So before we take the plunge to homeschool or put dd (3rd grade) in private school we are trying to work with her current school to improve her math instruction.

Right now her class is using Ten Marks and Project M3 Mathematics. In theory I like Project M3 but it seems to be moving very slowly, ie they spent about 2 1/2 months on area and perimeter and now have been measuring volume for about a month and a half. It seems that the Ten Marks is being used to cover the rest of the 3rd/4th grade math skills that Project M3 doesn't touch on. The problem is dd doesn't like Ten Marks, says it's boring, that sometimes her answers are marked wrong incorrectly, and that it's too much reading. The issues I see with it is the amount of reading, the answers are sometime convoluted, and relying on multiple choice answers. Often times it seems she gets problems wrong because she misreads them. For instance there was one question about how there are 26 people wanting to play tennis but only 4 people can play on a court. How many tennis courts are needed so everyone can play? Dd selected the answer that they would need 6 tennis courts and 2 people can't play. I wonder if she misread the part about "so everyone can play" or if in her mind if you don't have a total of 4 people you can't fill a court and thus they can't play.

Another problem she missed is:

"Select all of the questions that can be answered by multiplying 6x3."

Dd selected the 2 right answers which were "6x3" problems but because she also selected "There are 3 table tennis balls in each package. Travis bought 6 packages of table tennis balls. How many table tennis balls did Travis buy?" Ten Marks said that that answer is incorrect. But in dd's mind she doesn't see the difference between 6x3 and 3x6 and is frustrated.

I tried talking to the teacher and she wasn't very understanding. We met with the principal and she seemed much more receptive to the idea that perhaps since dd's weaker verbal abilities are impacting her ability to be successful on a math program that requires a lot of reading comprehension. However, the principal and the teacher still feel that dd should just work harder in that area to improve it. FWIW they both think dd is doing well on Ten Marks, personally I feel like she's unable to progress to the higher level math she is capable because of the types of mistakes I gave in the examples.

I also take issue that they are putting such an emphasis on a student being able to show math knowledge by their ability to successfully read the questions and the answers. Am I wrong in my thinking? I also get the feeling that Ten Marks is geared towards Common Core standards and the wording is in such a way to prepare for the state standardized testing. The teacher once marked a problem wrong (despite the fact the answer was correct) because it wasn't solved by the method the teacher said it should be solved. When confronted the teacher said that while the answer is right, they need to use the method the teacher wants because that's how the state tests will want it. Why are we teaching to a test?

ETA: dd wasn't happy with Everyday Math last year, but this year she wishes she could go back to Everyday Math instead of using Ten Marks.

That sort of thing would drive me crazy. If your dc intuits (or knows) that 6x3=3x6, it seems wrong to me to mark it wrong. Mathematically, it isn't wrong.

No solutions here, just sympathy! From what I'm seeing in math textbooks, the CC emphasis on verbiage is sometimes producing ridiculous outcomes (like the 3x6 example) and, in addition, a lot of bizarre, unnecessary "experiential" learning that is supposed to obviate the need for logical thinking. My dc's once had to trace and cut out -- and I'm not kidding -- 50 tiny shapes (about 1/2 inch by 1 inch) and then paste them to make a tessellation. They were 14 at the time, not 5. It would have been far more useful to learn the actual MATH of tessellation.

Glad to hear we're not alone in our frustration. Another example is one problem had two parts to it, one question required dd to multiply 2891x6 and the other part to multiply 83x26. She missed the first one (the easier one) but got the second one, the harder one imo, right. This seems to be her MO, missing the easier problems but getting the more difficult ones correct.

The 6 * 3 thing would really annoy me. Learning to read the questions carefully is useful but there needs to be someone to ask - is there.

Ok, 6x3 and 3x6 are the same. No point in trying to 'correct' the teacher's interpretation. There's noting to argue about. Tell your child that the book, teacher, program, or whatever made an error and move on. She was right. On the other problem, though, your daughter was clearly in error and you can certainly explain why. If she has trouble interpreting the quetions, this is a skill that she needs to acquire. She will see a lot of simarly formatted questions before she is done. Even if you homeschool, your child will eventually take a standardized test of some kind. You seen to be awfully invested in nitpicking the curriculum. Why? Your time would be better spent helping your child acquire the skill set needed to progress. Even if those skills are not strictly speaking 'math'.

