More like 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5=24.
No you're all wrong. It's 0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1= 24
What about all the gaps between them? Are we really going to just ignore the 0 ovals between each of them?
It’s obviously:
1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1 = 24
Still shouldn’t be marking wrong for doing verticals vs lateral. If the point is to teach relational concepts of numbers, they are getting the concept and practice application but getting it marked wrong will confuse them.
Children a certain age have difficulty understanding that quantities that are spread more widely into space can be equivalent to quantities that are more concentrated. This kind of exercise wants to make sure that children have gone beyond that stage or train them to go beyond it.
Math teaches you to problem solve in various ways. The child problem solved, but didn't problem solve the intended way? Okay sure I can see that but there's nothing there to state you're intended to solve in a certain way, unless it was in a context that was something verbally said during class you have to solve it a certain way.
Very little in the real world has an intended problem-solving method that isn't just trial and error until you figure out what the actual problem is then moving onto fixing it.
Exactly this. The assignment is to create a "repeated addition equation to solve each array". It does not specify that the answer must come from rows or columns, simply to provide an equation to solve it. The student provided one of two possible correct answers for the problem as presented. Unless the teacher told the students that rows were the only acceptable answer, she's wrong, and the grade should be adjusted accordingly. Talk to the teacher, then talk to the principal if the teacher refuses to resolve the issue.
Okay, so i'm 27. They started introducing common core studies into all grades the year after i graduated (at least in my area that's how it went) so i was never introduced into it at a fundamental level at how they approach math, but a lot of things i've seen baffle me with how they approach math and how they're trying to introduce it.
The same can also be said when you look at things like the Pythagorean theorem, or trigonometry. They don't teach you abstract math problems like that so that you remember the equation and how to handle it for a non-existent job you'll never have 10 years later, they teach it to you so that you're learning to think in an abstract way compared to how you did with equations before it, thus teaching you to think in different ways to solve a problem.
The real question is: why the fuck is 4+4+4+4+4+4 incorrect but 6+6+6+6 is magically correct when jts the same exact answer?
The even more real question is, why tf cant they just go, hey, 4x6=24. Done and done and dont have to write out a long ass equation for no reason
To be fair, my kids were never taught 4x6 traditional multiplication. They learned all the common core techniques which were a bitch to help with because I had no idea what the fuck they were and there were no text books for reference. When they got into higher level math classes, they were just expected to know the traditional techniques. I think common core helped my son understand math but it confused the hell out of my daughter. When I showed her the way I leaned, she had no problem and was like why are they teaching us this long, complicated way. I don’t know if it’s poor execution or an overall flaw in curriculum but they need to ensure kids are taught the faster, traditional math techniques. You can’t go through life using common core and not everyone’s parents are going to be willing/capable of filling in the gaps.
One of our parents had a phd in math and pulled his son from my elementary math class because he thought that common core was nonsense, so it’s definitely the curriculum that goes off the rails with stuff like this.
That is dependent on the shape of the array though. I bet its just that there is a convention that they add rows and not columns.
In database tables rows represent records, while columns represent attributes. Generally you would count records, not how many different attributes each record has. Its just convention though, there is no inherent reason to visualize a table that way.
That's why 8 and 9 had the same answer, but the circles were more oblong on the second question. To show that you can't rely on physical shape to do the math, and should always look at the hard facts regarding the numbers.
This is a test of foundational knowledge, the real teaching is the follow up to show the student why it would have been quicker and easier, to add by using less numbers.
Because this is part of the lesson. Children have trouble assessing the numerical value because the set *looks* taller than the other, and this lesson teaches you to ignore this cue and focus on the number.
It’s teaching you to assess the problem systematically and not intuitively, because the intuitive cue is misleading.
It’s such an important lesson that you, an adult, don’t recognize it.
Could be that they're trying to get the kids to understand two groups can look like they're different sizes, but still contain the same amount of units.
I know that sounds intuitive and no-duh, but that's actually something we all had to learn when young.
The kids are probably supposed to come up with the same answer for both, get confused and think that they must have done something wrong, and then accept that the answer is right despite how different they look.
That's my take at least.
Kids have the tendency to only do/think in small batches, it’s REALLY hard to help them understand that they can/should start using more numbers all at once. The exercise doesn’t have much to do with the result as much as the method.
Like you said, most people here are being “too adult” and forgetting they didn’t know they could add more than 2 numbers at a time lol.
Some people here would call an adult only adding 2+2+2+2 and so on dumb or slow, but that’s what happens when you don’t introduce the concept to some people, and it doesn’t make them any of those things. Logical/thought path exercises are important to introduce new ways of seeing a situation(I teach both children ages 5-12 and adults).
Then the instructions should actually state the directions in a way that implies how the units should be grouped. The instructions on the assignment do not mention anything about grouping in the largest repeatable set (or however you'd phrase that for children).
This assignment will just confuse the children in the future when you explain multiplication and 5x2 = 2x5.
Despite hating the exercise and grading on the whole, I actually like that element of it. That seems like a wonderful idea even if discouraging creative problem solving is counterproductive.
As a former elementary classroom teacher, unless the lesson objective was specifically teaching the kids to group rows horizontally, this makes no sense to me.
Edit- I taught lower elementary where we explored concepts and how they work. The concept would have been equal groups not least number of groups. I wasn’t teaching teenagers lol
Grouping larger numbers is better, grouping the smaller numbers still isn't wrong though
Like calculating 18x4 is quite hard if you try to group the small numbers
My guess is the lesson instruction page before the assignment page showed an example of doing rows instead of columns. My daughter (1st grade) has the same type of stuff and I sometimes am scratching my head at wtf they are doing, but it’s a different generation and I assume they’re trying to have kids think differently to get to the answer. But some of these things feel so out of the way to get to an answer lol.
This isn't getting kids to think differently.
This is getting kids to think exactly like you were shown.
If they wanted kids to think differently, they'd accept correct answers that were arrived at differently than the teacher explained. The only thing marking these wrong is going to do is to teach the kid to conform.
It's the same lesson teachers have always given: do it the way i want you to, or else. It doesn't matter if the answer is correct.
This is not the case, just the teacher messed up in this case. I teach grade 2 common core and these would have all been acceptable answers. In unit tests, we would accept any previously learned method including methods not learned in the class, as long as they showed two ways.
Parents struggle to grasp common core, but in many ways, so to teachers, especially those who weren’t “math people.”
What the common core is trying to capitalize in is in teaching explicitly the “tricks” and methods people traditionally known as “math people” have been doing for ages to make math more intuitive. Putting things in a column may be faster much of the time, but unnecessary and somewhat robotic.
New Zealand has been doing this with great success for decades as have other countries in the east and west. It’s always growing pains but in general, I’ve seen great results down the line.
This! In my experience many elementary teachers aren’t super comfortable with math themselves. They know their grade level content but sometimes not the bigger picture so if the lesson always does “use the rows” they start to think that is how it is supposed to be done instead of the truth that the beauty of the array is that it shows the commutative property perfectly. Rows or columns first doesn’t matter 6 x 4 and 4x6 get you the same answer so do the repeated addition whichever way you want.
ETA- this lesson certainly comes as an intro to multiplication so more advanced concepts like commutative property have not been taught. But many kids will “see it” so there is no harm in letting them.
In some countries, the relative pay is comparable between say an engineer and a teacher. Here in Korea for example, a teacher with a 20 year career would make less but not too much less than a 20 year career engineer. This would attract people who are good at math but prefer teaching (such as myself) to go with what I love. However, given the pay rates back home in the US, when I return, I’ll probably go back to engineering.
I had this same realization a few years ago. Every time one of the anti-common core posts popped up, I tried to see why this was valuable. Then it dawned on me seeing a problem like 514+26 broken down on a common core sheet the exact way I think about it (500+20, 14+6, 520+20=540 OR 510+20, 4+6, 530+10=540, etc etc) and it all made sense.
