Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Marking correct answers as incorrect

Dd brought home a math worksheet she needed to correct. On one of the problems she had worked the problem in her own way, had numbers written down where you can see she is doing math and she ended up with the correct answer. The teacher marked it wrong even though the answer was clearly written in the answer space but I guess since dd's work written off to the side wasn't entirely clear to the teacher and she marked it wrong and wrote next to her work (what is this?). I've heard of teachers marking answers wrong if they don't show their work, but why should it be marked wrong if they show their work but the teacher can't understand her way of solving the problem? How is she supposed to correct a correct answer?

Unless the problem stated that they are supposed to solve it a certain way, then that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I would take a red pen and circle the problem and put a question mark and send it back in.

Nope, no requirements to solve it a certain way. It was a story problem and no specific directions except to put the answer in the blank space.

I thought about sending it back in with a note asking why it was marked wrong. She is not the most flexible teacher. Dd says she reminds her of the cheerleading coach from Glee.

Probably because it isn't the way it was solved in the book. The teacher doesn't really understand math and only teaches & grades exactly what the book says.

What I would do for this would be to have your child rewrite it nicely and legibly.

I agree. If the teacher is batty and can't spot the right answer the first time, no need in further escalating things by sending it back. Just rewrite it (or even rework it in a different way). But I'd definitely agree with my child that it doesn't make sense.

So I looked more carefully over the directions, it just says show your work and put the answer in the blank space. I looked at dd's numbers (her work) on that particular problem and this is what she did. It's a story problem that requires multiplying a 2 digit number times a 2 digit number. Dd wrote out her work which are the numbers I see in the work space area and that the teacher wrote "what is this?" next to it. What she did was solved the multiplication problem up until it came time to add to get the final answer and instead of writing the sum under her work she put the answer in the answer blank. She did the work, showed the work, she only put the actual answer in the answer blank and not in her work.

This is frustrating because this teacher is already too type A in my opinion and rigid. Other parents have complained that it is upsetting their kids but I just assumed they were just not used to structure considering the mess of a teacher they had last year where there was no structure or planning. Dd doesn't really complain because she's pretty indifferent to people.

I like this teacher in all other areas except for how she's handling math. We're going on month 4 and just now starting division. This is supposed to be an accelerated 4th grade gifted class.

Could the teacher have just made a mistake? It seems possible if she was correcting a lot of papers.

Last year, we had a rigid teacher who marked a correct answer wrong. I put a post-it note on the test paper saying that we tried to rework the solution at home and did not know how else to do it other than the way DS had done it on the test. That evening, the difficult and rigid teacher was waiting for me at the pick up line and profusely apologized for the mistake that she had made and said that she had updated the grades correctly for DS. I expected a lot of abrasiveness from her based on past encounters and I was surprised at how humble and nice she was over her mistake. So, just ask the teacher how to come up with the answer.

I honestly don't want to be negative and automatically accuse a teacher of being so rigid in her grading methods. I usually give teachers the benefit of the doubt. But in this circumstance, based on what I have already witnessed with this teacher I think she's being rigid. I don't see how she accidentally marked it wrong. The answer is in the right spot for the answer. Right next to where dd worked the problem the teacher wrote 'What is this?'. The numbers are legible, I think the reason the teacher marked it wrong is because of how dd wrote out her work, not in the normal sequenced way you would use the algorithm to solve this type of problem.

The story problem required dd to multiply 599 x 59. So dd set it up like this: (I put __ in front of the numbers to line them up correctly for the post)

_4884 <- these are the numbers she carried
__599
___59

Dd ran out of room because she wrote somewhat larger than what room allowed, and so she put her answer to multiplying the ones and tens places directly to the right of the above work she did.

So next to that first part she wrote:

__5391
_2995

And then instead of putting her sum below these numbers (again there wasn't much room) she wrote the answer in the answer blank.

Dd was lazy and didn't put a line under the digits where needed nor a times sign. My dd is notorious for trying to do as little writing as possible and will do problems in her head that she should really write out. That's another issue in itself. I can understand that the teacher may think it's sloppy to do it this way. But dd did show her work, just not in the standard way. The directions don't specify what showing your work entails. To me it seems the teacher is being rather picky and just marked it wrong because dd's 'work' didn't make sense or wasn't the proper way to work the problem despite the fact she got the answer right. I'm pretty certain that if dd knew that that was an expectation when showing her work she would have done it. She is anxious when it comes to making sure she does things the right way "So the teacher won't get mad". This anxiety towards her planner, bringing what she needs to school, getting stuff done, etc.. is what leads me to believe how particular this teacher is. Dd will check she has everything she needs multiple times before leaving for school.

To me it looks like this. Teacher spent x weeks teaching a certain way to solve the problem. Teacher set the test to see how well they had learned the method. Every other child did it the way the teacher taught but your child did it a way the teacher couldn't follow. Since the purpose of the test was to check whether the students had mastered the method taught NOT whether they could solve the problems the teacher marked the question wrong. While it is very annoying and probably should have been explicitly stated a large part of completing tests and assessments is interpreting what the writer actually wants as opposed to what they ask (often completely different). This may be a good time to address that - after being sympathetic.