Teacher marking things wrong in math if they don't show work

[Anonymous]

If you are used to showing your work proofs (which is what a lot of math becomes) are an easy concept to understand and the transition is easy. If you aren't used to showing your work, then everything is that much harder

[Anonymous]

For simple operations, it's pretty inane to ask kids to show or explain their work. The time spent demanding that in K-3 would be better spent with drilling basic math facts.

For word problems and pre-algebra equation solving, the student should at least show some steps. They shouldn't need to show every trivial operation, but there should at least be enough there for the teacher to figure out how the student arrived at the answer.

I think this example: "6x = 12 6x/6 = 12/6 x = 2" is a perfect example of the teacher being overly picky and expecting trivial steps to be illustrated. It should be sufficient for a kid to jump to x=2 from the problem statement. Now, if the problem were 6x + 3 = (-2x -13)/4, then the kid should show at least one intermediate step before listing the answer.

[pettifogger]

Anonymous wrote:For simple operations, it's pretty inane to ask kids to show or explain their work. The time spent demanding that in K-3 would be better spent with drilling basic math facts.

For word problems and pre-algebra equation solving, the student should at least show some steps. They shouldn't need to show every trivial operation, but there should at least be enough there for the teacher to figure out how the student arrived at the answer.

I think this example: "6x = 12 6x/6 = 12/6 x = 2" is a perfect example of the teacher being overly picky and expecting trivial steps to be illustrated. It should be sufficient for a kid to jump to x=2 from the problem statement. Now, if the problem were 6x + 3 = (-2x -13)/4, then the kid should show at least one intermediate step before listing the answer.

Spot on, 11:11. The real issue is that math class is overly focused on making a mountain out of a molehill, instead of actually solving problems. Any kid in algebra class should not need to write anything else other than 6x=12, x = 2, done. If on the other hand, the kid is in elementary and is being introduced to variables, but not the full rules of algebra (such as doing the same thing to both sides of an equation), then it would be perfectly reasonable to let them solve the problem in any way they choose. Even just saying "x = 2 because 6*2 = 12", done.

As to the less trivial example above, I would definitely expect some sort of work, but up to each kid to decide what to show (as long as it's readable and shows some organized way of thinking). But forcing them to write specific things (like multiplication of 4 by both sides), may be misguided for the kids who are not having trouble, unless they are struggling and not getting the answers correct. Here's the minimum I'd expect to see for this one, but it can completely differ from kid to kid:

6x + 3 = (-2x -13)/4
24x + 12 = -2x - 13
26x = -25
x=-25/26

Basically I want to see a step showing they were able to handle simplifying the fraction on the right hand side, and another step showing how they combined terms, etc. Also, it's much more important for them to write in a somewhat organized fashion such that their reader (teacher) can follow what's going on. That's what really matters here, not necessarily what specific steps they have to write down, which can vary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid in ES in AAP math, and he's not doing well because he doesn't show his work enough. He gets the answers right, but he can do most of the problems in his head. He tries to write out his work, but he just can't do it in enough detail for her. He much prefers to do it in his head, and he doesn't do any better when he is forced to write it out. It just makes the whole thing tedious for him. I used to teach in fcps and our main goal for making kids write out their work in math was so that they would get the test questions right. The teacher tries to tell him some nonsense about how she wants to see his thinking, but she doesn't even look at the work that is turned in, and certainly has never given him even five minutes of personal attention to talk about his "thinking." Does anyone else have a kid that suffers from this rule about showing work or getting it marked wrong? I'm not happy about this, obviously.

My son has this issue. I’m homeschooling him this year, but plan to put him back in FCPS for 7th grade. We’ve been doing problems about trains traveling at different speeds, leaving at different times, what time do they pass each other....he does it mostly in his head. I’m worried about what will happen next year. When I try to work with him to show his work, he really struggles. His working memory tested in the 99th percentile, so I think he just naturally can process more in his head. Not sure how to handle it with the teacher. Sorry no advice.

Is this random math or a set part of the 6th grade or 7th grade curriculum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For simple operations, it's pretty inane to ask kids to show or explain their work. The time spent demanding that in K-3 would be better spent with drilling basic math facts.

+1,000,000 (and will not show my work for how I came up with that number!)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sadly , this is my kid too. In high school now and he gets all the answers right but loses points for never showing the work. And refuses on principle because "its stupid"

Well, tell him that when he goes to work, people won’t be interested in his results without knowing how he got there.

It’s like the bank showing you your balance without an opportunity to see the transactions.

That's kind of funny because I have found the opposite. At work results are the ONLY thing that counts, and no one wants to hear about how I got there (much as I would like to talk about it).

I don’t know what line of work you’re in, but in most regular jobs, you have to show your work. Heck, in addition to managers and all senior level people you must report to, you have internal and external audit at a minimum. That is all about showing your work.

