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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.

Adding another reason to the pile for always showing your work... if anyone has ever had to go back and reassess an algorithm written by a previous worker, it is infinitely easier if that previous worker showed their work! Otherwise, you’re left wondering “well where did this pi come from? Should that be there?” Which of course leads to a lot of reinventing the wheel, otherwise known as wasting time.

We're not talking about ocmplicated problems. I'm talking about: 6x = 12.

And 6x2 = 12 therefore x=2 is not considered enough detail. It is supposed to actually be more detailed than that. How? She wants a paragraph sometimes. Not kidding.

If this is an example of what you’re complaining about then you are being totally unreasonable. It’s extremely easy to show your work for this. Show dividing each side of the equation by 6. One extra step, done. Don’t encourage your kid to make life more difficult than it needs to be...

This. 6x = 12 6x/6 = 12/6 x = 2

Anonymous wrote:TLR but I remember struggling with this in high school math. If you have a brain that works through the steps and you "just know" the answer it can be very difficult to walk through it. DH and I like to do sudoku puzzles together and it irritates him that I can't always explain why a certain number goes in a certain box. I know it does, I just can't explain the multiple logic steps that happened in my head in order to get to that answer.

Help him develop the skill now, I feel for him.

Exactly. It is just as important to be able to know how you got the answer as it is to get the answer.

Anonymous wrote:Every kid complains about this. It’s just par for the course. Help teach him how to show his work since he claims for some reason he can’t. That’s the skill he needs to be working on right now.

This. My DH and I both had this problem (through high school) and My 5th grader occasionally does, too. I still agree with the teacher that they need to show their work.

TLR but I remember struggling with this in high school math. If you have a brain that works through the steps and you "just know" the answer it can be very difficult to walk through it. DH and I like to do sudoku puzzles together and it irritates him that I can't always explain why a certain number goes in a certain box. I know it does, I just can't explain the multiple logic steps that happened in my head in order to get to that answer.

Help him develop the skill now, I feel for him.

Anonymous wrote:I was trying to teach my daughter addition with carrying and she kept doing the problems in her head. So I gave her a 20 digit problem.

If it’s important for kids to do something in a particular way, teachers should give them problems where doing them that way is necessary.

Actually, the curriculum should be written that way. Some people seem to think teachers just pull this stuff out of thin air to annoy students and parents.

My husband teaches HS math and thinks some of it is ridiculous, but that's what he has to work with.

I was trying to teach my daughter addition with carrying and she kept doing the problems in her head. So I gave her a 20 digit problem.

If it’s important for kids to do something in a particular way, teachers should give them problems where doing them that way is necessary.

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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.

Adding another reason to the pile for always showing your work... if anyone has ever had to go back and reassess an algorithm written by a previous worker, it is infinitely easier if that previous worker showed their work! Otherwise, you’re left wondering “well where did this pi come from? Should that be there?” Which of course leads to a lot of reinventing the wheel, otherwise known as wasting time.

We're not talking about ocmplicated problems. I'm talking about: 6x = 12.

And 6x2 = 12 therefore x=2 is not considered enough detail. It is supposed to actually be more detailed than that. How? She wants a paragraph sometimes. Not kidding.

If this is an example of what you’re complaining about then you are being totally unreasonable. It’s extremely easy to show your work for this. Show dividing each side of the equation by 6. One extra step, done. Don’t encourage your kid to make life more difficult than it needs to be...

This is usually more of a problem in elementary school when math is just really easy for kids who are really good at math. My son couldn't stand when they did estimating because he could figure out the exact answer in his head. He always missed those problems because he thought it was ridiculous to estimate an answer to a problem like that.

Sometimes writing down work is NOT good. Kids who get math and can manipulate numbers in their heads should be skipping steps when it makes sense and they are not working with a partner. I don't want my son to write down intermediate steps just for the sake of writing them down if he is understands why the short cut works and is able to solve those steps with 100% accuracy.

All you have to do with a student who doesn't show his work when needed is just keep giving him harder problems until he does.

