As a teacher, I have never and will never require students to solve a problem a certain way. My only criteria are that they use some strategy that allows me to see their thinking and that they can defend their answer.
When I was grading papers. One of the question was to reduce 16/64. One student came to me asking why he got marked down despite getting 1/4. I told him that he cant just cancel out the top 6 from the bottom 6. I was a TA not the teacher. Prime example of getting the right answer with wrong method.
I'd give him a zero if he did that. If he came to me and complained, my answer to him would be that no marks are reserved for "getting the correct answer" and all marks are reserved for "how" you get to the correct answer. If the answer is not correct but the method is and the student made a silly mistake, in my paper he'd lose only a half-mark.
It's nice to hear someone agreeing with me about marking scales and reasoning why certain methods get marked differently. It's so frustrating to me when I get marked differently for work because I use a method my teacher doesn't recognize. It makes me feel better that at least one teacher understands my frustration. And I will try to be less frustrated. :)
Hello :) I'm a "young" (33) math teacher in Belgium, following you since last week and listened carefully to what you said and I completely agree with you :) It's also what I say to my students: the final answer is not the most important thing, it's more like you said, how they got to the answer. What's the problem if a student uses another way than the teacher. If it's valid, why not? Doesn't it mean that they have worked on the subject ? Doesn't it mean that they try to be more "creative"? Isn't this part of their learningprocess ? I think so :) To avoid "problems" (:-p), I think it's also very important at the beginning of each year to be straight, say how things will go and work, stay honest and true to our word all year long. The students will value that heightly and will respect us to be true. And all this markersthing discussion will never be :)
It helps that in Australia the categories are: ‘Knowledge and Procedures’, ‘Modelling and Problem Solving’ And ‘Effective(I think) Communication’ Or KP, MP and EC for short. KP and EC affect each other as your knowledge affects how well you can communicate, and your skill in communicating affects how you can demonstrate your knowledge. With MP, EC is vital as you have to provide a reason for using a Procedure(KP). The criteria all intertwine in someway. It essentially boils down to, ‘What you know’, ‘How did you use it(and was it used in a way as so someone else can follow your working)?’ and ‘Was it effective?’ A tad late, but a little about the Australian education system. (Queensland, hopefully the same for other states)
The way the mathematics tests where scored at my school was that the answer had to fit two criteria: 1. What you wrote down is correct. 2. It is clear what you wrote down. This means that I, without ever having learned how to use complex numbers during classes, could still use them to solve trigonometric problems. This way I had to learn how to convey my thoughts in such a way that others could understand what I was getting at, which is an important skill to have.
Interestingly, in Scandinavian high schools, when working with derivatives we learn to solve the problems entirely using the Lagrangian method (f' and [g*h]'' etc) as opposed to one implemented by Leibniz. I partially taught myself precalculus online because my school didn't offer it when I was done with the other maths. I was corrected once for not using the method the was standard in our region. The teacher argued that it affected my approach to solving the problem, although the answer I got was the same. I've since taken precautions when taking subjects aside from school so that I don't do something the teachers dislike.
Devels Avocate here: theres some notaional abuse baked in to Leibiz notion and so using it discroges you from thinking about the anlisis problems behind diffrenation
In my school math teachers really care about the way but they’re not very strict about it, u can use any method and they don’t really cut down ur marks for the final answer that much. But they also care about the steps in that method . It’s like a mixture of both things u r talking about. I find it fair actually
I get the varied interpretations of how to grade problems. What I don't like is when there is a large complicated problem (area of a compound shape for instance) and I do all of the steps correctly and find a working answer, but somewhere along the line I didn't multiply a coefficient on a variable...so I miss the entire problem even though my understanding of the problem was 100% and my method for figuring it out was 100% I realize if I was an engineer or something and made that error then it would cause real problems, but when I'm trying to learn something its more discouraging to get no marks when I did 99% of the problem correctly rather than taking off some marks for the mistake and then recognizing that my understanding of the problem was correct. Like, imagine you're talking to someone in a crowded place and you don't hear something they say so you misunderstand them and they get angry and just walk away. It's not entirely your fault; you were in a crowded place with lots of distractions. That's how I feel about getting 0 marks for missing a tiny thing on a very complicated problem.
What's your opinion of students who obsess over marks and feel superior to others who don't test as well, but don't have a solid understanding of the topic and it's application the real world?
Calvin Sun ya your words are correct understanding should be there. My sir given me question- the interest on the principle of 5000$ is 1200$ for certain number of years on certain number of rate . What would be the interest on 15000$? I solve the problem something like this The second principle is 3 times greater than the first one. So 5000×3=15000 Therefore interest will also be 3 times greater than the first one So 1200×3=3600$ This method was too easy. In the question they just asked the interest on $15000 .so there is no need to find out the rate of interest or the time but teacher told me that you have to find the rate of interest and time . I felt very bad
Calvin Sun there is no way to score good in math exams unless you do understand the topics.. they shouldn't feel superior... however if 40 of the most intelligent scientists were called to solve a problem and none of them except 1 could do it.. wouldn't he feel proud of himself? The same way its natural to feel superior when you are better than others in a logical subject like math or physics.