But if you can work without showing it, good for you.

I don't think you understood what the PP was saying. They're saying, the bosses don't want to "see the work", they want to see the polished picture PowerPoint presentations that abstract away all the work. And many of the really stupid bosses give extra points for presenting a rosier picture than the reality. They don't want to hear that problems exist, or how much work was really put into the result.

I'm not sure if I'm the PP or not, but I own my own business and other than the IRS, there is no one who cares how I made the rent this month, or how I increased sales, etc.; it only matters that I did. Before I had my own business it was still all about the numbers - and it was frustrating because at times I had great success, but if the number fell one short for any reason at all, none of it mattered. No one wanted a slide show - just a number.

[Anonymous]

It’s a good idea to encourage your child to follow directions on tests so they do well on them.

It’s also a good idea to get your kid to show some steps. Even if they wouldn’t have to otherwise in order to solve the problem.

Now, everyone wants to think, “but my kid is so smart. She doesn’t have to.”

That’s really irrelevant. And yeah, your kid isn’t being fully challenged. But then he will be, and he will need to show work to get partial credit. He will start to make mistakes in his head. Or maybe he is doing something wrong. But how will his teacher know if he doesn’t show his work?

[Anonymous]

Learning to show your work is important. I TA'd calculus and chemistry in college and was constantly amazed how many aspiring engineers couldn't write down and solve an equation. They were kids who were "good" at math and used to doing problems in their heads. They had never learned the skill of showing their work. Each and every one of these show offs struggled doing college level math and science.

Encourage your kids to show work on easy problems. Math builds and it's helpful to rely on those easy steps being easy when faced with a hard problem that you can't solve without working at it.

[pettifogger]

No one is denying that showing work is important when it makes sense to do so. It's the "turning math into writing" that is really frustrating by forcing kids to show work to trivial questions. Teachers should know when a problem requires work to be shown, and when it does not. At the same time, teachers should be able to gauge who is struggling and may need help organizing and writing things down, vs who is really bored and is not being challenged. Forcing a kid who is not challenged to write unnecessary things in math class when they already know exactly how to do a certain calculation 1) wastes their class time, as they should instead be given more challenging problems that they won't be able to do in their head and require them to write things down 2) frustrates them to the point where they are turned off to math because they see it as pointless and boring, and possibly even worse turns them off to learning/school 3) doesn't actually teach them new math, or extends their problem solving skills.

You argument that always showing work on trivial questions in early elementary school will help kids in college calculus and science classes is not compelling at all. Teaching kids how to think, and how to organize their thinking by practicing challenging multi-step questions is what will ultimately help them tackle late high school and college math and science.

Most of the kids who are struggling in college or high school math are NOT struggling because they don't know how to write something down. They are struggling because they don't understand the problem and/or have no idea where to start, or what to do. It's having had a shaky foundation and weak understanding of math concepts, not the writing that prevents them from succeeding.

[Anonymous]

pettifogger wrote:No one is denying that showing work is important when it makes sense to do so. It's the "turning math into writing" that is really frustrating by forcing kids to show work to trivial questions. Teachers should know when a problem requires work to be shown, and when it does not. At the same time, teachers should be able to gauge who is struggling and may need help organizing and writing things down, vs who is really bored and is not being challenged. Forcing a kid who is not challenged to write unnecessary things in math class when they already know exactly how to do a certain calculation 1) wastes their class time, as they should instead be given more challenging problems that they won't be able to do in their head and require them to write things down 2) frustrates them to the point where they are turned off to math because they see it as pointless and boring, and possibly even worse turns them off to learning/school 3) doesn't actually teach them new math, or extends their problem solving skills.

You argument that always showing work on trivial questions in early elementary school will help kids in college calculus and science classes is not compelling at all. Teaching kids how to think, and how to organize their thinking by practicing challenging multi-step questions is what will ultimately help them tackle late high school and college math and science.

Most of the kids who are struggling in college or high school math are NOT struggling because they don't know how to write something down. They are struggling because they don't understand the problem and/or have no idea where to start, or what to do. It's having had a shaky foundation and weak understanding of math concepts, not the writing that prevents them from succeeding.

Thank you for putting this so succinctly. This is exactly my issue. (OP)

[Anonymous]

But if that’s the expectation your child should do it unless they have a compelling reason not too. Many kids do and require accommodations if some kind which is fine. However most kids can generally do it and if your can’t you should be wondering why not trying to change the expectation. There are HUNDREDS of tasks that elementary school kids do with little intrinsic value as part of the socialization of understanding and following teachers’ expectations. It’s an important task of early childhood. For some kids those are hard to keep track of and onerous, if that’s the case for your child work on supporting him rather than ascribing it to be so brilliant at math.

