Calculating a grade for Foerster's Alg2/Trig

[A.J. at J.A.]

We have just begun using Alg2/Trig and I was wondering if there is a standard way people weight the different aspects of the course (ie, homework, ch.review, tests, etc) to calculate a final grade.

Thanks!
Angela

[regentrude]

In math (irrrespective of curriculum), I give a cumulative final exam at the end of each semester because I am aiming at long term mastery and retention. That is my kids' math grade.

 

I do not like to give grades for daily work, because this is for  learning, and I do not wish to penalize learners for making mistakes. Daily work is to be done until it is correct.

[OneStepAtATime]

I agree with regentrude.  If you want more testing than just testing at the end of each semester, you could probably do end of each major section.  But grading daily work seems to be less than productive to me, too.  Daily work should be for learning, and mistakes should not be feared.  Mistakes are for learning from, too.  Daily work should be checked, certainly, to make certain an issue hasn't arisen with lack of comprehension or sloppiness, etc and so that problems missed can be corrected.  As regentrude said, daily work should be done until it is correct.  The final grade should accurately show mastery.  Unless there is an LD involved, if they haven't mastered the material long term, then they need to keep reviewing and trying until they have.

 

Edited to add that I wish with all my heart that math had been handled that way when I was in school.  

[kiana]

Edited to add that I wish with all my heart that math had been handled that way when I was in school.  

 

Alas.

 

One of the big reasons we assign points for daily work *in school* is that many just won't do it if it doesn't count towards their grade, even though it is essential for learning. Then the students who have not been doing the daily work fail the exams, and hence the course. This is true even in college.

 

In an ideal world, we wouldn't have this happening. We'd be giving students increasing responsibility for their own work as levels increase. But when we have students who have finished middle school and not been *allowed* to ever fail, regardless of how little work they've done, moving to a system where they get marked solely on a final exam is simply an unsustainable increase in expectations.

 

It's like having a kid who's 14 and whose mother has always done all of the housework and never even asked him to help -- suddenly making him responsible for his own laundry, cooking his own food, doing his own dishes, and cleaning his own room is likely to result in an utter catastrophe by the time the semester's over (or a lot sooner).

[A.J. at J.A.]

I like to give some value for completion of the daily work even if it is just 10-20% of the final grad to give credit to their effort and diligence.  I typically do a small percentage of final grade for daily work, larger percentage for quizzes (if there are any) and then the largest percentage for tests.  That way a student isn't afraid of the final test which causes test anxiety and poorer results. 

[MorningGlory]

I counted daily work 20% and chapter tests 80%. The daily work had to be checked and redone until all was correct, so that portion of the grade was always 100%. The chapter reviews fell under "daily work". The cumulative reviews counted as chapter tests.

 

I always "award" daily work. Maybe it is a spin-off from my public school teaching days that I just can't quite shake, but my sons sure do appreciate it! lol!

 

HTH!

[OneStepAtATime]

Alas.

 

One of the big reasons we assign points for daily work *in school* is that many just won't do it if it doesn't count towards their grade, even though it is essential for learning. Then the students who have not been doing the daily work fail the exams, and hence the course. This is true even in college.

 

In an ideal world, we wouldn't have this happening. We'd be giving students increasing responsibility for their own work as levels increase. But when we have students who have finished middle school and not been *allowed* to ever fail, regardless of how little work they've done, moving to a system where they get marked solely on a final exam is simply an unsustainable increase in expectations.

 

It's like having a kid who's 14 and whose mother has always done all of the housework and never even asked him to help -- suddenly making him responsible for his own laundry, cooking his own food, doing his own dishes, and cleaning his own room is likely to result in an utter catastrophe by the time the semester's over (or a lot sooner).

I agree with this completely! I know a lot of my classmates would not have completed the daily work when I was in school.  And then been in real trouble come test time.  

