My seventh grader had a solid B+ in Algebra 1, passed the SOL (don’t know the score yet), and got a 92 on the final. Her teacher did give them a lot of review material that was very helpful and she spent a lot of time working on all of them to figure out what she needed to review. She still has a B+ in the class and is thrilled. And please spare me your lectures about how it is is not good enough because it is not an A.

Anonymous wrote:DD was the only kid in her teacher's Algebra I class to get a hundred on the finals, and several of her friends missed one question (she thinks she knows which one). The finals were all multiple choice. She said that it was really hard, because there were no outlier answers that you could eliminate off the bat. The answers were all very close to each other, or what you would get if you made silly mistakes (for instance, she initially did a problem with square roots, and the answer was one of the choices, but on review she caught that it was cube roots), so you actually had to work out the whole problem. Since the test is timed, that added some pressure as well.

Sounds like a well-designed final exam. Who should we give credit for creating it? The teacher?

YuppersLocal wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about other schools but my Longfellow kid had a final and got a C ... after getting an A- so far in the course and doing all review packs from teacher. Also got pass advanced on SOL. Doesn't seem like the final matched the prep. WTH.

Another Longfellow parent here. My kid studied hard for the Algebra 1 Honors final (with a tutor!). Had a B+ in the class and got a passed advanced on the SOL -- got an F on the crazy hard final. An F! A total mismatch between the course, the SOL, and the final. That seems like the teachers fault and not the kids'.

was it on Mathspace?

Anonymous wrote:Longfellow parent I wish you could say teacher name but I know you can't...we had similar thing last year with advanced kids very into math doing badly on crazy hard final. Now have kid in 5th who loves math but not sure if we will chance having him take Algebra when there is no support for 7th graders they are treated as high school students. So he will have to take math he already know just not to get punished, very sad.

Well perhaps your child will be better prepared for Math at McLean. I do thinks it is strange that Geometry is snuck in there between Algebra 1 and 2. The Algebra 2 Honors final at McLean was brutal this year as well.

Anonymous wrote:Curriculum should be consistent across FCPS. Algebra I taught in 7th grade should be the same Algebra I taught in 8th or 9th grade. If one school has a final exam they all should.

Won't be long before the anti-math rigor posters descend but US math education is woefully inadequate and teaching Algebra I in middle school should be the norm rather than the exception.

Why?

Curriculum should be consistent across FCPS. Algebra I taught in 7th grade should be the same Algebra I taught in 8th or 9th grade. If one school has a final exam they all should.

Won't be long before the anti-math rigor posters descend but US math education is woefully inadequate and teaching Algebra I in middle school should be the norm rather than the exception.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:*shrug* Different schools and jurisdictions do things differently. A friend in MD said they have no finals at all for their HS classes. My daughter’s school has a cumulative finals for Algebra I. I haven’t heard of final projects for math classes, but that sounds interesting. In the end, these things matter so little.

It does matter because some kids would do well on project (esp with at home help), others in on traditional exam. Why is it allowed to be different? Or shouldn't all Algebra I students have choice of same options (exam, project, etc.)? Seems very different expectations and grades but then same words on transcript for college. At least within FCPS should be same?

Regardless of what school or district you are in, nothing is ever uniform. Even if a final exam is the same, the assignments, delivery and content will often vary even while following the same curriculum. Teachers have different styles and approaches. Why is this allowed? Trust me, it’s better this way. If you truly want everyone to get the exact same, then nothing except for a robot or AI can deliver that.

Anonymous wrote:DD was the only kid in her teacher's Algebra I class to get a hundred on the finals, and several of her friends missed one question (she thinks she knows which one). The finals were all multiple choice. She said that it was really hard, because there were no outlier answers that you could eliminate off the bat. The answers were all very close to each other, or what you would get if you made silly mistakes (for instance, she initially did a problem with square roots, and the answer was one of the choices, but on review she caught that it was cube roots), so you actually had to work out the whole problem. Since the test is timed, that added some pressure as well.

I forgot to add that the SOL definitely helped with the finals prep. She said that there were a few areas/terminology that she had forgotten entirely, or was unsure what to do that showed up on the SOL, so spent more time on it at home, in review. These were also apparently skipped during both SOL and finals review; I don't know how, because they were doing hundreds of problems.

DD was the only kid in her teacher's Algebra I class to get a hundred on the finals, and several of her friends missed one question (she thinks she knows which one). The finals were all multiple choice. She said that it was really hard, because there were no outlier answers that you could eliminate off the bat. The answers were all very close to each other, or what you would get if you made silly mistakes (for instance, she initially did a problem with square roots, and the answer was one of the choices, but on review she caught that it was cube roots), so you actually had to work out the whole problem. Since the test is timed, that added some pressure as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I taught algebra 1 for years. Kids ALWAYS did poorly on the final. Always. Even when we made it multiple choice, even when we made it open notes, even when we gave study guides that were nearly identical to the final. They really struggle to retain things, which is why the first quarter is always review of prior years' content. I don't know what the solution is--we tried a lot of things over the decade I taught the course, and nothing seemed to make a difference.

