Kudos To A Real Teacher



This weekend I went over a trigonometry exam with a young man I tutor and was impressed.  His math teacher is a REAL MATH TEACHER who wrote a REAL TEST!!!  This teacher didn't get his exam from exam gen or some other computer generated program, he wrote the exam himself, USING PROBLEMS THAT TESTED UNDERSTANDING and gave him insight into what the students knew when he marked the test.  Even the few multiple choice questions used required the students to explain how they arrived at their answers.  It took the teacher a while to give back the exam because he LOOKED AT EVERY QUESTION and put corrections and comments down wherever it was appropriate.

All I kept thinking as we worked on this exam is that this man is lucky not to work for Mr. AP because, if he did, the exam in my hand would have been "U" RATED.  Mr. AP believes every exam should consist primarily of multiple choice questions and partial credit should only be given to a few questions.  He wants teachers to do an item analysis but actually looking at work is not something he pushes.  He believes in canned programs because they print nice, are easy to make up and are similar to those found on the regents.  They don't necessarily show what the student does not understand.

Hats off to this teacher.  There needs to be more like him.  And, he needs to model his exams for others.

I'm Bad And I Don't Care



I'm bad.  I don't follow directions, especially when I believe the directions are wrong.

I just finished writing this week's algebra exam.  I didn't use multiple choice questions in part I like I am supposed to.  I want to see how the problems are being solved.  If I can understand their thought process, I can help them find the way to the correct solutions.  Just looking at a column of a's b's, c's and d's might make marking easier but it doesn't help the learning process.

I know the regents is largely multiple choice, but regents problems aren't worth 5 points each.  The kids need partial credit and they need to see their mistakes and for that, we need more than an answer.  I've seen too many kids just guess at the right response.  Math should not be a guessing game.