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 kid gets similarly frustrated where he finds it hard to show work or write an explanation of something that he can do in his head, or is immediately obvious. I've taught him how to handle it by finding something logical to say and succintly write it in 1 or 2 sentences max (which so far in 3rd grade aap is about as much as needed, given the low difficulty level of questions). It's been working ok and he's improved his ability to explain things but I don't force him to overdo it (and luckily neither does his teacher).

I suspect that the questions are likely simple enough given that he can do them in his head. Can you provide specific examples of questions asked, and what work he's shown, if any? Then we can figure out how much work he should show, if any, based on his level.

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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!

Anonymous wrote:I am listening to my son in his AoPS class. His Teacher expects kids to write down their soultions and be ableto explain how they got the answer to the group. He is in Third Grade.

I teach middle schoolers and higher grades AoPS classes and I specifically tell students to show work when it makes sense. If in doubt, I tell them to show work to have a shot at partial credit. It's less about forcing students to show work, and more of: can I understand what they wrote down? Is it neat and organized? Or completely unintelligible? Many of our test problems are generally difficult, and it's up to the kids to choose how much time they spend showing work. Of course if they get incorrect answers, their hope of any partial credit hinges on the quality of what they've shown on paper.

In general, an ability to organize information is really important for younger elementary kids. While this can developed in math class, this can also be stressed a lot in writing classes as well, and it is equally great to be able to have an organized way of writing things down. In math class it's important for teachers to balance this with actual math content. Know each of your students and their capabilities to what they can do in their head vs what they can't and need to show their work.

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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.

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Anonymous wrote:Pick a problem and you write down the steps as he is doing it.
Show him how it looks like with only steps and no final answer quite yet. Concentrate on 'writing down steps and explaining it' as the answer to the question.
I really need an example, because right now it looks like it's 5+5, and no wonder he feels like there are no steps. Even here you have:
step 1: pick up 5 stones
step 2: pick up 5 more stones
step 3: put them all in one pile
step 4: count them all in that pile. See, I stopped at saying it's 10. We don't need 10, we need steps since he cannot do steps. He knows 10. We all know 10. Steps are annoying, but it is what it is.

That helps. I have a first grader who is basically asked to show his work when doing this level of problem and he is so resistant. He was asked to do 10 + 5 and asked to show a strategy or "helper fact" he used. He could not, ended up writing a "helper fact" of 9+5 =14 which didn't actually help him solve the problem, but he also can't write down a strategy of "I just knew it." I wish they would give the kids harder problems to work on when they do these so the kids actually understand why a helper fact or strategy is needed.

Bingo. You nailed it, this is the real reason why kids think math class is stupid and boring.

Anonymous wrote:Pick a problem and you write down the steps as he is doing it.
Show him how it looks like with only steps and no final answer quite yet. Concentrate on 'writing down steps and explaining it' as the answer to the question.
I really need an example, because right now it looks like it's 5+5, and no wonder he feels like there are no steps. Even here you have:
step 1: pick up 5 stones
step 2: pick up 5 more stones
step 3: put them all in one pile
step 4: count them all in that pile. See, I stopped at saying it's 10. We don't need 10, we need steps since he cannot do steps. He knows 10. We all know 10. Steps are annoying, but it is what it is.

Here's why your example is not good: Not only is it trivial as you said, but it kills a love of math. Math is not about mindless computation, it's about learning how to reason logically and precisely. Making a kid write the above is akin to killing his love or interest in math, or even learning! The kids are actually right, when they say "this is stupid". There is no reason to turn math class into writing workshop. Yes, stress the importance of showing work, but give a good problem that has multiple steps, and requires an explanation/work. The conclusion here is that the math questions being given in these AAP classes are fairly rote calculations; for many kids there is absolutely no reason why they should show their work if they feel it is a one step problem that can be done in their head.

Anonymous wrote:Every kid complains about this. It’s just par for the course. Help teach him how to show his work since he claims for some reason he can’t. That’s the skill he needs to be working on right now.

Also, writing is NOT the main skill that needs to be taught in math class, save it for the writing class. The main skill they need to teach right now in math class is learning mathematical reasoning. I.e critical thinking and logically concluding something from something else. None of that is happening right now, and it's the main reason so many kids fail in middle school and high school.