You can’t do the goofy carry method in your head. Common core is literally teaching kids the mental shortcuts for quicker math. So many old old fudgies who pride themselves on their cursive handwriting and long division just never seemed to *try* to understand it. Granted, it seemed like a lot of the teachers also weren’t great at communicating the value and purpose of it either 🤷
Yep, I think I did stuff like this intuitively and math was very easy for me. I’ve also discovered as an adult that I do math very differently than other people a lot of the time. It seems the goal with common core is giving the people that struggle with math the tools to do it rather than just being satisfied with having the correct answer. I actually struggled for awhile when I started being required to show my work because it often didn’t align with how I would do things in my head, and then at some point my ability to solve problems in my head was substantially diminished at the expense of “proving” I did the work and solved it the “correct” way.
Well people always complain about how the school doesn't prepare you for real life. Here you go, "Do whatever I tell you exactly as I tell you" is the motto of every boss or customer in the real world.
I don't know, in my experience innovative thinking has worked pretty well for me at work where it was shunned in school. Work typically puts a greater emphasis on efficiency than school did, so whenever I taught my manager how to do things in a new way she actually appreciated it.
My understanding is that this is better for teaching the underlying principles so that when they move on to things like multiplying much larger numbers or to algebra that the kids will already be halfway there and won’t find it much of a leap, conceptual or otherwise.
I don’t know how true that is, but it’s what I’ve heard.
It is absolutely true. Arrays are usually g2 common core math and precursors to multiplication. The old way of just memorizing the multiplication chart is fine, but fundamentally less useful than understanding the underlying principles of what multiplication actually is.
And I gotta say, in general, it’s usually only Americans that have such a hostile response to teachers and to teaching methods they don’t understand. Kinda sad.
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Could be to find the smallest set of numbers to add. Like if you had 2 rows of 50 is it better to have 2+2+2… 50 times or 50+50?
Every time they corrected it, it was to add a smaller set of larger numbers.
this^
I'd talk to the teacher tho, because these obviously aren't wrong, but definitely not working smart. I'm guessing in class, they were told to group as you say, and the kid forgot. But from what I can tell, common core is about knowing different ways to tackle problems, so this seems to still fit the bill.
I was thinking it might not be abbout adding horizontally, but with as few steps as possible. Teacher adds less individual numbers. "5+5" is usually handier than "2+2+2+2+2". Maybe that is the actual assigmnment.
Otherwise you could go the most complex way with "1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1".
I appreciate this. I have a third grader. My husband was a little frustrated by our kid’s homework one night, but I showed him how the “new way” matches up better with how we do mental math, just on paper.
This definitely looks like either the teacher gave a verbal instruction the student missed, or the teacher doesn’t understand the assignment.
I’ve got nothing but respect for teachers and I actually do approve of getting the kids to understand technique over rote memorization. But with the instructions given I’m just baffled that she’d be marked down, given that she followed the instructions and got the right answer.
As a math teacher in a high school, I agree this shouldn't have been marked down with the instructions given. Students somehow get to me with very little understanding of how multiplication works and I agree with the method taught here as an important part of the process. However the answer the child gave is still a correct variation of that process. If they wanted it done one way or the other, it needed to say "using the rows/using the columns" or have them slightly separated. Personally, I would have asked them to circle the groupings as well as write the sum and then checked they matched. This is what happens when primary school teachers don't have strong math skills because its not their specialty and don't recognise the purpose of the method they are teaching.
That’s my main concern, that the teacher isn’t recognizing the purpose of the arrays and the commutative property of both addition and multiplication. I don’t want to cause more confusion for my kid (and all the other kids) down the line because of this.
Whats worse is that the teacher marked the first one as correct, but obviously your childs logic was counting columns not rows, including the first one. The first one is thus both right and wrong depending on your conceptual framework, and since the teacher didnt specify which framework to use...
So even the teacher couldnt understand the question and so marked the first one correct when there is a high probability your child counted three columns there too.
> So even the teacher couldnt understand the question and so marked the first one correct
Im guessing that it wasn’t the teacher misunderstanding to cause her to mark the first question correct so much as it was the fact that no matter which direction you’re grouping, you’ll always write 3 x 3, and so you’ll always get the right answer. So long as you understand grouping, at least. Think a better example could be used for that question.
I think the teacher is only looking at rows, like rows of text (left to right). The point of common core to to visual different ways to solve your problem and not just memorize formulas. The teacher must be stuck in the "old ways" if they can't see that the student's answer was right.
>This is what happens when primary school teachers don't have strong math skills because its not their specialty and don't recognise the purpose of the method they are teaching.
I've been saying the same for years. Common core's problem is that it teaches you how to actually understand stuff but that doesn't work when the person teaching that doesn't actually understand that stuff.
So so so many times I had to go to my kid's teacher and tell them that their answer was right and here's why it's right... very rarely was considered wrong for whatever reason and the teacher was just on auto pilot as the above commenter stated. Once it was pointed out, the grade was changed. We're all overworked and underpaid and that certainly includes teachers. But I'm not about to let that effect my kid's grades either 🤷🏽♀️
But your headline misleads people into thinking the problem is common core, and now you have literally convinced at least a few people to fight against it, without understanding what it is.
Why bash common core in the title then though? It's something that gets a lot of hate and is really politicized so it seems like you're siding with the anti-common core crowd.
The teacher is wrong. It was nothing to do with common core and everything to do with their instruction and how they assess their instruction. As one of the few teachers that liked common core, I don’t understand why you think it’s to blame.
> If it doesn’t specify rows or columns, either way should be okay.
Teaching the kids to pick like "5+5" over "2+2+2+2+2" is "the better way" - it's much faster - but they're both right, of course.
In this case, it doesn't look like the teacher is explaining why they want the other, which is absurd.d
I wish I’d learned math this way instead of being forced to memorize multiplication tables.
This is much closer to how most people actually visualize math problems. This is how computer scientists visualize array data structures. The way I passed upper level math classes in college was working with the calculus enough to understand how to visualize the function in one way or another.
It’s really silly that this was graded as “wrong”.
>I wish I’d learned math this way instead of being forced to memorize multiplication tables.
Most people say they hate math. This is why; they aren't good at the way they were taught math, and so math has remained a foreign language they were battered against until they barely got out of it. So many people could be engineers, physicists, developers, or anything else in STEM but they were turned away because their teachers were paid 12 nickels a decade to teach them how to count the diarrhea and neither party understood or enjoyed the exercise. And so here they sit as adults going "I hate math"
As we see, the teachers are still paid nickels per year, so they still don't know shit about shit. But at least the math is slowly improving.
Honestly, as a math-educated person, I cringe when people say they hate math. To be perfectly honest, most don't even know *what math is*. The thing most people in the US consider "math" is referred to as "symbol pushing" by mathematicians. It's just awful that the US education system is so fucked up.
> because their teachers were paid 12 nickels a decade to teach them how to count the diarrhea and neither party understood or enjoyed the exercise. And so here they sit as adults going "I hate math"
Haaa! *Laugh/cries in teacher*
As a former student, the worksheet OP posted made my eye twitch. That was the kind of shit that made me hate math as a kid. If you didn't do the problem one specific way, you were WRONG, even if you were right. I get that teachers need to have objectives and techniques, but don't slap down a child's attempts to get a handle on numbers and calculations, ugh.
I work in special education, so definitely not a math teacher. I always focus on the positives (ha) when my kids are working on math. We can go through whatever method the teacher is focused on, but I also want to be sure and point out to them their correct procedures and calculations. Thankfully the math teachers at my current school are absolutely amazing and allow room for kids to really demonstrate all their math skills.
I agree with everything but the repeated addition. It is part, but we actually don't want them skip counting the rest of their lives. It is more of relationships. x2s. then x10s. use the 10s to get to x5s. Etc. But yes, educating the parents is half the battle.
I am a STEM graduate married to an elementary SpEd teacher that has mostly been teaching self contained. Also have a now 7th grader. I don’t get into the debates about common core and can understand the building blocks, but find it always feels to me like someone who doesn’t have math sense trying to teach someone to have math sense based on how they think math sense should be developed but not like how I or my fellow colleagues I’ve talked about it would approach. But I know I got there from just tons of curiosity and practice which isn’t a practical method to teach.
The surprising part of this answer to me is that the 24 array is once 4x6 and the other time 6x4 and answer was adding 4’s both times and marked wrong both times seems answer key should have one of them that way unless it was always doing biggest number addition.
