Reply to She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t think retakes are the problem — if the student improves their grade on a retake, then they clearly learned the material.  I’m not sure what was going on with the student cited in the OP.

My DS struggled in geometry and took every retake; by the final exam (which was cumulative and for which there was not a retake), he earned an A.  I consider that mastery, which is the intended goal of education, no? (FWIW, he still got a B in the class, but I consider an A on the final a win).[/quote]

Right, you consider the *grade on the test* the final win, and assume that means the student has shown mastery. The problem is, the current form of math pedagogy that emphasizes fake mastery (grades after infinite retakes of “tests”) vs a comprehensive system of repetition and recall. Instead of retaking tests (which are often too short to really be tests, and if retaken with the same problems, don’t demonstrate knowledge) kids should be doing MANY more problems sets as homework, studying for tests, then taking the tests.

Cognitive science knows this is how we learn (repetition and recall) but the dumb*ssss in charge of math education have decided that is not appropriate and here we are. don’t even get me started with the idea that actual direct instruction is bad, and “self paced” learning via computer. A complete disaster.

My kid would 100% end up like this girl if we had not realized in 7th grade that the schools were completely f’ing up math education. Now spending $1000s on Mathnasium and likely having to repeat algebra in 9th grade. he will never be a math genius but hopefully we get him to college with the ability to handle college calculus (or whatever the minimum math requirement is). [/quote]

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