Anonymous
04/23/2023 21:19
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
If DC takes geometry in 9th grade then how DC’s high school math looks like. Does DC’s chances of getting into top 20 college goes down?
Anonymous
03/28/2023 13:57
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
So what will DC lose in long run? How advantageous the other students will be? Will DC be not able to get into an AP course if doesnt suffice the requirements?
Anonymous
03/28/2023 13:54
Subject: Summer Geometry
My kids was also gung ho for Summer Geometry and dropped it, and loves taking it during the school year.
The thing about Summer Geometry--if it's the online one we're talking about here--that they don't advertise, is that the teacher isn't teaching. You watch videos, understand the content, then do the work and take a quiz on it every other day. You also have to plan to drive to the exams and SOL in person. Class time is really just for Q and A, they aren't being presented lessons like in a standard classroom. My son was prepared for condensed, he wasn't prepared for independent study.
The thing about Summer Geometry--if it's the online one we're talking about here--that they don't advertise, is that the teacher isn't teaching. You watch videos, understand the content, then do the work and take a quiz on it every other day. You also have to plan to drive to the exams and SOL in person. Class time is really just for Q and A, they aren't being presented lessons like in a standard classroom. My son was prepared for condensed, he wasn't prepared for independent study.
Anonymous
03/28/2023 13:51
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
Great. Thanks much. Would love to know more suggestions and resources from other members.
pettifogger
03/28/2023 12:21
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:Thanks so much. DC is hard working, also doing the quiz and unit tests of KA. I am planning to use IXL questions and will find out SOL questions too. Basically we are targetting on complting geometry before summer geometry starts.
Yep that's a good plan and would help ease the course and hopefully he'll also get to enjoy part of the summer.
Be aware that geometry teaches proofs which if done correctly, are an extension of deductive reasoning. But he may not initially enjoy it, especially if it's taught in a very rigid way. It would be helpful for him to see a proof as just an exercise in writing a bunch of logically connected statements and practice trying them out.
Anonymous
03/28/2023 12:16
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
Thanks so much. DC is hard working, also doing the quiz and unit tests of KA. I am planning to use IXL questions and will find out SOL questions too. Basically we are targetting on complting geometry before summer geometry starts.
pettifogger
03/28/2023 12:12
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:DC, an 8th grader now will be taking geometry in summer. His friends are discouraging him as its very intense. DC is doing Khan academy these day and near to completion. Will that help the summer geometry. The worst scenario, if DC drops it after 2 weeks of start of the course then what will DC lose in long run. Will DC will be able to take AP physics later?
You know your child best. If he is really motivated and wants to accelerate so as to skip it during the school year, he should try it in the summer. If he is learning geometry from another source such as KA on his own currently, that would certainly help. However, be aware that while KA explains the concepts well in the videos, I'm not familiar whether they provide enough practice problems for him to work through. Maybe others can chime in whether KA has systematically developed problem sets in addition to their flagship videos.
In general, introducing concepts with videos is a good initial step (and I believe KA does a pretty good job in the videos), but the bulk of the learning in math is done by trying to solve problems using the concepts just learned. If he is not solving geometry problems along with watching videos, it's unclear if he is learning/retaining much.
Anonymous
03/28/2023 11:42
Subject: Re:Summer Geometry
DC, an 8th grader now will be taking geometry in summer. His friends are discouraging him as its very intense. DC is doing Khan academy these day and near to completion. Will that help the summer geometry. The worst scenario, if DC drops it after 2 weeks of start of the course then what will DC lose in long run. Will DC will be able to take AP physics later?
pettifogger
03/18/2023 11:12
Subject: Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:pettifogger wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
I'm a HS math teacher. The standards are the same, but the implementation can be completely different.
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length 5"
"Find an expression for the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5"
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5 if it is equal to the area of a right triangle with side lengths 2x+3 and x-7"
All meet the same standard. All are drastically different levels of difficulty.
I would argue they are not really different, at least not conceptually. #1 and #2 are both the same thing, just a different expression for the side length. #3 is just not a very good question because it tries to superficially complicate things without adding any extra geometric insight: Students should already know how to write an expression for the area of a right triangle if given both legs; it's just the triangle area formula. Then equate that to the area of the hexagon, which the problem statement makes obvious. As for the messy resulting algebraic equation, it's just a quadratic with radicals and certainly not worth solving by hand. Sure, maybe #3 is more tedious, but I would not call it any deeper conceptually than the others.
Apologies for the tediousness, I teach algebra 1 and 2 and was trying to geometry-ize an example I haven't done since I was in high school, lol
It still illustrates the point that the same standard can be assessed at a simple level, a mid level, or a "tedious" level, all while hitting the exact same standard that the course requires. It's not an extended standard, it's just a different level of difficulty of the same question. It's why a honors math at school A looks different than honors math at school B--it depends on what the team thinks is appropriate. In summer geometry it's probably even more dependent on the teacher since there aren't CTs planning common lessons to keep things equivalent across classrooms.
Of course honors has additional standards and (hopefully!) deeper thinking questions too, but even at a surface level problems can assess the same standard at 100 different levels of difficulty.
This is a spiral, and is useful for maintaining geometry knowledge through later subjects.
Not intended, but it does add something conceptually. The 3rd question has no solution, if the students thinks about the answers.
This is because the quadratic has two solutions, but for each of them the two side lengths for the right triangle are negative.