Kevin B. I dont know where you are from but isnt that unfair that teachers can cut marks for not doing it their way? It would be forcing students to memorize everything... i personally, havent experienced this but if you say so then there is no way for students at your schools, colleges to ever be good at something. Because if they do stuff their way, they will be called dumb by others for getting lesser scores, and if they do it the teachers way, there is no development. What do you think?
Kevin B. Ok i see your point. I just have 1 question, india has the worlds largest competitive exams JEE mains... And all the people ive seen say it is impossible to memorize and clear it, however you say that students ARE able to get through exams by memorizing. I dont know you but i am still proud of you for not abandoning your ways of learning in this "mark driven" world
and actually because there are questions that are badly formulated thats where you show your reasoning and correct it
3 роки тому
I want to point out two things: 1. He actually wore different clothes as the student in the roleplaying bit at the beginning. 2. The fingers spell "M" and "W". But his first name starts with an "E". I would have picked that instead.
what if people provide the correct answer + describe all steps that they took to get from start to finish, but although they have the correct answer, they made one or more errors in the calculation steps?
Did Laura[?] fail the test/course/HSC on the strength of that 1/2 mark? if not i don't see a problem. Speaking as someone who did their HSC in '74, I was part of the 'correct answer - tick, full marks' generations, though even then teachers were giving 'almost-full' marks for ''got all the steps right up until this silly error in the last step.''
Eddie, meeting you would be like meeting Justin Bieber for some, or the President of the United States of America for others. Please come and meet me and my students at Glenala State High School in Brisbane, Queensland. My kids and I all follow your videos and your website. What an honour it would be for us, Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics students, to have you, our celebrity, at our school.
As a teacher, I have never and will never require students to solve a problem a certain way. My only criteria are that they use some strategy that allows me to see their thinking and that they can defend their answer.
When I was grading papers. One of the question was to reduce 16/64. One student came to me asking why he got marked down despite getting 1/4. I told him that he cant just cancel out the top 6 from the bottom 6. I was a TA not the teacher. Prime example of getting the right answer with wrong method.
If I were grading, I don't think I would mark something wrong if the answer was objectively correct. Sometimes luck wins!
I'd give him a zero if he did that.
If he came to me and complained, my answer to him would be that no marks are reserved for "getting the correct answer" and all marks are reserved for "how" you get to the correct answer. If the answer is not correct but the method is and the student made a silly mistake, in my paper he'd lose only a half-mark.
troll math
It's nice to hear someone agreeing with me about marking scales and reasoning why certain methods get marked differently. It's so frustrating to me when I get marked differently for work because I use a method my teacher doesn't recognize. It makes me feel better that at least one teacher understands my frustration. And I will try to be less frustrated. :)
Wow, watching this sure brings me back. Wootube og fan right here haha!
Oh look you featured in a video
Hello :) I'm a "young" (33) math teacher in Belgium, following you since last week and listened carefully to what you said and I completely agree with you :) It's also what I say to my students: the final answer is not the most important thing, it's more like you said, how they got to the answer. What's the problem if a student uses another way than the teacher. If it's valid, why not?
Doesn't it mean that they have worked on the subject ? Doesn't it mean that they try to be more "creative"? Isn't this part of their learningprocess ? I think so :) To avoid "problems" (:-p), I think it's also very important at the beginning of each year to be straight, say how things will go and work, stay honest and true to our word all year long. The students will value that heightly and will respect us to be true. And all this markersthing discussion will never be :)
Benjamin Decroix iiii
i also agree :)
I think you're right. Better to get appreciated for the work behind the answer than to get low when answer is wrong
It helps that in Australia the categories are: ‘Knowledge and Procedures’, ‘Modelling and Problem Solving’ And ‘Effective(I think) Communication’ Or KP, MP and EC for short. KP and EC affect each other as your knowledge affects how well you can communicate, and your skill in communicating affects how you can demonstrate your knowledge. With MP, EC is vital as you have to provide a reason for using a Procedure(KP). The criteria all intertwine in someway. It essentially boils down to, ‘What you know’, ‘How did you use it(and was it used in a way as so someone else can follow your working)?’ and ‘Was it effective?’
A tad late, but a little about the Australian education system. (Queensland, hopefully the same for other states)
The way the mathematics tests where scored at my school was that the answer had to fit two criteria:
1. What you wrote down is correct.
2. It is clear what you wrote down.
This means that I, without ever having learned how to use complex numbers during classes, could still use them to solve trigonometric problems. This way I had to learn how to convey my thoughts in such a way that others could understand what I was getting at, which is an important skill to have.
i think in maths it has always been important to demonstrate the why it s not just about the result.
