In a SCASD third-grade classroom earlier this week, a student was graded unfairly on a mathematics assignment. No, not just unfairly — ridiculously unfairly. No, that’s not it either. Graded just plain WRONG. Here’s the story…
On a graded math homework assignment, students were expected to determine the perimeters and areas of various shapes, mostly rectangles. Given that this student had previously done this kind of work (at home with Singapore Math), this assignment was quite easy for the student. He did it efficiently and independently, and submitted it to the teacher. Upon receiving the graded assignment back, much to his parent’s surprise, the student received only 20 points out of 30 (66%, or a D).
Taking a closer look at the assignment, his parents were extremely upset with what they found.
For every single area problem, he had the correct answer but his answers were marked wrong. Why? He was using the standard notation for units of area: using the abbreviation for the units of measurement superscripted with 2 to indicate squared units (e.g., m^2, cm^2, km^2, ft^2, etc.).
I looked this up in Webster’s New Collegiate dictionary and, sure enough, it lists ” sq km” OR “cm^2″ as acceptable abbreviations. In my field, APA style expressly requires 1) use of the International System (SI), 2) the unit’s abbreviation be used when presented with a numeric value. But — inexplicably — this standard, universally accepted mathematical notation for square units of measurement is NOT acceptable in this classroom. In Investigations? In our district!!!???!!!
No, indeed. Instead, all students were expected to write it out (e.g., “square meters”, “square centimeters”, etc.). So he lost 9 points for all 9 problems. How asinine is that?
Failure to accept, let alone teach, standard mathematical notation and language is yet another reason why Investigations doesn’t belong in our schools.
As elementary school teachers do not have to graduate with a math degree, many do not have an understanding of the correct mathematical notations, among other mathematical things. Perhaps this teacher didn’t recognize the notations the student used.
My point was in that comment was that I don’t think Investigations Math is to blame for this problem.
That may be true.
In fourth grade, kids should be expected to solve multiplication and division problems. At the end of fourth grade son didn’t recognize the terms “quotient” or “product” (or know what to do to solve problems asking for those things) was since Investigations doesn’t seem to use that terminology. That is problem and Investigations IS to blame for that.
1. You don’t need to have a math degree to know the notation for the unit for area. That’s something you learn in 3rd grade. If you even forgot that, then you are not qualified to teach the subject.
2. In no other math books have I seen that they require students to use literally ’square meter’, ’square kilometer’ as units. They would use ‘m^2′ and ‘km^2′, and explain to you that they are actually called ’square meter’ etc. ONLY in Investigations do they require students to actually write it out, and consider you wrong if you don’t.
So, yes, according to my common sense, Investigations is to blame.
Investigations claim that they boost deep math understanding for students. From my observation from my kids (6 years by now), the ‘deep’ understanding is about writing and spelling. That is important, but it is NOT math. As a result, you don’t become a ‘deep math thinker’, you become a ’slow math thinker’.
um… the teacher may have asked students to write it out and NOT use the abbrevated form.. Did anyone ask???