elementary school math-fact challenges

[chhotii]

Here's what I don't get: I've been told that the MCAS is un-timed. (Is this true?)

If this is so, why is there so much emphasis on doing the math-fact sheets as fast as possible? Timing them and so forth? For some kids, rising to the challenge will work. But there are some kids (such as Sophia, and at least one other kid you know...) for whom the timer causes so much activation of the sympathetic nervous system that it impairs both performance and learning. In a big way.

Mathematicians are not judged on speed. So why is math treated like a track event in 2nd grade?

Comments

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

It is true that the MCAS is un-timed. And I agree that the "mad minute" style of math-facts sheets can be counter-productive for some kids.

What they're aiming for with the race-style sheets is to create a situation that requires the kids to recall rather than re-calculate the basic facts. Because if you have to figure out, rather than remember, what 7x6 is later on when you're doing long division or simplifying equations in algebra or some such, it's going to make extra work and introduce extra sources of error. There are certainly other ways to encourage memorization though.

(I say this as someone who didn't have 7x6 absolutely down pat until sometime in high school, and more than once had to rederive the quadratic formula during a test rather than just using it like she was supposed to)

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Here's what I don't get: I've been told that the MCAS is un-timed. (Is this true?)

I hadn't heard this, but I'm not surprised. The traditional system for standardized tests that allow measuring a wide range of abilities is to write tests that almost nobody is expected to finish -- speed with which people answer questions seems to be correlated with the abilities the test is intended to measure. Eventually it was discovered that one could suffer learning disabilities that put one at a disadvantage on timed tests, and so the ADA-required accommodation was that one had unlimited time on tests. This caused the growth of an industry to provide such diagnoses for the children of affluent parents, so they could take the SAT without a time limit, and so get higher scores than they would otherwise. Eventually, SAT counterattacked by devising a testing system that doesn't involve time limits.

It looks like the MCAS has some similar countermeasure and doesn't need time limits either.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Mathematicians are not judged on speed.

Well, they're judged on output of new stuff. But it's hard to be productive in one area of math without "having a good working knowledge of" the areas on which it is based. And "working knowledge" usually means "able to perform the standard activities by habit".

The example that drove this home for me was watching my brother struggle with calculus. The problem was that he hadn't learned algebra to the point where he could execute it reflexively. During any particular calculus derivation, there would be one or more places where his work was not identically the same as the book's version. If he'd really learned algebra, he would have seen at a glace that the two were equal, but he couldn't think through the algebra at the same time he was thinking through the calculus.

Unfortunately, time pressures are ubiquitous in the real world, and it seems to me that the best course is to help the kid learn how to control her emotional state when under time pressure. (How else will she be able to drive, where every task is real-time?)

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Here's an odd way to think about it.

Being able to do something you've learned quickly and still accurately shows competence. If you try to do something you know unusually fast, you can pick up where there are hiccups in your knowledge or understanding or memorization.

This is why speed rehearsals are useful when preparing for putting on a theatre production.

Of course, this way of looking at it doesn't help dealing with the stress, but, if you concentrate on being able to look at the problem and either quickly solving it, or not, then going down the list of problems as quickly as possible in a first run and answering what you know you know first of all and then going back and working out the rest will provide you and your instructors with useful diagnostic information.

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

Re "MCAS is untimed": Yes. There are times ("30 minutes left", etc.) that get read as part of the instructions, but those instructions amount to "and if you're not done, then... keep going!" At my school, we build in some extra time for everyone during MCAS tests, to make sure no one rushes, and then for the students who still aren't done, we move them to another room, and they take as long as they want, up to the end of the school day (so, basically 6 hours for a 1-hour or 2-hour test -- sadly, there is a former student of mine who often does take that long).

I don't know what "math-fact" sheets are, so I won't comment on that, and besides, other folks seem to have given interesting answers already.

I have my own opinions on how "extra time" is not the one-size-fits-all accommodation it gets treated as, and that there are interesting unintended long-term consequences of students facing fewer and fewer timed tests, but that would be too tangential, so I'll refrain. Suffice to say, for some students, extra time is quite appropriate and helpful.