 

Grades in school were not terribly accurate, though.  In fact, they weren't accurate at all.  Frequently I could muddle through well enough to even get an A or a B but I actually didn't really understand the assignments well at all in many instances.  I passed all my classes and actually managed As and Bs frequently in math but did NOT understand it.  Grades became meaningless to me.  But the focus in school was on the grade.  That was all that anyone seemed to care about.  Not genuine mastery of the material.  

 

I would have been better off homeschooling.  If I could have gone through things more slowly in the early days, worked to mastery of each thing while also reviewing previous concepts, I would have done so much better.  It took until my 30's and making myself go back to college to take math courses that I realized I actually LIKE math, and I CAN learn it.  I just need more time on each concept.

 

With my own kids, once I stopped grading daily assignments at home but we review those assignments and they were taught how to go through a process of assessing the assignments themselves (even though I look at them, too) they were so much more engaged in their own daily work.  They realized the goal was not the grade but the true understanding of the material.  They stopped following the PS mindset of their peers of just temporarily trying to memorize info to get a grade and move on and started genuinely working to understand the material. and to review as much as needed until they did.  It has helped us all.  

 

But some kids want the grades as a way to acknowledge all their hard work.  I get that.  And if that is the case, then yes maybe 20%.

[regentrude]

I counted daily work 20% and chapter tests 80%.

 

Please understand that I am not saying this to pick on you, but I feel the need to comment on this:

math is cumulative, and the student needs to retain ALL of the concepts in the long term. So, there needs to be some assessment of the cumulative knowledge which goes beyond retaining knowledge for one chapter. I notice this mentality with my college students: they have been conditioned to learn chapter, take test, hit delete button. I find the concept of evaluating only short term retention quite dangerous. Knowing math material the month it is taught is useless unless mastery can still be demonstrated several months later.

 

[OneStepAtATime]

Please understand that I am not saying this to pick on you, but I feel the need to comment on this:

math is cumulative, and the student needs to retain ALL of the concepts in the long term. So, there needs to be some assessment of the cumulative knowledge which goes beyond retaining knowledge for one chapter. I notice this mentality with my college students: they have been conditioned to learn chapter, take test, hit delete button. I find the concept of evaluating only short term retention quite dangerous. Knowing math material the month it is taught is useless unless mastery can still be demonstrated several months later.

 

Goodness, regentrude, where were you when I was in school?  I would have signed up for your class in a heartbeat!  :)

[MorningGlory]

Please understand that I am not saying this to pick on you, but I feel the need to comment on this:

math is cumulative, and the student needs to retain ALL of the concepts in the long term. So, there needs to be some assessment of the cumulative knowledge which goes beyond retaining knowledge for one chapter. I notice this mentality with my college students: they have been conditioned to learn chapter, take test, hit delete button. I find the concept of evaluating only short term retention quite dangerous. Knowing math material the month it is taught is useless unless mastery can still be demonstrated several months later.

 

I totally agree! I was just referring to how I counted the tests. Foerster's includes 4 multi-chapter review tests as well as a final exam that covers the whole book. I averaged all tests...including these cumulative ones...as 80% of the final grade.

 

Honestly, my son's final exam grade and his overall average were just about the same, so it seems that how I averaged didn't really matter anyway. I could have counted just his final exam grade as his course grade...just as you do for your kids. It would have been the same thing...for THIS particular child. However, for my second son, that daily reinforcement of graded homework will help motivate him a bit and keep him focused. :-) At least I hope...

[A.J. at J.A.]

Thanks so much ladies!  I'm going to go with 20% daily homework and 80% tests (which includes chapter tests, four quarterly cumulative review tests, and a final exam.)  :)  I really appreciate your feedback.

 

Blessings,

Angela

[EKS]

For all of my kids' high school math courses I used the following weighting (which is essentially what the public schools in our district use):

 

70% exams--the final exam was usually 10-15% of the grade

30% homework completion (problems are reworked until 100% correct)

 

My kids always had average test scores above 90%.  This meant that the homework completion grade only added (at most) 3% to the total grade.  So a 90 would become a 93 and a 95 would become a 96.5.