We had a substitute today so we did not have normal math class. We had a “quiz” with key terms and the students had to match the word with the definition. The terms were like mean, median, mode, range, bar graph, line graph, outlier, double bar graph, double line graph. The students were to make note cards on Friday and then they were told to study because the quiz would be today. The class I was with was our most difficult class due to attitude/discipline problems as well as learning disabilities so it was a rough quiz.
One student in particular with a large track records of detention and suspension due to attitude told me “I don’t know any of this, I didn’t study” then we other classmates started to ask for help she exclaimed “you’re stupid this is easy” So I told her if it was so easy why couldn’t she do it and this got her to do a few problems. The most interesting part of walking her through the quiz was she said “I know this one but I cant find the right definition” she was talking about range and she explained that “it’s when you take the smallest number away form the biggest one.” So I helped her find a definition that had the word largest and smallest in it, she still was unsure about the wording but figured that must be the right fit. As I walked around the room to help other one boy who had earlier told me he studied said, “these are the definitions we learned, they aren’t the ones we put on our flashcards” (he pointed to the board where it told them to get their information from the glossary)
This information really confused me, why would my teacher expect students to study specific definitions and then change them on the quiz?
These students rarely have to actually study for things in class so when they actually do they should not be confused and somewhat punished for that. If they had a lot of experience with these words and were able to focus less on the definition and more on the overall meaning of the word they would have been fine but I just find it ridiculous to have them study a specific definition and then not test them on that. These students are not ready for something like that!
I also am concerned about how this kind of quiz shows they actually know the material, again it would just be memorization. Wouldn’t a better way to test this knowledge be to give them real math question and they have to solve for these terms or create a bar graph rather than give a definition.
I understand that the teacher is out of town and this is just a simple quiz but the students put a lot of time into studying and creating note cards for them to be this confused and disjointed by it. The other problem with this is that the teacher who assigned this is not present so I have no clue what the teacher was expecting of them or how I could assist them in coming to the original definition they wrote to the one on the page. I was really quite lost when helping them, I helped them find some clue key words but other then that I could not give them the answers for I was not even sure on all of them. I really think a better way to administer this kind of test would be to create problems and have them identify what is being asked for or solve for the word, etc. Example: Find the range in the bar graph for number 4. or Draw a bar graph for the information given in problem 1.
This of course is a good example of why students shouldn't rely on just memorization or why memorization tasks are not the healthiest diet for the math classroom.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the challenge here is that there is a balance between memorizing definitions (which we all have to do) but also to be able to have opportunity to apply this definition in different settings. Perhaps if the students had had the opportunity to apply these definitions in a variety of contexts before the quiz, these new definitions would not have been as challenging for them.