[quote=ultramarina]I'm curious whether I am the only one whose child is being allowed not to show work. I really do mean that. She can hand in papers with nothing but the answer, even in cases where one pretty inevitably does "work", such as those involving multidigit x multidigit multiplication (DD often will scratch these out on some random scrap of paper that is handy and not pollute her HW with it). Not only that, the teacher will sometimes instruct them to cross out portions of the HW that enforce tedious work-showing.
Our school sounds very much like Quantum2003's. They require constructed responses, on every day assignments and on state assessments. But our kids have learned this way since beginning school, and don't find it problematic at this point. I don't feel they are required to show tedious busy-work, but do have to explain their logic. They also do a fair amount of writing about math. DS just finished an 18-page "portfolio" on the latest unit, where he had to do everything from discussing how various formulae were derived, to creating and then grading some parent problems we had to complete, to talking about which part of the unit he found most interesting and why. It is part of their differentiation; I assume many kids didn't have as much to say, but DS got quite involved. He really thought a lot about how the formulae related to each other. It is interesting to watch his "technical writing" evolve, by the way. in the past I considered him more of a creative writer, but this was very well-written.
I am glad to hear that your kids enjoyed this assignment. I just think I would have hated it when I was a child. It seems just like you said it became technical writing and no longer mathematics. It really penalize the mathy but not necessarily verbal kids. I venture to say it may even have the harmful effects of making some kids feel turned off by math.
