High MAP-M/compacted math eligibility-- how much of it is exposure/supplementation?
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Anonymous
None of this changes the fact that, if, for whatever reason, the student is struggling at grade level, putting them in a more advanced class will help. If a kid is performing below their potential due to insufficient support, they need and deserve more support at their current level, not at a higher level! Compacted Math is not a prize, it is a placement for learning. Fighting your way into a more advanced math class without being prepared for it is not going to help. The classes already have many students who drop back to a less advanced/accelerated track because they can't keep up. |
Anonymous
For more context, my kids are older, but they were getting scores around 270 (which is notably high but not "genius" for end of middle school), which is so high that NWEA and Khan don't even publish sample questions at that RIT level, before they even learned high school Algebra I and Geometry. Is it because they were ready to hop into Algebra 2 or Precalc? No, it's because solving 90%-100% of the problems at a certain RIT level puts you easily 20pts above that level on your MAP score. |
Anonymous
PP from before the DP. The bolded is both a hyperbolic strawman in relation to those of high innate mathematical ability and incorrect in its conclusions that a student incapable of making mental leaps to solve variations would not be helped, themselves, by exposure Moreover, the conclusion that a bright kid can impute anything to which they have not been exposed does not follow from the example of jumping from fraction by whole number multiplication to fraction by fraction multiplication. A counterexample might be operations with complex numbers. Without having been exposed to the terminology of complex numbers, where i represents the square root of -1, a highly capable student has a high likelihood of coming to an incorrect answer to a related problem, where a student of less innate mathematical ability/interest but who had been exposed to the concepts and terminology associated with complex numbers would have a high likelihood of coming to a correct answer. |
Anonymous
| My kid was in a poor school for early elementary. The teachers would sit him front of iReady/Reflex all day because they'd be busy trying to catch the kids up who were behind. So he would play on those apps and progress through the programs until he was way ahead of his grade level -- which kept the cycle of teachers putting him in front of computer for math class going. |
Anonymous
Correct. Well, we played Monopoly Jr and Yahtzee sometimes on rainy days. We only talked about the Ari than roc involved enough to keep the game moving. My husband and I haven’t done math since our own high school days, so we don’t exactly know what “math games” would be. |
Anonymous
PP prior to the DP, above. One may choose that definition of "gifted," though I would subscribe to a different or broader one, or, at least, qualify that the percentile more definitively represent ability instead of achievement. I also would suggest that it is important to make a determination such that those who are so gifted, at whatever percentage of the population that might be considered valid, are not excluded due to a relative lack of access to in-class instruction or to outside supports. Once more, this is not to suggest that those demonstrating achievement the level of which may have been influenced by exposure should be excluded, either. It is simply that between the two groups, understanding that there may be considerable overlap, the more pressing need, and, then, the more appropriate focus of GT-related provision of programming, is that associated with those of high ability. The 85th percentile MAP litmus was adopted during the first year of impact from CovID-19 to try to identify students for the CES and criteria-based magnet MS lottery pools. This was due to the school system's inability to administer CogAT. The relatively low bar was part of an approach that cast a very wide net in the hopes of preventing the exclusion of any who might have been identified under the prior paradigm. That first year, the MAP litmus was only one of a number of ways identification was made, and that was for the same purpose of making the net wide. Later, they tightened the criteria a bit by making them "AND" (i.e., a student had to be 85th on MAP, with the various adjustments of local norming and accounting for services received, WITH As in the relevant subject, etc.) instead of "OR." With the effects of the pandemic subsiding, that definitely should have been corrected more accurately and narrowly to identify a population considered for the programs, and I hope they are finally moving towards that. The criteria for centrally suggested placement in "Compacted" Math 4/5 & 5/6 (individual schools make the final call, though many simply follow the central suggestion) is different from that 85th-percentile-plus-report-card paradigm, though MAP scores have been used for that, as well. |
Anonymous