[Anonymous]

So weird, as a college prof I’d tell my TAs to mark it correct if it’s correct even if all the steps aren’t shown and just use the point decomposition to award partial credit when the answer is wrong. I guess elementary is different though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But if that’s the expectation your child should do it unless they have a compelling reason not too. Many kids do and require accommodations if some kind which is fine. However most kids can generally do it and if your can’t you should be wondering why not trying to change the expectation.

Both sides are at fault for this. Parents/kids are at fault for not wanting to follow directions and for trying to make their kid the special exception to the rule. Teachers are at fault for sucking all of the joy out of math and in many cases, not being particularly qualified to teach math.

IMO, one of the main reasons that teachers want kids to write out explanations for simple concepts is that they themselves don't overly care for math, so they're constantly trying to turn math into something language arts-like rather than letting math be math. It also explains why so incredibly many elementary teachers are unable and willing to even try to challenge the top kids in math.

If teachers want work shown for every little trivial step, I make my kids follow the teacher's instructions while privately rolling my eyes at her.

[Anonymous]

pettifogger wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It’s part of math and will be necessary as he advances so definitely best not to fight it but instead support him developing the skill. Whatever you don’t act like getting out of showing work is worthwhile goal or that he is somehow “good at math” because he can do it in his head. Being good at math includes showing work.

Exactly. If the instructions say to show your work, that’s what you need to do. There are good reasons for it and kids don’t necessarily understand the underlying reasons now, but they will when they are older. And they will appreciate the teachers who insisted on following instructions.

OP here - I am a teacher, and I don't think our stated mission anywhere is to teach kids to follow instructions. I thought it was to teach them critical thinking, yada yada. So following instructions when it means doing something unnecessary that just make the work harder really isn't worth teaching. Like I said earlier - I was a teacher in fcps, and the only reason we insisted on them writing out the work was when we started the SOL high stakes testing and really needed them to get every answer right. There was no educational theory at all behind that.

If nothing else it’s important to be in the habit of showing work by the time he gets to 6th grade because teachers will give partial credit if the problem was done sensibly but there was a something like a rounding error or copying down 6 instead of 9. Also, the fact is even gifted math students didn’t do complicated algebra problems in their head and there are conventions around d how work is shown that even your young Einstein needs to follow. Sounds like you are not helping the situation at all with your attitude (and like you were fairly shortsighted as a teacher too.)

+1

This is part of math. There are a TON of reasons why you need to show your work in math. At some point, even the most gifted kids can't do it all in their head. Better to establish the habit of showing your work early on. Plus, the point isn't that your kid knows the answer, it's that they know how they got that answer, because the method is the same even as the problems get harder.

Please cite some educational research that shows that math achievement is in any way improved by kids being able to show their work on paper.

You can't. Because it doesn't exist.

Know what does? Research that shows that forcing kids to write down work unnecessarily (like simple problems that most kids can and do do in their heads) actually negatively impacts achievement.

When the problems are too difficult to solve without writing them out, then kids will write them out. Doing otherwise is illogical.

Spot on. "Showing work" is just a manifestation of a deeper root cause; the incredibly watered down way math is taught in elementary school (and middle/high as well!) But particularly in elementary school, where a monumental and misplaced amount of effort is spent telling the kids to "show work". The idea is that it will help them think better, when all it does is instead induce tears in a large number of kids (and ultimately makes many of them hate math, resulting in permanent mental detachment from the subject in later years). As the PP said, work will naturally be shown when a good problem or puzzle is presented which requires thinking! But we do not get problem solving or critical thinking in math class, we get a shallow and repetitive set of calculations, and an even more shallow sense that showing work on these shallow exercises will somehow lead to higher mathematical thinking. In general, it will not! Becoming better at math requires slowly spending time struggling with problems, slowly orienting oneself to the point of figuring them out, then presenting the method (proof). Showing work will happen, but teachers please at least once in a while, give your students an actual problem to solve!

If a kid is reduced to tears when asked to show their work then something is wrong, meaning the kid can's articulate or justify their answer. So, they don't really understand at mastery.

[Anonymous]

My son has had this problem since elementary school- he actually once drew a picture of a head and pointed an arrow to the brain and said i did it in my head...because they were told they could draw a picture to show their work. He is a math whiz and has complained since then about showing their work,. While i know it is tedious for him i told him he needs too earn how to follow directions ...and if asked he has to show his work. He is now in Algebra 2 this year...still struggles with showing enough work..,but learned this year that teachers need to see work..especially during DL to assure them that the kids understand the concepts and are nit cheating. You will likely have to encourage him at a young age to gain the ability to show work - to at least assure the teachers he isn’t just looking at the answer from a calculator or a friends paper. Good luck!!