests based on only forgetting one letter?

Also, your child is not getting a bad score because they forgot to write "x=" one time. They would need to do it multiple times to get a bad score, and if they are REPEATEDLY making this mistake, they deserve a score that reflects it.

Sorry if a kid takes a math quiz with and did all the math correctly and got the answer correct but did not present it in the format the teacher wanted such as x=4, they should lose a 1/2 a point, not a full point. Everything else they did is correct. That is the benefit of partial credit.

The next time someone asks why the US is lagging behind other countries in mathematics, I'm going to show them this comment.

Oh please. Read the comment. She said they did everything right except the unit or x=4. No kid should lose a full point if everything else is right. She said a 1/2 a point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A large, and often overlooked, part of mathematics is the ability to speak "the language" of mathematics correctly. If your education taught you only to value a correct answer, you probably did not study much advanced math, where the focus is (rightfully) less on a single, ultimate, final number, and more on the actual proof and application of logical processes to come to a conclusion. Mathematical proofs have a grammar and syntax all their own and the study of more advanced mathematics should rightfully focus on a student's ability to use them to communicate the process of finding solutions correctly, as well as expressing those solutions in the correct form.

If mathematics was only concerned with answers, there would be no need to study it at all, since calculators and computers can find solutions much more quickly and accurately. If you want your child to learn mathematics well, then she will need to pay attention to these small errors and correct them, same as she would fix spelling mistakes in Language Arts. You would not argue that spelling and grammar make no difference in writing, as long as you can understand the conclusion, would you? So why are you promoting that idea for mathematics?

Yes. But if the work is correct and all they forgot is x=, why should they be docked? They should not be docked full points and some teachers do this. A kid can get the work correct and the answer correct and can get a bad score.

Why should they get credit? If the work is incorrect, it is incorrect. Do you also argue your child should get partial credit on spelling tests based on only forgetting one letter?

Also, your child is not getting a bad score because they forgot to write "x=" one time. They would need to do it multiple times to get a bad score, and if they are REPEATEDLY making this mistake, they deserve a score that reflects it.

Sorry if a kid takes a math quiz with and did all the math correctly and got the answer correct but did not present it in the format the teacher wanted such as x=4, they should lose a 1/2 a point, not a full point. Everything else they did is correct. That is the benefit of partial credit.

The next time someone asks why the US is lagging behind other countries in mathematics, I'm going to show them this comment.

Oh please. Read the comment. She said they did everything right except the unit or x=4. No kid should lose a full point if everything else is right. She said a 1/2 a point.

+1

[Anonymous]

I'm a math teacher and I find it utterly absurd that a child would lose any amount of points for not putting "x=" in the show your work section even though they're putting it in the answer box. The child clearly understands the concept. They've shown every, single step of the problem correctly and written the final answer correctly. But because they failed to write the final answer TWICE, once in the show your work section and once in the final answer box, they lose points? Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 7th grade DD has been pretty frustrated with her math grade. She studies hard and gets nearly all the answers right on her tests but is being graded down for technical nits in her work.

For example, at the end of a long word problem, she ended up with the correct answer of 1.96 (example). However, she forgot to put x=1.96 on the “show your work” section and only wrote “1.96” at the end. She was correct with x=1.96 in the answer box, but lost half the points for that problem anyway. Another example is that she’ll use the “not equal” symbol at the end of her “show your work”, gave the correct answer in the yes/no format the test asked for; however the teacher also wanted her to write “False” at the end of her “show your work” so lost points for that.

It’s very strange to me, since we were graded on the final answer when I went to school. Show your work was needed to show your thinking, but we weren’t graded down for these types of “errors”. Has that changed? Is this teacher-specific or how it works in FCPS math? It seems that even if you get the answer right, there’s always risk of getting graded down for technical matters in how you show your work.

This is also absurd.