Such a student need not be struggling with Math class not to have shown a particular level on a highly exposure-based metric like MAP. There are multiple reasons, but two come to mind as particularly concerning if deciding to exclude access to acceleration. 1) The highly-able student sits in a class where a large percentage of classmates are not highly capable or are of below-average capability. The focus of the teacher is on the others, the class moves slower through grade-level concepts, and more advanced concepts are not introduced. The student does not have a home situation conducive to outside enrichment. The student is not likely to be identified via MAP. 2) The highly-able student, whether in the situation described in #1 or otherwise, is so bored with the pace of on-level instruction that they tune it out. Again, the student does not have a home situation conducive to outside enrichment. The student is not likely to be identified via MAP. Especially at the elementary level, with its spiral curricular approach, a highly able student does not necessarily need the same level of preparation (though that always helps). Meanwhile, if not identified and supported with this acceleration, the condition is more likely to persist, and the opportunity largely is lost by the time one hits HS-level courses, as those become more dependent on prior coursework (vs. the conceptual spiral approach through PreAlgebra). Fighting one's way into Calculus without having mastered all of HS Algebra (both levels), for instance, more clearly would be counterproductive. A highly able student may struggle initially as they back-fill some level of prior concept, but should be able to handle the accelerated pace, itself, in due course. Those placed in an accelerated course who cannot handle the pace and drop back to the non-accelerated course are less likely to be those of that high ability. I agree that "Compacted" Math is not a prize, but a placement for learning. Placing those highly able is at least as important as placing those who have demonstrated learning from exposure. Families of some of the latter group treating "Compacted" Math as a prize is, I think, more of an issue, if there is such an issue at all. This should be about identifying and meeting need -- for both, as much as possible. |
Anonymous
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I supplemented with reading comprehension and math workbooks every summer beginning in K. My oldest has special needs, with an IEP, and the supplementation was remedial and helped him stay on track. No CES! My youngest has no special needs, but since she asked for the same thing, it ended up helping her get ahead. She attended the CES and then chose to return to her home school. She is currently in high school, taking all AP or advanced classes, and still finds school pretty easy and boring.
You parent the kids you have, that's all. |
Anonymous
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We just got my 3rd grade kid’s score for this week’s MAP-M and they got a 252. Kid is in RSM but is quick to figure things out — my kid was describing stuff the haven’t done even in RSM but was able to deduce (stuff about plotting a quadrilateral on an axis). We did RSM because of the lack of challenge in school so it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg — are they scoring high because of RSM or because they are naturally inclined to understand complex math?
Either way I am just hoping compacted math is a bit better than what they’ve had to date… |
Anonymous
What you are missing is that to be in a position where you are getting questions wrong because you haven't seen the terminology, you'd have already worked your way past the 95th or 99th percentile. There just isn't that much new terminology being added every year in math. |
Anonymous
That's better than almost every school. Most schools just force advanced kids to sit and learn nothing. |
Anonymous
Of course there is new terminology added. My 3rd grader came home and said that they did pretty well on MAP M (227), but that they didn't know what a prime number was, when asked to calculate one in their last question (google tells me prime numbers are a Common Core grade 4 concept). Their friend who does weekend math enrichment knew the concept from their enrichment classes and explained it to my kid, and my kid was saying that if someone had just defined what a prime number was, they could have figured it out. Don't get me wrong--math enrichment is a good thing and parents should do more of it, but let's not pretend that high MAP scores are a proxy for capturing the most mathematically gifted kids--often times it's just exposure. |
Anonymous
It's a bit better. Your kid is probably already past Math 6 level, but a little disciplined review is good for improving fluency. CM will be 3 days per topic instead of 5, while your kid would probably be happy with 2 days per topic. Stick with RSM or similar and then you'll get a placement in 6th grade, likely Algebra 1, maybe AIM/AMP7+ Prealgebra |
Anonymous
Not pp, but I have a question. So kids can pick different math level class starting at 6th grade? Is that a placement from 5th grade map m result? And, what is AUM/AMP 7? |
Anonymous
Thanks for the assist. The concept of complex numbers was, as emphasized but ignored by the PP, just an example to obviate the fact that not all intuition would be as simple as moving from multiplication of fractions by whole numbers to multiplication of fractions by fractions. Whether primes, complex numbers, exponents, decimals, letter variables, fractions, themselves, or dozens of other concepts, there's plenty all along the way from early grades to high school that requires some reasonable level of exposure to facilitate intuition. |