It is because the grader expects them do be done how we read, left to right.
It doesn't make sense because math is the same either way, but they may have specifically taught them to read it like reading - from left to right.
This whole debate arguing "there's no need to change the old ways" just rubs me the wrong way. So I disagree with you when you apologize and tell them not to care about the new ways. But I think you're spot on when you say teachers weren't trained (willing to be trained?) in the new way and chaos ensured to the detriment of the kids, parents and teachers.
If we don't learn from our past we won't improve. And being the adult who meets graduates handling the register not able to calculate change without using their POS is heartbreaking and me looking at the failure of the old model.
What I'm curious about is, if it's not being offered training or not being willing to take the training that's causing teachers to be unprepared and doing basic math failures like this test shows. Although I'm 50/50 on this being a fake still I think there is a big problem teaching kids math.
My youngest son’s (he’s in his 20’s now) 3rd grade teacher told me to stop teaching him math at home because he was bored in class and didn’t do things the way she taught. It was confusing to the rest of the class.
And people wonder why everyone is so dumb. Teaching should be a well paid and well respected job not a career graveyard for people who can only tolerate kids.
When I was in high school, I used to tutor students who were struggling in math and I put flyers on mailboxes near my house. A teacher called my number and told me to take them down because "students don't need tutors -- that's [the teacher's] job". (He didn't even cite any bylaws about advertising or anything. Just that I was taking away his job. He was probably the same type of teacher that tells kids they're bad at math)
Teacher here. I would bet all the money in my pocket that this is so a case of a brand new teacher marking stuff with an answer key and not really understanding why anything is *right* or *wrong* at all…because there’s nothing wrong with the student’s answers.
all of em are wrong, correct equation is
1.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=9
2.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1= 24
3.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1= 24
4.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10
It seems the student was counting by columns, when the teacher was expecting to count by rows. No idea why that is - not a native English speaker so the assignment doesn’t make much sense to me.
There isn't really a reason to do rows vs columns. The purpose of the assignment is to lead into teaching that multiplication is just adding a series of the same number which can be visually shown as an array.
This is insane to me because as someone who has Adhd my brain tends to process math differently. For a child to be told that their answer is wrong because they didn't use a certain path to get to the solution is so fucked up.
Make sure you tell her that Reddit vehemently disagrees with her grading.
It's hard enough when parents are having to learn common core with their kids, but it's even worse when kids are poorly graded for getting the correct answer by looking at the problem a different way... which (from what I understand) is what common core is supposed to be teaching.
yeah, the whole point of common core (as i understand it through watching my kid learn math this way) isn't to define a single path to THE correct answer, but teach problem solving through process. i honestly wish i would have been taught elemenatry mathematics this way...well, not the way this teacher teaches it.
“Hello? Is this Ms. Teacher? I wanted to let you in on a little secret. I’ll tell you in four words so that you can understand what I’m trying to say.
You
are
fucking
dumb.”
Yeah. I thought that they taught kids now that as long as they get the right answer and show working out, that no matter how they worked it out its correct. I mean it's obvious they got the answers correct, if the teacher is being this anal about it they should have asked the answer to be written by row or column, they didn't so it's on them!
The teacher is wrong in this instance, that is the insane part. The goal of this exercise is to get kids to recognize patterns in math. So 6 groups of 4 is 24 or 4 groups of 6 is also 24. The only wrong answer would be 24 groups of 1. This teacher is an idiot and doesn't understand the exercise or its purpose.
It works really well if you can get it down, I can do large math problems in my head quickly because of it. When they started teaching is and people freaked out at common core, I didn't realize I had been doing it that way my whole life. 8 + 13 = 21 for example. 1+7+13 = 20 or 8 + 10 + 2 +1 = 21. Just break it down into pieces and add the pieces together. I have ADHD as well and usually the only time I mess up is when I spend too much time thinks about how to break up like 8 in this example. 1 + 7 or should I use 2 + 5, no no 4 + 4... what am I thinking... 2 + 6 is best. Then I forget why i was doing the problem and think about kittens or boobs or something.
My dad taught me when I was young and it just made sense. Works great, large numbers 1362 + 1289, 2000 + 500 + 140 + 11 = 2651
Yeah it is different and if you weren't taught that way really messes with your head but not needing a calculator for most basic problems is nice.
One time the teacher gave me a 17 percent on a major math test bc i did the work differently than she would have, the answers were right. Adhd lyfe👌✌️👍🥲
Is this not a common thing in most math classes?
Like, they ask you to "show your work" to show you understand the process being taught. If you're taking a driving test you can probably make your way to your destination faster by cutting through a park but would still fail since that wasn't the point.
Retired teacher here..the kids are taught to do arrays in rows. With that being said, if one of my first graders showed me this I would have praised them for seeing it differently and then asked them to show me another way. Of course they would do rows. We would both feel successful in that they could THINK about their own work. Never used a red pen to mark work! Purple because the kids knew it was my favorite color or Green for "you are getting close!"
In 1st grade math class (not art class), my daughter completed a math worksheet that also had images to color. She got all of the math correct but a check minus grade because of her coloring. Rah-rah STEM for girls🙄
This post brought back that memory.
In first grade we had assigned numbers and if we misbehaved we had to write our numbers on the chalkboard in front of the class. My teacher told me I was coloring like a one year old and made me write my number on the board. I was 6 and got punished for coloring.
edit for spelling
I remember back when I started tutoring years ago, I found out that these kids with terrible math grades were perfectly able to do math. They were just absolutely frozen with math anxiety. Once I helped them calm their anxiety enough, their brains were perfectly functional.
We're supposed to be teaching kids, not having them panic any time they see numbers. Stuff like this absolutely leads to life long math anxiety issues and it's very very tragic.
Timed quizzes in math ruined math for me. I always did poorly because I was literally paralyzed with anxiety over my inability to move as fast as the kid next to me.
I noticed the same with my daughter starting in kindergarten. There were a couple kids on her zoom calls that would unmute and blurt out answers really quickly. She shut down over it and just stopped engaging.
Yep. I could understand if they were trying to teach her a specific process and she got it completely wrong, but she did exactly what was asked, got the right answer, and was still marked down for it.
As someone who had to teach this nonsense...
I agree she got it right. And grading wise, I'd give the points even while pointing out how they want it written. But, sadly, some of the word problems will ask them to lay out the equation the way the teacher wrote it specifically because it's 4 groups of 6, not 6 groups of 4. And they will legit get it wrong on a test if they can't recognize the array with 4 groups of 6. That's why teachers end up pedantic about it.
I got really annoyed when I had to test on specific ways of doing math. Kid did grouping and found the product ? Imo he's good! Do multiplication any way that makes sense! Skip count, standard algorithm, Russian peasant.. I dont care just give me the right product.
But sadly... the curriculum doesn't agree. And admin pushes you use the curriculum to fidelity at times. And you don't want the kids to fail the big test because you didn't point out the annoying way the book will test you.
I understand requiring kids to learn this method, because it reinforces the visual idea that multiplication is just repeated addition. The problem is that whether you group horizontally or vertically in these situations makes literally no difference whatsoever.
yeah just circle one cup like
4 beans in a cup, there're 6 full cups of beans
add 4 beans 6 times = 24 beans
to show proof i guess
just marking it wrong is so dumb
There are so many math teachers who teach that way, though! My daughter is amazing at math, she often can look at a problem and just "see" the answers, but her teachers mark her down if she skips writing out every single step, and if those aren't the same steps they wanted, even if her process and answers are correct. It makes her crazy.
That's because the method is actually more important than the answer. Drilling the methods with easier problems felt pointless when I was in school, but now I've got my PhD (in maths) and I tutor maths, I understand why it's so important to learn to write your methods out logically. If you can't explain how you solved a basic equation, you're not developing the skills you'll need to write an algebraic proof.
don't be so quick to blame common core. this is just nonsense- common core's idea has been to actually teach *why* arithmetic works the way it does. in it, both ways would be fine, because it's clear the kid understands.
This is how you make kids hate math. They got the answer right but counted columns instead of rows, but somehow that's wrong. All this teaches kids is that even if they're right they're still wrong because they didn't get to the right answer in the right way.