Getting into the weeds here, but I disagree that the 3rd question is about geometry; it is mostly just tedious algebra. There is no additional geometry knowledge that is needed besides the basic understanding of how to find the area of a regular hexagon and a right triangle. This type of problem might be ok in an algebra class if the ambiguity is fixed (which two sides of the triangle, the legs? Or a leg and hypotenuse), and if students can use a calculator or computer to numerically find the two roots of the quadratic. Assuming they do so, what are they supposed to really learn from it? They learn that they need to check for extraneous solutions and discard them if they produce negative lengths, but no actual geometry. A better problem that does not need a calculator might be: A regular hexagon is inscribed in a circle and has an area of 6*sqrt(3). Find the area of the circle.
Anonymous
03/17/2023 20:28
Subject: Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:pettifogger wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
I'm a HS math teacher. The standards are the same, but the implementation can be completely different.
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length 5"
"Find an expression for the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5"
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5 if it is equal to the area of a right triangle with side lengths 2x+3 and x-7"
All meet the same standard. All are drastically different levels of difficulty.
I would argue they are not really different, at least not conceptually. #1 and #2 are both the same thing, just a different expression for the side length. #3 is just not a very good question because it tries to superficially complicate things without adding any extra geometric insight: Students should already know how to write an expression for the area of a right triangle if given both legs; it's just the triangle area formula. Then equate that to the area of the hexagon, which the problem statement makes obvious. As for the messy resulting algebraic equation, it's just a quadratic with radicals and certainly not worth solving by hand. Sure, maybe #3 is more tedious, but I would not call it any deeper conceptually than the others.
Apologies for the tediousness, I teach algebra 1 and 2 and was trying to geometry-ize an example I haven't done since I was in high school, lol
It still illustrates the point that the same standard can be assessed at a simple level, a mid level, or a "tedious" level, all while hitting the exact same standard that the course requires. It's not an extended standard, it's just a different level of difficulty of the same question. It's why a honors math at school A looks different than honors math at school B--it depends on what the team thinks is appropriate. In summer geometry it's probably even more dependent on the teacher since there aren't CTs planning common lessons to keep things equivalent across classrooms.
Of course honors has additional standards and (hopefully!) deeper thinking questions too, but even at a surface level problems can assess the same standard at 100 different levels of difficulty.
This is a spiral, and is useful for maintaining geometry knowledge through later subjects.
Not intended, but it does add something conceptually. The 3rd question has no solution, if the students thinks about the answers.
This is because the quadratic has two solutions, but for each of them the two side lengths for the right triangle are negative.
Anonymous
03/16/2023 23:15
Subject: Summer Geometry
pettifogger wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
I'm a HS math teacher. The standards are the same, but the implementation can be completely different.
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length 5"
"Find an expression for the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5"
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5 if it is equal to the area of a right triangle with side lengths 2x+3 and x-7"
All meet the same standard. All are drastically different levels of difficulty.
I would argue they are not really different, at least not conceptually. #1 and #2 are both the same thing, just a different expression for the side length. #3 is just not a very good question because it tries to superficially complicate things without adding any extra geometric insight: Students should already know how to write an expression for the area of a right triangle if given both legs; it's just the triangle area formula. Then equate that to the area of the hexagon, which the problem statement makes obvious. As for the messy resulting algebraic equation, it's just a quadratic with radicals and certainly not worth solving by hand. Sure, maybe #3 is more tedious, but I would not call it any deeper conceptually than the others.
Apologies for the tediousness, I teach algebra 1 and 2 and was trying to geometry-ize an example I haven't done since I was in high school, lol
It still illustrates the point that the same standard can be assessed at a simple level, a mid level, or a "tedious" level, all while hitting the exact same standard that the course requires. It's not an extended standard, it's just a different level of difficulty of the same question. It's why a honors math at school A looks different than honors math at school B--it depends on what the team thinks is appropriate. In summer geometry it's probably even more dependent on the teacher since there aren't CTs planning common lessons to keep things equivalent across classrooms.
Of course honors has additional standards and (hopefully!) deeper thinking questions too, but even at a surface level problems can assess the same standard at 100 different levels of difficulty.
pettifogger
03/16/2023 22:49
Subject: Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
I'm a HS math teacher. The standards are the same, but the implementation can be completely different.
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length 5"
"Find an expression for the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5"
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5 if it is equal to the area of a right triangle with side lengths 2x+3 and x-7"
All meet the same standard. All are drastically different levels of difficulty.
I would argue they are not really different, at least not conceptually. #1 and #2 are both the same thing, just a different expression for the side length. #3 is just not a very good question because it tries to superficially complicate things without adding any extra geometric insight: Students should already know how to write an expression for the area of a right triangle if given both legs; it's just the triangle area formula. Then equate that to the area of the hexagon, which the problem statement makes obvious. As for the messy resulting algebraic equation, it's just a quadratic with radicals and certainly not worth solving by hand. Sure, maybe #3 is more tedious, but I would not call it any deeper conceptually than the others.
Anonymous
03/16/2023 21:10
Subject: Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
I'm a HS math teacher. The standards are the same, but the implementation can be completely different.
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length 5"
"Find an expression for the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5"
"Find the area of a regular hexagon with side length x+5 if it is equal to the area of a right triangle with side lengths 2x+3 and x-7"
All meet the same standard. All are drastically different levels of difficulty.
Anonymous
03/16/2023 05:06
Subject: Summer Geometry
Anonymous wrote:Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.
If both classes were honors level, FCPS has a standard curriculum. Maybe one was honors and one wasn’t? Maybe teachers allowed more retakes or granted partial credit?
Anonymous
03/15/2023 12:17
Subject: Summer Geometry
Do you know who the instructor will be? I find that to be the single most important factor. My DD took geometry in 8th grade, and her teacher was excellent. The course work was difficult, much different than my high school geometry days! I can’t imagine squeezing it into a summer session. My DD’s friends are taking geometry now in 9th grade and it’s a breeze. Different teacher, not as in depth. It would be fine in the summer.