Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gonna be a long year

My sympathies! DS, due to a double subject acceleration, is also doing an Algebra II course through our district's own e-school during his brick & mortar school hours. It's not our choice but sometimes it's better to go with the flow, at least for the time being. DS prefers that I stay out of it and frankly I am sort of afraid to look too closely at the moment! I haven't seen a textbook, online or otherwise and can't seem to get an opinion from DS - I think he wants to wait and give it some time. However, there have been issues with the computer/system preventing input of his correct answers, but it may have been the school computer. However, his e-school teacher was responsive when DS messaged her with his issues and provided him the with a file listing the questions to be re-answered, which he sent back to her with his original answers.

At least in DS' case, the course answers were correct and it was just a technical glitch. I can't imagine dealing with a course with mostly wrong solutions. That's just crazy! In the past, my kids have used online resources from major publishers at school and there had been occasional errors but they were few and far between. It's ridiculous that a major publisher like Holt would continue to provide an online course with so many errors and even worse that your DS' teacher can't spot the errors.

Although it may not help, I would definitely email your teacher and cc the adminstration once you have compiled a dozen or so major errors. Schools have been known to switch publishers easily enough or at least demand some kind of corrective supplement.

Yes, this is e-school as opposed to "an online course" -- that is, it works through a school district, the JeffCo (Jefferson County) schools in Denver, and is offered to seven counties down here in the southwest corner of the state as well.

I will be complaining about the course materials, and whether I will also be complaining about the teacher depends on what she has to say when I send her this mess. I don't think there is another teacher for this class, and if there was, it would still use the same materials.

I do still have my old algebra textbooks, which has occasionally been helpful -- at least I can look and see what that thing was called back when I took the class. It seems to still be the same algebra, but they call things by different names now.

And I've found my old college algebra teacher on Facebook, in case I need backup.

When DD was working through Prentiss Hall everyday math it was soooo bad that she was inspired to work ahead so that she could use a different math series (the high school level had a different publisher). The best thing that I found was buying the CD teacher's edition of the textbook online (Ebay). The teacher's edition was actually not bad, with learning goals for each chapter and the underlying math laid our in a semi-coherent fashion with all the "rules" explicitly stated. It was still not ideal and the order was very jumbled, but it was better. I would print out the 5-10 page "learning goals" section and DD would learn all the math from that. The teacher's edition had quizzes and tests that had answers provided and all the homework answers. This was OK for us because she was not taking these at school.

Not to hijack the thread, but we found numerous errors in all the online homework for all DD's high school STEM classes as well as unpredictable formatting requirements (Example: Maria has 6 bikes that she rents out for $4/hour. If Kim, Julio, and Kadeem rent bikes for 5 hours how much will it cost? _____ Entering 60, $60, $60.00, $60.0, 60.0, 60.00 will eventually get you the answer, but some software allows only one or 2 tries before it is counted wrong. This is after you've made the assumption that they mean the total and not per person or that Kim, Julio, and Kadeem rented all six bikes...)

Drove us round the bend.

Ok, someone please tell me I'm not crazy, here.

We have a sequence, first five terms are -2, 1, 4, 7, 10. We are directed to find an explicit rule A-sub-n =

DS put A-sub-n = 3(n-1)-2, which appears to work just fine. We are also directed to find the 100th term, which comes out to 295. A-sub-100 = 3(99)-2 which equals 295. This was graded as correct.

The teacher took off one point on the question, with the comment not to forget the A-sub-n-minus-1 in the equation, and "don't we want to subtract 5?" So she wants it to be A-sub-n = 3(A-sub-n-minus-1) -5.

Am I not correct in thinking that this would require us to actually go through 100 of these terms to find out what the 99th term was, before getting to the 100th one? And it wouldn't come up with 295, either. A-sub-2 = 3(-2)-5 would equal -11, not 1. Unless I'm crazy.

A-sub-n-minus-1 is used for recursive formulas, right? An explicit formula works off the term number, not the actual term? And in a recursive formula, you first define the first term, and then work the formula off of that, where each A-sub-n-minus-1 means the previous term, not the term numbers. The question doesn't seem to be phrased as asking for a recursive formula, either in the statement (find an explicit formula) or in the part you fill in, which includes A-sub-n= and then the line for filling in the blank. And they can't possibly want us (or him, lol) to work out 100 of these to get the answer.

Help?

I'm confused. Not by your son's initial answer, which is obviously correct, but by the teacher's. However, it is late and I am sick with a cold right now.

Here is my suggestion: get him to ask or email the teacher with the simple question, "I don't understand. Can you explain? I checked my answer and I know it's right and you marked it correct, and I don't understand why I should do this additional step" (or whatever it is; cold-addled brain not functioning).

That way, she'll have to show her reasoning. If it doesn't work, she, err, won't be able to. Email won't put her on the spot (though she might ignore it). There is always a risk that she'll get angry if a student finds that she made a mistake. But my brain is addled right now. Maybe someone else will understand this better than I can at this point.

(Waiting for decongestant to take effect; how pathetic)

Maybe she was thinking [(3)(100)] - 5 = 295.

This is your brain on cold meds (well, mine anyway).

I think she may just want him to write 3n-5, instead of 3(n-1)-2.

Which - of course - are mathematically the same. This is so painful to see. Was it like this when we were kids and we just didn't realize it?

Well, yes, but I can't say I ever felt oppressed by being require to simplify expressions. There were plenty of things in school that I thought were unfair, but losing a point for failing to write it in its simplest form wasn't one of them.

Fair point!