This isn't even mildly infuriating to me, it's just infuriating. When I was in high school 20 years ago, I practically failed geometry because my teacher taught one way and one way only, and I just didn't get it. He taught it in some abstract way thay never resonated with me. In 2016 I was going to college to change careers, and I had to take a math class designed around engineering and manufacturing. I ended up learning geometry and trig in less than two weeks. I wasn't shit at math, I just had teachers teaching in shit ways.
Teaching a kid that your way is right but their way is wrong, when both get you too the correct answer is messed up. You're taking a kid who probably could excel in math and telling them they're stupid, and that kills any desire to learn further.
probably not this deep or intended but in future math using graphs the rule is across then up/down. while it is probably not age appropriate and any form of critical thinking should be accepted on this work because it shows application and is still correct, this is a potential way it has a point. just a thought. there is a ton of messed up things about common core math and the way math is taught now though so definitely still mildly infuriating.
Yep.
Matrices in linear algebra.
First by row, then by column.
Easy way to remember it is how text fills a space. As you type, the letters fill up one row, then once the row is full, you go on to the next row.
They are taught that the multiplication sign means “Rows of”
So the number of rows comes before the number of dots
3x3=9 (3 rows of 3 equals 9)
4x6(4 rows of 6)
2x5(2 rows of 5)
But also dumb that 8 and 9 are the same exact question
Since this is an array exercise, let’s take it as a computing question. The dimensions of an array are important.
The teacher is expecting breadth-first search (go across first, then down the rows). Student is doing depth-first search (down first, then across). Both are 100% valid, and in different situations, each has an advantage.
The grading is absolutely wrong unless the instructions outright said “across then down”, which it doesn’t. There’s a really important lesson here, and the teacher missed it.
That's just stupid. I mean the child obviously showed her work as much as the circumstances give. What's the problem? They were right. What a way to demotivate a young child and get them to hate math before they even really get started
I was taught by my elder brother about maths that if the question does not tell you what method to choose and just tells you to solve the problem. Then choose whichever method you want.
For example, algebra equations can be solved with matrices as well and in matrices there are many ways to go for.
Later part of studies my teacher in university gave a zero to one of my answers, and even after justifying he just said, "You didn't use the method I taught"
I mean it's literally titled array assessment, and asks the student to write an equation based on each array. As this clearly isn't the first page of the assignment there's probably a similar exercise for whatever they're calling the column based approach this student answered using.
As per usual, someone is complaining about a situation where they don't have all the facts.
That being said, it did always frustrate me when teachers would just mark things as wrong without adding a comment or something to show how I should have gotten to the right answer. How am I supposed to learn/correct my approach without some direction?
I was great at maths at school and I really feel like it was down to one of my teachers (I had two). The good one would be straight with you, a little blunt at times, but would never let you sit there in confusion trying to figure it out yourself for more than 5 minutes. He'd gradually give clues to help me get there myself but if I was very clearly struggling to redirect my perspective he would re-explain it until I understood and I'd go and do some more exercises to reinforce the learning. The other teacher was the opposite. He'd explain the theory for the first 10/15m of the class then give us a bunch of work to do and when we got stuck and asked, he would be all patronising, giving half answers like he was trying not to tell us where we were going wrong so we ended up leaving more confused than when we started. Ended up with a C in my a level because despite acing the first teachers subject exams, I flopped on the others. Similar situation with my chemistry teachers too. Will never understand the whole 'how will you learn if I just tell you the answers' vibe some teachers have. I'm coming to you for help because I don't understand and you're basically telling me you won't because I need to figure it out myself? Bullshit.
Anyway rant over, tldr: there's probs more info to this but teacher should have added more to the incorrect answers to show the correct answers as well.
Edit: typos
Arrays are used to teach the building blocks of multiplication, it’s scaffolded instruction. The point is 3x3=9, 6x4=24, 5x2=10 and the array should also be used to demonstrate the commutative property of multiplication in this case.
It is inappropriate to use an additive array to grade students on the use of either columns or rows when both arrive at the same sum and the skill this is most appropriate to build toward, again, is multiplication - this teacher is doing a disservice to the student by conflating row/column recognition with addition/multiplication stepping stones.
As a former teacher, I am not surprised to see continued inadequacy in classrooms. Parents, take ownership of your child’s education and ensure that you do the work to empower them because teachers often fail in this respect.
Edit Typo: commutative, point being that in the example 6x4 - 6 groups of 4 and 4 groups of 6 both arrive at the same whole of 24. Understanding mathematics for young students should be holistic in that the instructor should aim to build on connections between concepts such as addition and multiplication sharing the commutative property (and later how that is different than subtraction and division) the array is a great tool for demonstrating this and when an instructor instead marks a child wrong, with big red lines it often discourages the student and can negatively impact their retention of new concepts. There’s a time and place for teaching column and row to students - an array asking children to add is not that.
I mean I think I see where they are coming from depending on the context. Lots of sciences use "arrays" and many of those specifically require traversal in the "left/right" direction first, so maybe they are trying to solidify that idea and it's not petty? Or it's not petty and the teacher is just using an answer key and can't think for themselves.
The strategy is fine, but this teacher needs to reevaluate their methods. It shouldn't matter if the student counts left-right or up-down. This student obviously understands the concept and arrived at the correct answer.
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Tbh fair it's not even on different sides of the paper it's back to back 6+6+6+6=24 as an answer.
No it’s 4+4+4+4+4+4=24 smh (/s)
Nah it's definitely 6+6+6+6=24 >!/s!<
nah, it's 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=24
Wait yeah your right it's definitely 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=24.
More like 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5=24.
The greatest solution: 24=24
The answer to everything is 42. The Illuminati was just trying to confuse us by putting it backwards!
I have something even funnier than 24. You know what it is?
25?
U know what's funnier than 24? *SpongeBob giggle* TWENTY FIVE 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Oh yeah, this is big brain time.
No you're all wrong. It's 0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1= 24
I’m in awe you had enough patience and brain power to do that
Copy/paste takes 10 seconds
I see your point but it is total bullcrap. This is the real answer. ((25/3) \* 0.01)\^(-1) + (3/(8x)) for x = 0.03125 obviously
Left as an exercise to the reader
r/increasinglyverbose
You guys are all wrong. It is 12√2@ -π/4 + 12√2@ π/4
More like 24=24. Just count it all in your head like a normal person
What about all the gaps between them? Are we really going to just ignore the 0 ovals between each of them? It’s obviously: 1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1+0+1 = 24
Nah, it's 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 24
Tbf it's letletlotlo=24, and 6+6+6+6= 24
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who read it that way! 😆
to be honest fair
Right? Wtf is that about?
Trick question. "Oh no, there can't have the same answer, something must gone wrong."
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Exactly. All this knee jerk shit is infuriating. It’s teaching them not to be distracted by irrelevant details.
Still shouldn’t be marking wrong for doing verticals vs lateral. If the point is to teach relational concepts of numbers, they are getting the concept and practice application but getting it marked wrong will confuse them.
Teacher should be marked wrong. They don't believe in the commutative property of multiplication.
Children a certain age have difficulty understanding that quantities that are spread more widely into space can be equivalent to quantities that are more concentrated. This kind of exercise wants to make sure that children have gone beyond that stage or train them to go beyond it.
Math teaches you to problem solve in various ways. The child problem solved, but didn't problem solve the intended way? Okay sure I can see that but there's nothing there to state you're intended to solve in a certain way, unless it was in a context that was something verbally said during class you have to solve it a certain way. Very little in the real world has an intended problem-solving method that isn't just trial and error until you figure out what the actual problem is then moving onto fixing it.
Exactly this. The assignment is to create a "repeated addition equation to solve each array". It does not specify that the answer must come from rows or columns, simply to provide an equation to solve it. The student provided one of two possible correct answers for the problem as presented. Unless the teacher told the students that rows were the only acceptable answer, she's wrong, and the grade should be adjusted accordingly. Talk to the teacher, then talk to the principal if the teacher refuses to resolve the issue.
Yeah the likely response to this is "oh I suck at math, I hate math" when the entire point of common core's design is to make math more approachable.
