teaching math brains / teaching high achievers, part 2

Test results: not bad.

Christopher got a 75, but the smartest kid in the class - a real, live Math Brain it seems - scored somewhere in the 80s. Class average was 82.

I've decided to see this as fantastic.

Christopher had no idea how to do the problems that came home on the "Prentice Hall Enrichment" worksheet, most of which appeared in a more difficult form on the test. So he hosed all of those, I assume.

Everything else (mostly bar graphing & box and box-and-whisker plotting) he learned on his own.

Getting a 75 on this test when the smartest kid in the class school got an 80-something is super.




extra credit

One more data point.

The kids apparently did so badly on the test that Ms. K decided to give them a shot at extra credit. At least, I'm assuming low test scores are the reason she decided to give them a shot at extra credit. In fact, I don't know why she did it, and seeing as how Ms. K has failed to answer clearly a single question concerning her grading methods this year, I'm not going to ask.

The point is: for the first time this school year, extra credit became a possibility.

Ms. K arranged the kids in groups. (Peer-tutoring?) First they corrected problems they'd missed. Then they "did the other problems." I have no idea what other problems they did. Obviously, I'm going to have to teach Christopher how to do process writing sometime soon here.....^*

um....no.

I think what I mean to say is I'm going to have to teach Christopher 'how to describe a process in writing' sometime soon here. Apparently the term process writing has been taken.

Ah.

Yes, it's been taken. By Lucy Calkins.)

Alright, forget Lucy Calkins.

Ms. K put the kids in groups, and had them do some problems for extra credit.

Then she had the kids rate each other's participation in the group.

If the other kids in the group thought you participated well, you got extra credit.

If the other kids in the group thought you didn't participate well, you didn't.




update

OK, Christopher says he didn't do any 'other' problems. He just re-did the test problems he missed.

Ed's been bugging me about how Christopher's writing isn't detailed enough. Apparently, C. assumes half the stuff he's supposed to be writing about is already in your head.

Silver lining: now I see exactly what Ed is talking about. I feel like every time I debrief Christopher I come away knowing even less than I did before. (gross exaggeration, but a useful starting place when it comes to remediating writing & talking about a process)

We are going to do some serious writing-about-processes around here.

I told my neighbor, we should make our kids write the directions for How to set up and Install whatever game system we break down and buy for them the next time an episode of no common sense-y hits.




Spanish test

I am informed that Christopher received a grade of 70 on his Spanish test.

Everyone else got a grade of 70 on his Spanish test, too.

WHY

I didn't know anything about the Spanish test, and thus didn't help Christopher study for the Spanish test, because, clearly, Christopher is failing to report critical information concerning tests & test schedules and I am failing to check edline to find out.

I better hear about the next Spanish test before Christopher takes it and gets a 70, and I better hear about it from Christopher.

EOS




edline at the high school

Rumor has it the high school posts all homework assignments on edline.

The middle school does not post homework assignments on edline.

The middle school does not post homework assignments on edline, because 6th graders need to learn responsibility so when they get to high school they know how to keep track of assignments.


cordial
email to the math teacher, part 1
Irvington Math Chair
follow-up to math chair
peer grading
extra credit

^* UPDATE 10-24-2006: clarity mishap — I was trying to say, in this passage, that Christopher's narrative accounts of events in his day can be hard to follow.


-- CatherineJohnson - 01 May 2006

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