Now I'm teaching algebra 2, and seeing the exact same phenomenon. Zero retention. I'll incorporate last week's content into this week's warm up and get blank stares. Their brains evaporate over weekends.

The final is the basics from the year--2 or 3 questions from every unit. Multiple choice, open note. Average scores so far are in the 60s. Lots of 90s, but also lots of 20s.

Are finals antiquated because today's kids don't retain things? Or should we still hold them to that standard and see some collateral damage as they learn how to study for big exams? We've opted for the latter and tried to teach kids how to study, incorporating review throughout the year, but it's painful.

PP here. Thank you for this. You have been teaching for a lon gtime including before laptops/ipads and when there were textbooks and graded and/or daily homework on paper? There has been no change in students' retention (or lack thereof) over all the time you've been teaching, whether for 7th or 8th or 9th graders in Algebra I or for 8th or 9th or 10th graders in Algebra II?

DS has a B+ in the class, pass advanced on SOL, and got a B- on the final. He studied a lot for the final, fwiw. So not terrible but also not great.

Yes, back in the days of textbooks and paper homework. No difference. Your DS is exactly what I would expect to see. High achieving kids generally score slightly worse (half a letter grade?) then they did on unit tests. Middle of the road kids scored a letter grade or two below what they got the rest of the year. Kids with Cs and below almost always fail it.

Remember that a pass advance on the SOL could be as low as 44/50 (a B+ in traditional grading). They get access to desmos on the entire test, so questions they are unsure of (even ridiculous things like simplifying radicals) can be typed into the calculator to find graphs that match a multiple choice value. I don't take too much stock in high SOL scores, only low ones (as weird as that sounds).

Algebra 1 is the first final exam any of these kids have ever had. This exam is very much a learning experience.

And I obviously have no idea what is on the final exam at other schools--maybe it is completely inappropriately difficult. My finals are very simple. They are harder than the SOL (because no desmos allowed), but otherwise not all that different. No trick questions, no combined standards. Just a straight forward multiple choice question. Kids still regularly fail them.

Anonymous wrote:I taught algebra 1 for years. Kids ALWAYS did poorly on the final. Always. Even when we made it multiple choice, even when we made it open notes, even when we gave study guides that were nearly identical to the final. They really struggle to retain things, which is why the first quarter is always review of prior years' content. I don't know what the solution is--we tried a lot of things over the decade I taught the course, and nothing seemed to make a difference.

Now I'm teaching algebra 2, and seeing the exact same phenomenon. Zero retention. I'll incorporate last week's content into this week's warm up and get blank stares. Their brains evaporate over weekends.

The final is the basics from the year--2 or 3 questions from every unit. Multiple choice, open note. Average scores so far are in the 60s. Lots of 90s, but also lots of 20s.

Are finals antiquated because today's kids don't retain things? Or should we still hold them to that standard and see some collateral damage as they learn how to study for big exams? We've opted for the latter and tried to teach kids how to study, incorporating review throughout the year, but it's painful.

PP here. Thank you for this. You have been teaching for a lon gtime including before laptops/ipads and when there were textbooks and graded and/or daily homework on paper? There has been no change in students' retention (or lack thereof) over all the time you've been teaching, whether for 7th or 8th or 9th graders in Algebra I or for 8th or 9th or 10th graders in Algebra II?

DS has a B+ in the class, pass advanced on SOL, and got a B- on the final. He studied a lot for the final, fwiw. So not terrible but also not great.

Also, you should be able to see the final exam. Schools are supposed to hold onto them in high school classes in case there is a dispute. If you ask the principal to have 5 minutes to glance through the test, you should be able to see if it's because the test was ridiculously difficult, or if your child made lots of mistakes.

I taught algebra 1 for years. Kids ALWAYS did poorly on the final. Always. Even when we made it multiple choice, even when we made it open notes, even when we gave study guides that were nearly identical to the final. They really struggle to retain things, which is why the first quarter is always review of prior years' content. I don't know what the solution is--we tried a lot of things over the decade I taught the course, and nothing seemed to make a difference.

Now I'm teaching algebra 2, and seeing the exact same phenomenon. Zero retention. I'll incorporate last week's content into this week's warm up and get blank stares. Their brains evaporate over weekends.

The final is the basics from the year--2 or 3 questions from every unit. Multiple choice, open note. Average scores so far are in the 60s. Lots of 90s, but also lots of 20s.

Are finals antiquated because today's kids don't retain things? Or should we still hold them to that standard and see some collateral damage as they learn how to study for big exams? We've opted for the latter and tried to teach kids how to study, incorporating review throughout the year, but it's painful.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about other schools but my Longfellow kid had a final and got a C ... after getting an A- so far in the course and doing all review packs from teacher. Also got pass advanced on SOL. Doesn't seem like the final matched the prep. WTH.

Another Longfellow parent here. My kid studied hard for the Algebra 1 Honors final (with a tutor!). Had a B+ in the class and got a passed advanced on the SOL -- got an F on the crazy hard final. An F! A total mismatch between the course, the SOL, and the final. That seems like the teachers fault and not the kids'.

If your child did fine on the project, why do you care if some classes have a final exam vs a project? Bizarre post.