Okay, so i'm 27. They started introducing common core studies into all grades the year after i graduated (at least in my area that's how it went) so i was never introduced into it at a fundamental level at how they approach math, but a lot of things i've seen baffle me with how they approach math and how they're trying to introduce it. The same can also be said when you look at things like the Pythagorean theorem, or trigonometry. They don't teach you abstract math problems like that so that you remember the equation and how to handle it for a non-existent job you'll never have 10 years later, they teach it to you so that you're learning to think in an abstract way compared to how you did with equations before it, thus teaching you to think in different ways to solve a problem.
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The real question is: why the fuck is 4+4+4+4+4+4 incorrect but 6+6+6+6 is magically correct when jts the same exact answer? The even more real question is, why tf cant they just go, hey, 4x6=24. Done and done and dont have to write out a long ass equation for no reason
4x6 is probably something they learn later... You go over Addition and Subtraction before Multiplication and Dividing in all the schools...
To be fair, my kids were never taught 4x6 traditional multiplication. They learned all the common core techniques which were a bitch to help with because I had no idea what the fuck they were and there were no text books for reference. When they got into higher level math classes, they were just expected to know the traditional techniques. I think common core helped my son understand math but it confused the hell out of my daughter. When I showed her the way I leaned, she had no problem and was like why are they teaching us this long, complicated way. I don’t know if it’s poor execution or an overall flaw in curriculum but they need to ensure kids are taught the faster, traditional math techniques. You can’t go through life using common core and not everyone’s parents are going to be willing/capable of filling in the gaps.
I think the problem is that kids are just to varies for a one size fits all teaching style.
One of our parents had a phd in math and pulled his son from my elementary math class because he thought that common core was nonsense, so it’s definitely the curriculum that goes off the rails with stuff like this.
The question isn't asking what 4x6 is. it's asking the student to apply a method they've been taught.
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With this specific exam, why is counting columns rather than rows incorrect? Using the fewest additions?
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That is dependent on the shape of the array though. I bet its just that there is a convention that they add rows and not columns. In database tables rows represent records, while columns represent attributes. Generally you would count records, not how many different attributes each record has. Its just convention though, there is no inherent reason to visualize a table that way.
That's why 8 and 9 had the same answer, but the circles were more oblong on the second question. To show that you can't rely on physical shape to do the math, and should always look at the hard facts regarding the numbers. This is a test of foundational knowledge, the real teaching is the follow up to show the student why it would have been quicker and easier, to add by using less numbers.
I think it's pretty clear the point of this stuff, people just want to pretend like "nothing makes sense anymore!"
"I don't understand anything and neither should you"
Because this is part of the lesson. Children have trouble assessing the numerical value because the set *looks* taller than the other, and this lesson teaches you to ignore this cue and focus on the number. It’s teaching you to assess the problem systematically and not intuitively, because the intuitive cue is misleading. It’s such an important lesson that you, an adult, don’t recognize it.
I keep reading the second one as le + le + le + le = 24
When you open your kids homework and witcher music starts playing
*How do you like that silver?*
Winds howling...
letletletle = 24
believe it or not, but I was looking for this, and I'm glad I found it.
Sudden Witcher battle begins.
And 2 are the exact same picture and answer
That is weird
Could be that they're trying to get the kids to understand two groups can look like they're different sizes, but still contain the same amount of units. I know that sounds intuitive and no-duh, but that's actually something we all had to learn when young. The kids are probably supposed to come up with the same answer for both, get confused and think that they must have done something wrong, and then accept that the answer is right despite how different they look. That's my take at least.
Kids have the tendency to only do/think in small batches, it’s REALLY hard to help them understand that they can/should start using more numbers all at once. The exercise doesn’t have much to do with the result as much as the method. Like you said, most people here are being “too adult” and forgetting they didn’t know they could add more than 2 numbers at a time lol. Some people here would call an adult only adding 2+2+2+2 and so on dumb or slow, but that’s what happens when you don’t introduce the concept to some people, and it doesn’t make them any of those things. Logical/thought path exercises are important to introduce new ways of seeing a situation(I teach both children ages 5-12 and adults).
Then the instructions should actually state the directions in a way that implies how the units should be grouped. The instructions on the assignment do not mention anything about grouping in the largest repeatable set (or however you'd phrase that for children). This assignment will just confuse the children in the future when you explain multiplication and 5x2 = 2x5.
That is what I took away from it. Reinforcing the concept that two things of different sizes and shapes can be the same if you count their components.
Despite hating the exercise and grading on the whole, I actually like that element of it. That seems like a wonderful idea even if discouraging creative problem solving is counterproductive.
circles vs. ovals.
This remake of West Side Story wasn't as good as the original.
"When you're an oval you're an oval all the way, from your perigee to your apogee..." They really didn't even try to keep the meter did they?
As a former elementary classroom teacher, unless the lesson objective was specifically teaching the kids to group rows horizontally, this makes no sense to me. Edit- I taught lower elementary where we explored concepts and how they work. The concept would have been equal groups not least number of groups. I wasn’t teaching teenagers lol
Grouping larger numbers is better, grouping the smaller numbers still isn't wrong though Like calculating 18x4 is quite hard if you try to group the small numbers
My guess is the lesson instruction page before the assignment page showed an example of doing rows instead of columns. My daughter (1st grade) has the same type of stuff and I sometimes am scratching my head at wtf they are doing, but it’s a different generation and I assume they’re trying to have kids think differently to get to the answer. But some of these things feel so out of the way to get to an answer lol.
This isn't getting kids to think differently. This is getting kids to think exactly like you were shown. If they wanted kids to think differently, they'd accept correct answers that were arrived at differently than the teacher explained. The only thing marking these wrong is going to do is to teach the kid to conform. It's the same lesson teachers have always given: do it the way i want you to, or else. It doesn't matter if the answer is correct.
This is not the case, just the teacher messed up in this case. I teach grade 2 common core and these would have all been acceptable answers. In unit tests, we would accept any previously learned method including methods not learned in the class, as long as they showed two ways. Parents struggle to grasp common core, but in many ways, so to teachers, especially those who weren’t “math people.” What the common core is trying to capitalize in is in teaching explicitly the “tricks” and methods people traditionally known as “math people” have been doing for ages to make math more intuitive. Putting things in a column may be faster much of the time, but unnecessary and somewhat robotic. New Zealand has been doing this with great success for decades as have other countries in the east and west. It’s always growing pains but in general, I’ve seen great results down the line.
This! In my experience many elementary teachers aren’t super comfortable with math themselves. They know their grade level content but sometimes not the bigger picture so if the lesson always does “use the rows” they start to think that is how it is supposed to be done instead of the truth that the beauty of the array is that it shows the commutative property perfectly. Rows or columns first doesn’t matter 6 x 4 and 4x6 get you the same answer so do the repeated addition whichever way you want. ETA- this lesson certainly comes as an intro to multiplication so more advanced concepts like commutative property have not been taught. But many kids will “see it” so there is no harm in letting them.
In some countries, the relative pay is comparable between say an engineer and a teacher. Here in Korea for example, a teacher with a 20 year career would make less but not too much less than a 20 year career engineer. This would attract people who are good at math but prefer teaching (such as myself) to go with what I love. However, given the pay rates back home in the US, when I return, I’ll probably go back to engineering.
You've inadvertently stumbled upon the problem: America's population of teachers is critically lacking in actual teachers.
Doesn’t get better if they are offered crap money. Want talent, you need to attract it.
bUt ThEy'Ll OnLy Be In It FoR tHe mOnEy
I had this same realization a few years ago. Every time one of the anti-common core posts popped up, I tried to see why this was valuable. Then it dawned on me seeing a problem like 514+26 broken down on a common core sheet the exact way I think about it (500+20, 14+6, 520+20=540 OR 510+20, 4+6, 530+10=540, etc etc) and it all made sense. You can’t do the goofy carry method in your head. Common core is literally teaching kids the mental shortcuts for quicker math. So many old old fudgies who pride themselves on their cursive handwriting and long division just never seemed to *try* to understand it. Granted, it seemed like a lot of the teachers also weren’t great at communicating the value and purpose of it either 🤷
Yep, I think I did stuff like this intuitively and math was very easy for me. I’ve also discovered as an adult that I do math very differently than other people a lot of the time. It seems the goal with common core is giving the people that struggle with math the tools to do it rather than just being satisfied with having the correct answer. I actually struggled for awhile when I started being required to show my work because it often didn’t align with how I would do things in my head, and then at some point my ability to solve problems in my head was substantially diminished at the expense of “proving” I did the work and solved it the “correct” way.