Interestingly, in Scandinavian high schools, when working with derivatives we learn to solve the problems entirely using the Lagrangian method (f' and [g*h]'' etc) as opposed to one implemented by Leibniz. I partially taught myself precalculus online because my school didn't offer it when I was done with the other maths. I was corrected once for not using the method the was standard in our region. The teacher argued that it affected my approach to solving the problem, although the answer I got was the same. I've since taken precautions when taking subjects aside from school so that I don't do something the teachers dislike.
Devels Avocate here: theres some notaional abuse baked in to Leibiz notion and so using it discroges you from thinking about the anlisis problems behind diffrenation
In my school math teachers really care about the way but they’re not very strict about it, u can use any method and they don’t really cut down ur marks for the final answer that much. But they also care about the steps in that method .
It’s like a mixture of both things u r talking about. I find it fair actually
in fact i have seen cases where i would disagree with the result of the teacher and end up being right
I get the varied interpretations of how to grade problems. What I don't like is when there is a large complicated problem (area of a compound shape for instance) and I do all of the steps correctly and find a working answer, but somewhere along the line I didn't multiply a coefficient on a variable...so I miss the entire problem even though my understanding of the problem was 100% and my method for figuring it out was 100%
I realize if I was an engineer or something and made that error then it would cause real problems, but when I'm trying to learn something its more discouraging to get no marks when I did 99% of the problem correctly rather than taking off some marks for the mistake and then recognizing that my understanding of the problem was correct.
Like, imagine you're talking to someone in a crowded place and you don't hear something they say so you misunderstand them and they get angry and just walk away. It's not entirely your fault; you were in a crowded place with lots of distractions. That's how I feel about getting 0 marks for missing a tiny thing on a very complicated problem.
What's your opinion of students who obsess over marks and feel superior to others who don't test as well, but don't have a solid understanding of the topic and it's application the real world?
Calvin Sun ya your words are correct understanding should be there. My sir given me question- the interest on the principle of 5000$ is 1200$ for certain number of years on certain number of rate . What would be the interest on 15000$?
I solve the problem something like this
The second principle is 3 times greater than the first one.
So 5000×3=15000
Therefore interest will also be 3 times greater than the first one
So 1200×3=3600$
This method was too easy. In the question they just asked the interest on $15000 .so there is no need to find out the rate of interest or the time but teacher told me that you have to find the rate of interest and time . I felt very bad
Calvin Sun there is no way to score good in math exams unless you do understand the topics.. they shouldn't feel superior... however if 40 of the most intelligent scientists were called to solve a problem and none of them except 1 could do it.. wouldn't he feel proud of himself? The same way its natural to feel superior when you are better than others in a logical subject like math or physics.
Kevin B. I dont know where you are from but isnt that unfair that teachers can cut marks for not doing it their way? It would be forcing students to memorize everything... i personally, havent experienced this but if you say so then there is no way for students at your schools, colleges to ever be good at something. Because if they do stuff their way, they will be called dumb by others for getting lesser scores, and if they do it the teachers way, there is no development. What do you think?
Kevin B. Ok i see your point. I just have 1 question, india has the worlds largest competitive exams JEE mains... And all the people ive seen say it is impossible to memorize and clear it, however you say that students ARE able to get through exams by memorizing. I dont know you but i am still proud of you for not abandoning your ways of learning in this "mark driven" world
and actually because there are questions that are badly formulated thats where you show your reasoning and correct it
I want to point out two things:
1. He actually wore different clothes as the student in the roleplaying bit at the beginning.
2. The fingers spell "M" and "W". But his first name starts with an "E". I would have picked that instead.
nice one - the 'unpredictability' the student might complain about is protecting them in other scenarios
Students will aleays complain. Id it were rhe other way around, they'd still complain because they got no marks while they almost did it right
In UK A levels you're allowed any mathematically correct method
I love this outfit sir
what if people provide the correct answer + describe all steps that they took to get from start to finish, but although they have the correct answer, they made one or more errors in the calculation steps?
Why are the related videos all about getting rid of stretch marks lol
Did Laura[?] fail the test/course/HSC on the strength of that 1/2 mark? if not i don't see a problem. Speaking as someone who did their HSC in '74, I was part of the 'correct answer - tick, full marks' generations, though even then teachers were giving 'almost-full' marks for ''got all the steps right up until this silly error in the last step.''
Eddie, meeting you would be like meeting Justin Bieber for some, or the President of the United States of America for others. Please come and meet me and my students at Glenala State High School in Brisbane, Queensland. My kids and I all follow your videos and your website. What an honour it would be for us, Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics students, to have you, our celebrity, at our school.
wow this is great!
:) haha. ya know....
So funny.
Like you.