I had a look at Ten Marks' website and saw that it's a for-profit company with lots of slick marketing (Powerful insights from performance[/i], whatever that means). Content-free text is never a good sign. Ten Marks appears to rely on multiple choice questions. I have a low opinion of multiple choice systems, primarily because they're binary: either you're completely right or completely wrong. These systems divorce the thinking process from the answer, and so a teacher doesn't have an opportunity to see patterns in a student's mistakes (e.g., consistently tripping up on the distributive property or having trouble with regrouping in subtraction). This puts the student at risk of being cheated out of necessary instruction.




This is exactly the kind of thing that a good teacher (who could be a parent) will think about. "Hmm. Let's look at this. How did you arrive at your answer? Let's see if we can figure out where you went wrong and then you can try again." IMO, this is a critically important part of teaching.



Well, the only reason she doesn't see the difference between 6x3 and 3x6 is because there isn't one. But apart from that... er, well...hmm. Seriously, over the last couple of years, I've begun to realize that a lot of people who teach and produce textbooks have trouble with the commutative property. My DD's math teacher marked her wrong last year for writing [i]9+m for "the sum of m and 9" (the m was supposed to go first!). This was a consistent thing with this woman. I've also seen it this year in DD's textbook and in work assigned to her brother, and have heard the complaint enough times here to decide that there's a lack of understanding out there.

I call this stuff "the thousand cuts." What I mean is this: say you cut yourself once. It's no big deal if you pay a bit of attention to the wound (wash it, use a Band-Aid, keep an eye on it for a day or two). But if you cut yourself several times a day, every day, you won't be able to keep up with all the wounds and you'll be at high risk for infection or worse.

Bad education is just like the thousand cuts. On its own, the 6x3 vs. 3x6 thing is no big deal and is easily explained. But when these kinds of mistakes and confusions happen constantly, it's impossible to deal with them in a meaningful way. Our school system cuts kids every day with bad textbooks, teachers who don't understand the material they teach, fads like whole-language learning and reform (e.g. Everyday) mathematics, and so on. We're way too susceptible to slick make-a-buck "learning" systems like Ten Marks that promise Easy to Assign work. 5 clicks. Just takes seconds. Garbage in, garbage out, right?



Because we've tied the wrong things to test results. Tests should be tools that tell teachers what a student has and hasn't mastered. Instead, they've become drivers of industrial edumacation metrics and are used to measure teacher, school, and statewide education performance. The students are merely cogs turning in the school machine. This is important: the kids aren't the widgets being produced. The widgets are the test results.


Phew. Something that makes EM look good is a bad sign indeed.

ITA with all the posters who have noted that multiplication is commutative. It's beyond unfortunate that the curriculum is at odds with a basic mathematical principal.

I would've written and solved the given word problem in the same way that your DS did. Now that I understand that is not what the teacher wanted, I key in on the word "sum" and think that possibly the word "sum" is a clue that this word problem is to be solved by addition, not multiplication, therefore 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3=30 comes to mind.

Repetitious.
Tedious to think about.
Laborious to write.
Error prone.
Not my thing.

LOL! It's wrong in an alternate universe which is random and arbitrary? Any of the above mentioned methods of solving this are valid.

Perhaps it's the commutative property problem again. My best guess: the answer book says 3x10=30. If the teacher doesn't understand the commutative property fully, she may be insecure about marking 10x3=30 correct.

You could think of an innocent way to ask her why 10x3 is wrong.

Unfortunately I have no good advice...I just wanted to stand up and applaud Val's great post.

As in, please write something and publish this:

Possibly the widget is uniformity and/or uniformity is the widget.

I do think a large part of the problem is that not only did the younger teachers not get taught maths properly themselves but they were only taught to teach according to the script (that seems to be a US thing). The older teachers who may have been able to do maths and teach are worn out by being presented with one crazy fad after another. The only ones left are those who have learnt to play the game. I can see no other way otherwise reasonable people can can espouse one thing this year and the complete opposite the next.

Squishys - We're also in Australia and I asked DD8 and DD6 the apples question and they both said 10 x 3. To have that marked wrong is ridiculous. In fact, DD8's old teacher (I specifically got DD6 tested so she could have her too) is extremely encouraging of using creative "thinking skills" to solve maths questions.

She's an older, experienced and passionate teacher though.