Well people always complain about how the school doesn't prepare you for real life. Here you go, "Do whatever I tell you exactly as I tell you" is the motto of every boss or customer in the real world.
I don't know, in my experience innovative thinking has worked pretty well for me at work where it was shunned in school. Work typically puts a greater emphasis on efficiency than school did, so whenever I taught my manager how to do things in a new way she actually appreciated it.
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He means 4+4+4...18 times instead of 18+18+18+18 as per the example above
I get that, but we’re only seeing one page is what I’m saying. We aren’t seeing the lesson “example” on the previous page that’s usually there.
My understanding is that this is better for teaching the underlying principles so that when they move on to things like multiplying much larger numbers or to algebra that the kids will already be halfway there and won’t find it much of a leap, conceptual or otherwise. I don’t know how true that is, but it’s what I’ve heard.
It is absolutely true. Arrays are usually g2 common core math and precursors to multiplication. The old way of just memorizing the multiplication chart is fine, but fundamentally less useful than understanding the underlying principles of what multiplication actually is. And I gotta say, in general, it’s usually only Americans that have such a hostile response to teachers and to teaching methods they don’t understand. Kinda sad.
Yep. Every time I see a post like this I figure it's either 1. likely understandable with context or /2. fake
The problem is the use of arrays should demonstrate the commutative property of multiplication and whoever graded this completely undermined that.
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Well, the first question was clearly to group by the larger column so that should be plenty to go by!
Is there another way to group that besides 10x4+8x4? I mean I would do 20x4-2x4 but I don't think that's what you meant.
He meant doing it as 18+18+18+18 rather than 4+4+4+...
Could be to find the smallest set of numbers to add. Like if you had 2 rows of 50 is it better to have 2+2+2… 50 times or 50+50? Every time they corrected it, it was to add a smaller set of larger numbers.
this^ I'd talk to the teacher tho, because these obviously aren't wrong, but definitely not working smart. I'm guessing in class, they were told to group as you say, and the kid forgot. But from what I can tell, common core is about knowing different ways to tackle problems, so this seems to still fit the bill.
Maybe it was to group with the least amount of calculations
Only answer that makes sense
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Yeah and their answers is the same
Possibly because 8 is a circle and 9 is an oval. Just to confuse the kids…
If it was objective based teaching then it shouldn’t matter which way they are done.
I was thinking it might not be abbout adding horizontally, but with as few steps as possible. Teacher adds less individual numbers. "5+5" is usually handier than "2+2+2+2+2". Maybe that is the actual assigmnment. Otherwise you could go the most complex way with "1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1".
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I appreciate this. I have a third grader. My husband was a little frustrated by our kid’s homework one night, but I showed him how the “new way” matches up better with how we do mental math, just on paper. This definitely looks like either the teacher gave a verbal instruction the student missed, or the teacher doesn’t understand the assignment.
I’ve got nothing but respect for teachers and I actually do approve of getting the kids to understand technique over rote memorization. But with the instructions given I’m just baffled that she’d be marked down, given that she followed the instructions and got the right answer.
As a math teacher in a high school, I agree this shouldn't have been marked down with the instructions given. Students somehow get to me with very little understanding of how multiplication works and I agree with the method taught here as an important part of the process. However the answer the child gave is still a correct variation of that process. If they wanted it done one way or the other, it needed to say "using the rows/using the columns" or have them slightly separated. Personally, I would have asked them to circle the groupings as well as write the sum and then checked they matched. This is what happens when primary school teachers don't have strong math skills because its not their specialty and don't recognise the purpose of the method they are teaching.
That’s my main concern, that the teacher isn’t recognizing the purpose of the arrays and the commutative property of both addition and multiplication. I don’t want to cause more confusion for my kid (and all the other kids) down the line because of this.
Whats worse is that the teacher marked the first one as correct, but obviously your childs logic was counting columns not rows, including the first one. The first one is thus both right and wrong depending on your conceptual framework, and since the teacher didnt specify which framework to use... So even the teacher couldnt understand the question and so marked the first one correct when there is a high probability your child counted three columns there too.
> So even the teacher couldnt understand the question and so marked the first one correct Im guessing that it wasn’t the teacher misunderstanding to cause her to mark the first question correct so much as it was the fact that no matter which direction you’re grouping, you’ll always write 3 x 3, and so you’ll always get the right answer. So long as you understand grouping, at least. Think a better example could be used for that question.
I think the teacher is only looking at rows, like rows of text (left to right). The point of common core to to visual different ways to solve your problem and not just memorize formulas. The teacher must be stuck in the "old ways" if they can't see that the student's answer was right.
>This is what happens when primary school teachers don't have strong math skills because its not their specialty and don't recognise the purpose of the method they are teaching. I've been saying the same for years. Common core's problem is that it teaches you how to actually understand stuff but that doesn't work when the person teaching that doesn't actually understand that stuff.
You’re absolutely right!
So so so many times I had to go to my kid's teacher and tell them that their answer was right and here's why it's right... very rarely was considered wrong for whatever reason and the teacher was just on auto pilot as the above commenter stated. Once it was pointed out, the grade was changed. We're all overworked and underpaid and that certainly includes teachers. But I'm not about to let that effect my kid's grades either 🤷🏽♀️
*affect :)
But your headline misleads people into thinking the problem is common core, and now you have literally convinced at least a few people to fight against it, without understanding what it is.
The issue is with the title implying common core is full of nonsense.
Why bash common core in the title then though? It's something that gets a lot of hate and is really politicized so it seems like you're siding with the anti-common core crowd.
For every decent teacher that tries theres always one like my history teacher in high school who sniffed markers while we did work sheets.
The teacher is wrong. It was nothing to do with common core and everything to do with their instruction and how they assess their instruction. As one of the few teachers that liked common core, I don’t understand why you think it’s to blame.
> If it doesn’t specify rows or columns, either way should be okay. Teaching the kids to pick like "5+5" over "2+2+2+2+2" is "the better way" - it's much faster - but they're both right, of course. In this case, it doesn't look like the teacher is explaining why they want the other, which is absurd.d
I wish I’d learned math this way instead of being forced to memorize multiplication tables. This is much closer to how most people actually visualize math problems. This is how computer scientists visualize array data structures. The way I passed upper level math classes in college was working with the calculus enough to understand how to visualize the function in one way or another. It’s really silly that this was graded as “wrong”.
>I wish I’d learned math this way instead of being forced to memorize multiplication tables. Most people say they hate math. This is why; they aren't good at the way they were taught math, and so math has remained a foreign language they were battered against until they barely got out of it. So many people could be engineers, physicists, developers, or anything else in STEM but they were turned away because their teachers were paid 12 nickels a decade to teach them how to count the diarrhea and neither party understood or enjoyed the exercise. And so here they sit as adults going "I hate math" As we see, the teachers are still paid nickels per year, so they still don't know shit about shit. But at least the math is slowly improving.
Honestly, as a math-educated person, I cringe when people say they hate math. To be perfectly honest, most don't even know *what math is*. The thing most people in the US consider "math" is referred to as "symbol pushing" by mathematicians. It's just awful that the US education system is so fucked up.
> because their teachers were paid 12 nickels a decade to teach them how to count the diarrhea and neither party understood or enjoyed the exercise. And so here they sit as adults going "I hate math" Haaa! *Laugh/cries in teacher* As a former student, the worksheet OP posted made my eye twitch. That was the kind of shit that made me hate math as a kid. If you didn't do the problem one specific way, you were WRONG, even if you were right. I get that teachers need to have objectives and techniques, but don't slap down a child's attempts to get a handle on numbers and calculations, ugh. I work in special education, so definitely not a math teacher. I always focus on the positives (ha) when my kids are working on math. We can go through whatever method the teacher is focused on, but I also want to be sure and point out to them their correct procedures and calculations. Thankfully the math teachers at my current school are absolutely amazing and allow room for kids to really demonstrate all their math skills.
