Math Woes and a Rising Senior

[mom2scouts]

DS will be a senior this fall. Last year he was taking Mr D self-paced PreCalculus with Trig. Math is NOT his favorite subject, but because of his goals he needs to have four college prep level maths on his high school transcript. After the first chapter, he did so poorly on the first test that we backed up and started the whole chapter again. He did much better when he tested again. He understands it fairly well, but it takes him a long time and he has to work through the problems very slowly to get that understanding or I have to keep up to explain things another way. He was spending so much time on math that I decided to give him a time limit. He had to work that long each day and get as much work done as he could, but was not required to get to any specific point. I was more concerned about understanding than output. He was very diligent about spending time on math daily and got almost 70% of the way through the curriculum, starting into the trig, with a B grade. When Covid-19 shut everything down, including all of his outside activities, he lost most of his motivation to finish his most disliked subject and didn't get much further. I thought about having him do some this summer, but he's working on some other things that are priority for us at the moment. I'm not sure what to do.

1. Should I give him credit for PreCalc? Lower his grade since he didn't finish? Give him the grade he had when he stopped? That's what the public schools are doing, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. He definitely worked enough hours for a credit, but he didn't finish the curriculum.

2. If I give him credit for PreCalc, could I have him finish the curriculum in fall semester and just call that Trigonometry? I could add something like Intro. to Statistics for spring semester and give a full math credit his senior year.

3. I know some high schools will give credit for something like "Algebra A" one year and the another credit for "Algebra B" the next year. Would that look really bad if I did it that way?

4. Do I make him finish PreCalc with Trig, give him one credit for the year and a half of work and just hope that the algebra class he did in 8th grade plus geometry, algebra 2, and precalc in high school is considered good enough (ie 4 years of high school math)?

Homeschoolers talk about how flexible homeschooling can be and how we want our kids to learn the material and not just finish assignments, but it's harder at the high school level. I want him to work at his own pace and have good understanding of the materials, but I want legitimate grades on his transcript. OTOH, I've had kids in public high school, know how questionable the grading can be, and I don't want to disadvantage him by being too hard on him. What would you do?

[katilac]

Precalc is algebra and trig, so you can't give a precalc credit and then a trig half credit, that would definitely look off. 

What you should do depends on his specific goals. It's legitimate enough to give him credit for 70% of the book this year (what a year!), but if he needs the trig in particular then he has to finish it and it's all part of the precalc credit. But if he is moving on to calculus, then he just needs to go ahead and finish precalc. 

You might want to assess his overall knowledge with an end of year test or something like ALEKS online. Because he is slow and methodical, it may have caused him to not finish the material even though he understands a good bit of it. The "in between" choice would be to see if he could finish up rather quickly with something like ALEKS, rather than the deeper and longer commitment of finishing the current course. Depending on what he used for Algebra 2, he may covered some of the upcoming topics pretty well already. My dd blazed through trig pretty quickly because she had covered so much trig in the Holt Algebra 2 book. 

If he just needs four years of math, not precalc skills in particular,  I might call it a day, award the credit,  and move on to something else, whatever would likely help him most in college. 

A finite mathematics or discrete mathematics course could cover the remaining trig if you want, along with other topics, or it could cover just some of the remaining trig and more of other stuff. It could be a half credit followed by a half credit of stats, or it could be a full credit that includes statistics. 

fwiw, my oldest did algebra 1 & 2, geometry, precalc, and discrete mathematics; she knew she would be taking calculus and possibly a lot more math in college. youngest did algebra 1 & 2, geometry, and discrete mathematics (which in her case included some of precalc algebra); she knew she did not have to take calculus for any of her planned majors. Had she changed to something requiring calc, she might have had to put some work in over a summer or taken an extra semester of math. And that was okay, because her high school sequence was right for her at the time. You want to keep as many doors open as possible, but you also have to teach the student in front of you. 

[Lori D.]

I think doing a good job on the Pre-Calc is more important, as he'll need to do College Algebra for pretty much any degree program when he moves on to a university, so I'd probably go with option #4 for a strong finish of the credit, count the Algebra 1 as one of the 4 credits.

Bonus: he'll be completing the math that will be closest in time to what he'll need to do at a university the following year.

Double bonus: he'll finish it before the end of 12th grade, which will ease things when senioritis hits in the spring semester -- yes it is a real thing!

Another option would be to spend the first semester doing a good job of finishing the Pre-Calc credit, and then possibly do Statistics in the second semester of 12th grade -- but just bear in mind that senioritis is a real thing.

What direction might your DS be heading as far as college degree fields? And also, how competitive of a college are we talking here? If not a top tier/selective/competitive school, and if not heading towards Engineering or other Math-heavy degree, then stopping with completing a Pre-Calc credit for a 4th credit will very likely not be any problem whatsoever. 

So if not *needing* to go further in math due to choice of degree field, and esp. if the student is burned out on the subject of Math, I would not be inclined to push beyond Pre-Calc. 

Just my 2 cents worth. 😉 BEST of luck for 12th grade, and congrats on having a senior! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Lori D.

[mom2scouts]

7 hours ago, Lori D. said:

What direction might your DS be heading as far as college degree fields? And also, how competitive of a college are we talking here? If not a top tier/selective/competitive school, and if not heading towards Engineering or other Math-heavy degree, then stopping with completing a Pre-Calc credit for a 4th credit will very likely not be any problem whatsoever. 

So if not *needing* to go further in math due to choice of degree field, and esp. if the student is burned out on the subject of Math, I would not be inclined to push beyond Pre-Calc. 

 

He's applying to military academies, so yes to top tier/selective/competitive, but nobody *really* understands what they are looking for in their selections but math is the one thing that might kill his chances. Otherwise, his transcripts, test scores, and extracurricular resume are quite competitive (although Covid restrictions are now causing issues). He's more interested in a military history, military analyst, or foreign language heavy major and career, but everyone is required to take Calculus at some point. I'm really hoping he gets accepted to an academy prep school and gets a chance to shore up his math. If that's not an option, he'll do ROTC with a humanities degree of some kind and possibly reapply.

[RootAnn]

The military academy information is important and that definitely changes my answer (because I have a math-challenged kid who is a senior, too).

I'd have him finish PreCalc in the fall (calling it Trig & changing last year's course name to College Algebra) & do a "Intro to Calculus" for a half credit in the spring. Community Colleges sometimes separate PreCalc into a semester of College Algebra & one of Trig or two semesters of PreCalc called whatever they are going to call them. He'll need to have that extra time to figure out limits & derivatives before he's thrown into Calc @ an Academy, IMO. 

I have a brother that was non-STEM who went to an Academy & he barely passed some of the math & physics classes that everyone had to take & that was with a prep year. He is no dummy, but his brain just takes a longer path on math/ science material.

[Lanny]

The academies are looking for other things in addition to G.P.A. Sports, Leadership, and other outside activities and qualities. I believe he should be very solid, starting with Algebra 1.  The foundation of everything...  He can use Khan Academy or other web sites to clarify anything he is not sure of.