This was an interesting reading. I appreciate that our class has discussed more than a few different strategies for alternative methods of teaching mathematics, but I remained unconvinced that there would be a significant increase in the level of a student's comprehension.
When Robinson indicated that she had students who scored highly on her tests but poorly on the state governed final exam, my immediate response was to question why she didn't teach the material relating to the final exam questions. Even if students were learning in a primarily procedural way, should they not be able to do the majority of the problems set out by the state and thus pass the exam? That being said, I found the changes that she made to her in class tests very interesting. There is a remarkable alteration in the styles of questions she asked. The first test was very exercise specific as she asked students to answer computational problems, the second was composed of question at a much more comprehensive level. I was intrigued to note that many of the questions in the second exam were non-computational, open-ended, and required English words to answer - "describe", "compare", "convince me" are not generally expected on a highschool math quiz. And surprisingly, I found myself wanting to answer these questions and wanting to discuss them. That, I suppose, is the value in writing a good exam. These problems would stick with students even after they'd completed the exam. They would generate discussion and there would be purpose in going over the exams afterwards to allow students to form more cohesive answers and form a relational understanding to the material.
Still, I'm probably not alone in being moderately disappointed to see that she was still having troubles having students pass the final exams in the subsequent semesters after changing the style of instruction. Although there was a significant increase and evenness of distribution in the number of students across the A-D spectrum, there was still quite a few who received an F.
When Robinson indicated that she had students who scored highly on her tests but poorly on the state governed final exam, my immediate response was to question why she didn't teach the material relating to the final exam questions. Even if students were learning in a primarily procedural way, should they not be able to do the majority of the problems set out by the state and thus pass the exam? That being said, I found the changes that she made to her in class tests very interesting. There is a remarkable alteration in the styles of questions she asked. The first test was very exercise specific as she asked students to answer computational problems, the second was composed of question at a much more comprehensive level. I was intrigued to note that many of the questions in the second exam were non-computational, open-ended, and required English words to answer - "describe", "compare", "convince me" are not generally expected on a highschool math quiz. And surprisingly, I found myself wanting to answer these questions and wanting to discuss them. That, I suppose, is the value in writing a good exam. These problems would stick with students even after they'd completed the exam. They would generate discussion and there would be purpose in going over the exams afterwards to allow students to form more cohesive answers and form a relational understanding to the material.
Still, I'm probably not alone in being moderately disappointed to see that she was still having troubles having students pass the final exams in the subsequent semesters after changing the style of instruction. Although there was a significant increase and evenness of distribution in the number of students across the A-D spectrum, there was still quite a few who received an F.
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