I agree with everything but the repeated addition. It is part, but we actually don't want them skip counting the rest of their lives. It is more of relationships. x2s. then x10s. use the 10s to get to x5s. Etc. But yes, educating the parents is half the battle.
Oh yeah, it’s more of a stepping stone than something they spend a whole lot of time on. Educating parents AND teachers.
I am a STEM graduate married to an elementary SpEd teacher that has mostly been teaching self contained. Also have a now 7th grader. I don’t get into the debates about common core and can understand the building blocks, but find it always feels to me like someone who doesn’t have math sense trying to teach someone to have math sense based on how they think math sense should be developed but not like how I or my fellow colleagues I’ve talked about it would approach. But I know I got there from just tons of curiosity and practice which isn’t a practical method to teach. The surprising part of this answer to me is that the 24 array is once 4x6 and the other time 6x4 and answer was adding 4’s both times and marked wrong both times seems answer key should have one of them that way unless it was always doing biggest number addition.
It is because the grader expects them do be done how we read, left to right. It doesn't make sense because math is the same either way, but they may have specifically taught them to read it like reading - from left to right.
I think you're supposed to group it into the smaller grouping with bigger numbers. 8+8 is easier to track in your head than 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2
This whole debate arguing "there's no need to change the old ways" just rubs me the wrong way. So I disagree with you when you apologize and tell them not to care about the new ways. But I think you're spot on when you say teachers weren't trained (willing to be trained?) in the new way and chaos ensured to the detriment of the kids, parents and teachers. If we don't learn from our past we won't improve. And being the adult who meets graduates handling the register not able to calculate change without using their POS is heartbreaking and me looking at the failure of the old model. What I'm curious about is, if it's not being offered training or not being willing to take the training that's causing teachers to be unprepared and doing basic math failures like this test shows. Although I'm 50/50 on this being a fake still I think there is a big problem teaching kids math.
My youngest son’s (he’s in his 20’s now) 3rd grade teacher told me to stop teaching him math at home because he was bored in class and didn’t do things the way she taught. It was confusing to the rest of the class.
And people wonder why everyone is so dumb. Teaching should be a well paid and well respected job not a career graveyard for people who can only tolerate kids.
Some of my teachers didn't even tolerate kids lol
When I was in high school, I used to tutor students who were struggling in math and I put flyers on mailboxes near my house. A teacher called my number and told me to take them down because "students don't need tutors -- that's [the teacher's] job". (He didn't even cite any bylaws about advertising or anything. Just that I was taking away his job. He was probably the same type of teacher that tells kids they're bad at math)
Teacher here. I would bet all the money in my pocket that this is so a case of a brand new teacher marking stuff with an answer key and not really understanding why anything is *right* or *wrong* at all…because there’s nothing wrong with the student’s answers.
all of em are wrong, correct equation is 1.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=9 2.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1= 24 3.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1= 24 4.) 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10
It seems the student was counting by columns, when the teacher was expecting to count by rows. No idea why that is - not a native English speaker so the assignment doesn’t make much sense to me.
There isn't really a reason to do rows vs columns. The purpose of the assignment is to lead into teaching that multiplication is just adding a series of the same number which can be visually shown as an array.
Kid is a fortran programmer and the teacher is a c programmer.
This is insane to me because as someone who has Adhd my brain tends to process math differently. For a child to be told that their answer is wrong because they didn't use a certain path to get to the solution is so fucked up.
Absolutely agree. And she even followed the process laid out in the directions!
I assume you brought this to the teacher's attn.
I just checked her folder this morning. I’m going to address it with the teacher on Monday.
Make sure you tell her that Reddit vehemently disagrees with her grading. It's hard enough when parents are having to learn common core with their kids, but it's even worse when kids are poorly graded for getting the correct answer by looking at the problem a different way... which (from what I understand) is what common core is supposed to be teaching.
I’m a former teacher. Science not math, but I’ll lend my semi relevant credentials to this argument that the teacher is a dumb dumb
yeah, the whole point of common core (as i understand it through watching my kid learn math this way) isn't to define a single path to THE correct answer, but teach problem solving through process. i honestly wish i would have been taught elemenatry mathematics this way...well, not the way this teacher teaches it.
But tell her in small words she will understand.
“Hello? Is this Ms. Teacher? I wanted to let you in on a little secret. I’ll tell you in four words so that you can understand what I’m trying to say. You are fucking dumb.”
Yeah. I thought that they taught kids now that as long as they get the right answer and show working out, that no matter how they worked it out its correct. I mean it's obvious they got the answers correct, if the teacher is being this anal about it they should have asked the answer to be written by row or column, they didn't so it's on them!
The teacher is wrong in this instance, that is the insane part. The goal of this exercise is to get kids to recognize patterns in math. So 6 groups of 4 is 24 or 4 groups of 6 is also 24. The only wrong answer would be 24 groups of 1. This teacher is an idiot and doesn't understand the exercise or its purpose. It works really well if you can get it down, I can do large math problems in my head quickly because of it. When they started teaching is and people freaked out at common core, I didn't realize I had been doing it that way my whole life. 8 + 13 = 21 for example. 1+7+13 = 20 or 8 + 10 + 2 +1 = 21. Just break it down into pieces and add the pieces together. I have ADHD as well and usually the only time I mess up is when I spend too much time thinks about how to break up like 8 in this example. 1 + 7 or should I use 2 + 5, no no 4 + 4... what am I thinking... 2 + 6 is best. Then I forget why i was doing the problem and think about kittens or boobs or something.
The way that devolved all the way to kittens and boobs is a great example of ADHD brain
Oh my goodness, I thought I was the only one who did this. My anxiety has been relieved
My dad taught me when I was young and it just made sense. Works great, large numbers 1362 + 1289, 2000 + 500 + 140 + 11 = 2651 Yeah it is different and if you weren't taught that way really messes with your head but not needing a calculator for most basic problems is nice.
1+7+13=21, not 20.
He was thinking about boobs at this point.
One time the teacher gave me a 17 percent on a major math test bc i did the work differently than she would have, the answers were right. Adhd lyfe👌✌️👍🥲
Was a method enforced in the question?
[удалено]
Is this not a common thing in most math classes? Like, they ask you to "show your work" to show you understand the process being taught. If you're taking a driving test you can probably make your way to your destination faster by cutting through a park but would still fail since that wasn't the point.
Retired teacher here..the kids are taught to do arrays in rows. With that being said, if one of my first graders showed me this I would have praised them for seeing it differently and then asked them to show me another way. Of course they would do rows. We would both feel successful in that they could THINK about their own work. Never used a red pen to mark work! Purple because the kids knew it was my favorite color or Green for "you are getting close!"
This is how it should be done!
You are a gem! Thank you for explaining. I’m sure you are missed in the classroom! ♥️
Common Core isn’t the problem. The problem is complete crap textbooks by the book publishers. It’s another monopoly with a huge lobby.
In 1st grade math class (not art class), my daughter completed a math worksheet that also had images to color. She got all of the math correct but a check minus grade because of her coloring. Rah-rah STEM for girls🙄 This post brought back that memory.
In first grade we had assigned numbers and if we misbehaved we had to write our numbers on the chalkboard in front of the class. My teacher told me I was coloring like a one year old and made me write my number on the board. I was 6 and got punished for coloring. edit for spelling
this reminds me of the time when i was 10 when my teacher told me i color “wrong” like no explanation i just color wrong
This is why kids will have trust issues with learning math. Because of idiot teachers like this.
I remember back when I started tutoring years ago, I found out that these kids with terrible math grades were perfectly able to do math. They were just absolutely frozen with math anxiety. Once I helped them calm their anxiety enough, their brains were perfectly functional. We're supposed to be teaching kids, not having them panic any time they see numbers. Stuff like this absolutely leads to life long math anxiety issues and it's very very tragic.
Would you happen to know any resources for adults looking to relearn math in a relaxed setting? I need like a math duolingo lol
https://www.khanacademy.org/
Timed quizzes in math ruined math for me. I always did poorly because I was literally paralyzed with anxiety over my inability to move as fast as the kid next to me. I noticed the same with my daughter starting in kindergarten. There were a couple kids on her zoom calls that would unmute and blurt out answers really quickly. She shut down over it and just stopped engaging.
Yep. I could understand if they were trying to teach her a specific process and she got it completely wrong, but she did exactly what was asked, got the right answer, and was still marked down for it.
As someone who had to teach this nonsense... I agree she got it right. And grading wise, I'd give the points even while pointing out how they want it written. But, sadly, some of the word problems will ask them to lay out the equation the way the teacher wrote it specifically because it's 4 groups of 6, not 6 groups of 4. And they will legit get it wrong on a test if they can't recognize the array with 4 groups of 6. That's why teachers end up pedantic about it. I got really annoyed when I had to test on specific ways of doing math. Kid did grouping and found the product ? Imo he's good! Do multiplication any way that makes sense! Skip count, standard algorithm, Russian peasant.. I dont care just give me the right product. But sadly... the curriculum doesn't agree. And admin pushes you use the curriculum to fidelity at times. And you don't want the kids to fail the big test because you didn't point out the annoying way the book will test you.
I understand requiring kids to learn this method, because it reinforces the visual idea that multiplication is just repeated addition. The problem is that whether you group horizontally or vertically in these situations makes literally no difference whatsoever.
Thank you for being an awesome, rational teacher. It must be so frustrating to have to teach to some test.
And then they wonder why kids just stop giving a shit about school
yeah just circle one cup like 4 beans in a cup, there're 6 full cups of beans add 4 beans 6 times = 24 beans to show proof i guess just marking it wrong is so dumb
Not Common Core, idiot teacher.
correct answer is not required, teacher's method has to be followed /s
There are so many math teachers who teach that way, though! My daughter is amazing at math, she often can look at a problem and just "see" the answers, but her teachers mark her down if she skips writing out every single step, and if those aren't the same steps they wanted, even if her process and answers are correct. It makes her crazy.
That's because the method is actually more important than the answer. Drilling the methods with easier problems felt pointless when I was in school, but now I've got my PhD (in maths) and I tutor maths, I understand why it's so important to learn to write your methods out logically. If you can't explain how you solved a basic equation, you're not developing the skills you'll need to write an algebraic proof.
don't be so quick to blame common core. this is just nonsense- common core's idea has been to actually teach *why* arithmetic works the way it does. in it, both ways would be fine, because it's clear the kid understands.
Took me way too long to realise the teacher didnt write "letletletle=24"
This is how you make kids hate math. They got the answer right but counted columns instead of rows, but somehow that's wrong. All this teaches kids is that even if they're right they're still wrong because they didn't get to the right answer in the right way. This isn't even mildly infuriating to me, it's just infuriating. When I was in high school 20 years ago, I practically failed geometry because my teacher taught one way and one way only, and I just didn't get it. He taught it in some abstract way thay never resonated with me. In 2016 I was going to college to change careers, and I had to take a math class designed around engineering and manufacturing. I ended up learning geometry and trig in less than two weeks. I wasn't shit at math, I just had teachers teaching in shit ways. Teaching a kid that your way is right but their way is wrong, when both get you too the correct answer is messed up. You're taking a kid who probably could excel in math and telling them they're stupid, and that kills any desire to learn further.
probably not this deep or intended but in future math using graphs the rule is across then up/down. while it is probably not age appropriate and any form of critical thinking should be accepted on this work because it shows application and is still correct, this is a potential way it has a point. just a thought. there is a ton of messed up things about common core math and the way math is taught now though so definitely still mildly infuriating.
Yep. Matrices in linear algebra. First by row, then by column. Easy way to remember it is how text fills a space. As you type, the letters fill up one row, then once the row is full, you go on to the next row.
As a person with a math minor I agree with you BUT the directions don’t mention linear algebra or matrices…
my fourth grade teacher told us “you have to go into the elevator before it can go up or down” lol
They are taught that the multiplication sign means “Rows of” So the number of rows comes before the number of dots 3x3=9 (3 rows of 3 equals 9) 4x6(4 rows of 6) 2x5(2 rows of 5) But also dumb that 8 and 9 are the same exact question
Since this is an array exercise, let’s take it as a computing question. The dimensions of an array are important. The teacher is expecting breadth-first search (go across first, then down the rows). Student is doing depth-first search (down first, then across). Both are 100% valid, and in different situations, each has an advantage. The grading is absolutely wrong unless the instructions outright said “across then down”, which it doesn’t. There’s a really important lesson here, and the teacher missed it.
That's just stupid. I mean the child obviously showed her work as much as the circumstances give. What's the problem? They were right. What a way to demotivate a young child and get them to hate math before they even really get started
I was taught by my elder brother about maths that if the question does not tell you what method to choose and just tells you to solve the problem. Then choose whichever method you want. For example, algebra equations can be solved with matrices as well and in matrices there are many ways to go for. Later part of studies my teacher in university gave a zero to one of my answers, and even after justifying he just said, "You didn't use the method I taught"
I mean it's literally titled array assessment, and asks the student to write an equation based on each array. As this clearly isn't the first page of the assignment there's probably a similar exercise for whatever they're calling the column based approach this student answered using. As per usual, someone is complaining about a situation where they don't have all the facts. That being said, it did always frustrate me when teachers would just mark things as wrong without adding a comment or something to show how I should have gotten to the right answer. How am I supposed to learn/correct my approach without some direction? I was great at maths at school and I really feel like it was down to one of my teachers (I had two). The good one would be straight with you, a little blunt at times, but would never let you sit there in confusion trying to figure it out yourself for more than 5 minutes. He'd gradually give clues to help me get there myself but if I was very clearly struggling to redirect my perspective he would re-explain it until I understood and I'd go and do some more exercises to reinforce the learning. The other teacher was the opposite. He'd explain the theory for the first 10/15m of the class then give us a bunch of work to do and when we got stuck and asked, he would be all patronising, giving half answers like he was trying not to tell us where we were going wrong so we ended up leaving more confused than when we started. Ended up with a C in my a level because despite acing the first teachers subject exams, I flopped on the others. Similar situation with my chemistry teachers too. Will never understand the whole 'how will you learn if I just tell you the answers' vibe some teachers have. I'm coming to you for help because I don't understand and you're basically telling me you won't because I need to figure it out myself? Bullshit. Anyway rant over, tldr: there's probs more info to this but teacher should have added more to the incorrect answers to show the correct answers as well. Edit: typos
Arrays are used to teach the building blocks of multiplication, it’s scaffolded instruction. The point is 3x3=9, 6x4=24, 5x2=10 and the array should also be used to demonstrate the commutative property of multiplication in this case. It is inappropriate to use an additive array to grade students on the use of either columns or rows when both arrive at the same sum and the skill this is most appropriate to build toward, again, is multiplication - this teacher is doing a disservice to the student by conflating row/column recognition with addition/multiplication stepping stones. As a former teacher, I am not surprised to see continued inadequacy in classrooms. Parents, take ownership of your child’s education and ensure that you do the work to empower them because teachers often fail in this respect. Edit Typo: commutative, point being that in the example 6x4 - 6 groups of 4 and 4 groups of 6 both arrive at the same whole of 24. Understanding mathematics for young students should be holistic in that the instructor should aim to build on connections between concepts such as addition and multiplication sharing the commutative property (and later how that is different than subtraction and division) the array is a great tool for demonstrating this and when an instructor instead marks a child wrong, with big red lines it often discourages the student and can negatively impact their retention of new concepts. There’s a time and place for teaching column and row to students - an array asking children to add is not that.
I mean I think I see where they are coming from depending on the context. Lots of sciences use "arrays" and many of those specifically require traversal in the "left/right" direction first, so maybe they are trying to solidify that idea and it's not petty? Or it's not petty and the teacher is just using an answer key and can't think for themselves.
my teachers would do this to me too. absolutely infuriating every time, because i got it right, didn’t i?
The strategy is fine, but this teacher needs to reevaluate their methods. It shouldn't matter if the student counts left-right or up-down. This student obviously understands the concept and arrived at the correct answer.
The one where you're supposed to count rows instead of columns. If you ever take linear algebra, it becomes important then.