Derek Owens - Graded or Parent-Grade Option?

[KBadd]

I'm signing up my 11 and 13 year olds for Derek Owens Algebra I. Has anyone opted for the parent-graded option?  You get a 50% discount, but then I have 3 other kids including a 2 year old so I'm wondering how much work it is and why people opt to have Derek Owens do the grading. 

My 11 year old is young but has completed up to Pre-algebra and that's just the level he's at.  I'm not sure if this would make a difference in my decision.

TIA.

[Miss Tick]

I graded algebra 1. It was straightforward, didn't take a ton of time, and kept me in the loop on my ds's progress. I didn't want to grade Geometry because grading geo is a bit more complicated, the different ways to a correct answer on a proof required more time than I wanted to devote, so I shifted into "knowledgeable tutor" mode.

[domestic_engineer]

I chose to pay for the grading service. I too had younger children needing my attention. And my child would end up waiting on me to give feedback on his performance. I also appreciated someone else saying “you got this problem wrong”. It goes better when someone other than me points it out. 😝

[EKS]

I had DO do the grading, not because I couldn't do it but because my kids liked having someone besides me grade.  I actually learned a lot about grading math from seeing how DO did it.

[8filltheheart]

I always do the parent-graded option.  He provides fully worked out solutions and it is very easy to grade.  

[cintinative]

We did the parent grading for Physics. It's good to hear that it is easy to follow for grading the math.

I hate to say it but the primary reason we did parent grading was that I had a very limited budget.  I guess it did help not having any slow downs due to grading time.  I did end up learning physics alongside my youngest but that's a long story.

[Janeway]

I went with the parent graded option. But I’ve never felt uncomfortable with it. It’s the writing that I feel like I need someone else to grade on. So I save my money to pay for somebody to grade the writing not the math or science. You just have to go with what you’re comfortable with. I really did not want to have to spend time trying to submit assignments.

[Guest]

I don’t see a parent graded option on the website - am I missing something?

We signed up and have gone through 1.5 weeks so far, but the turnaround time for grading is quite long — 48-72 hours.

[Miss Tick]

1 minute ago, WTM said:

I don’t see a parent graded option on the website - am I missing something?

We signed up and have gone through 1.5 weeks so far, but the turnaround time for grading is quite long — 48-72 hours.

You have to ask them.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, SusanC said:

You have to ask them.

Thank you!

I do wish they were faster about the grading turnaround time. One of my goals with DC was to take myself out as the middle man and help my child function more independently. But having more immediate feedback is important

[Miss Tick]

I never had an issue with turnaround time. I guess it seemed to reflect what my dc were likely to see in all future classes and on into real life - judging by how slow my insurance agent has been to get back to me! 😄 I could totally get the concern if your dc is accelerated or advanced or otherwise young for the math level, though.

[Coco_Clark]

I did the parent grading for Algebra and switched to them grading for Geometry, mostly because I didn't feel comfortable grading proofs.

I honestly wish I would have gone with them grading earlier. The turn around is about 2 days, but tbh, that was better than mine at times 😳.  I really like that they provide fully worked out solutions for parent grading, but I didn't always want to copy it all out.  And when they graded they often knew where my sons thinking got side-railed, while I did not.  We were also sent videos of the problem being worked out with commentary a few times when it seemed he was really confused.  If you have the money, it's worth the money.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Coco_Clark

[Ann.without.an.e]

 

On 8/9/2022 at 8:26 PM, domestic_engineer said:

I chose to pay for the grading service. I too had younger children needing my attention. And my child would end up waiting on me to give feedback on his performance. I also appreciated someone else saying “you got this problem wrong”. It goes better when someone other than me points it out. 😝

 

On 8/9/2022 at 8:28 PM, EKS said:

I had DO do the grading, not because I couldn't do it but because my kids liked having someone besides me grade.  I actually learned a lot about grading math from seeing how DO did it.

 

On 8/15/2022 at 5:36 PM, SusanC said:

I never had an issue with turnaround time. I guess it seemed to reflect what my dc were likely to see in all future classes and on into real life - judging by how slow my insurance agent has been to get back to me! 😄 I could totally get the concern if your dc is accelerated or advanced or otherwise young for the math level, though.

 

On 8/15/2022 at 4:40 PM, WTM said:

Thank you!

I do wish they were faster about the grading turnaround time. One of my goals with DC was to take myself out as the middle man and help my child function more independently. But having more immediate feedback is important

 

Not to thread steal but I have a question...My son is really good at math in his head and has the right answer but isn't good at showing work. To him, it is too easy to have to show work even if many people would've had to have worked it out, he didn't. How would this work with Derek Owens grading it? 

[EKS]

14 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

How would this work with Derek Owens grading it? 

DO is very generous with partial credit, as long as the work is shown.  I also know that when my son simply put a correct answer without work he got full credit.  This was about ten years ago, so I don't know if it has changed.  Anyway, given this, I suspect that if someone were to put a wrong answer with no work they would get no points, but I don't know for sure.

[Ann.without.an.e]

6 minutes ago, EKS said:

DO is very generous with partial credit, as long as the work is shown.  I also know that when my son simply put a correct answer without work he got full credit.  This was about ten years ago, so I don't know if it has changed.  Anyway, given this, I suspect that if someone were to put a wrong answer with no work they would get no points, but I don't know for sure.

That makes complete sense. I know some teachers will take away points if all work isn't shown. That is silly if the kid can do it quicker in his head. 

[EKS]

1 minute ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

That makes complete sense. I know some teachers will take away points if all work isn't shown. That is silly if the kid can do it quicker in his head. 

Not necessarily.  In the case I mentioned above, it was something that could be done on a calculator but the point was to be able to do it by hand.  If it were me doing the grading, I wouldn't have given any credit at all for that sort of answer.  But at the time, I didn't know that sort of math very well and I had farmed out the entire thing to DO.

[domestic_engineer]

18 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

That makes complete sense. I know some teachers will take away points if all work isn't shown. That is silly if the kid can do it quicker in his head. 

I don’t know the answer to your question because I’m of the opinion that it’s important to show your work.   It isn’t silly to require their work to be shown. This is the training ground for learning to communicate well, even in math.  There’s more to math than just getting the solution.

If a person makes a great discovery in math, they had better be able to show their work to communicate their brilliance. Otherwise their discovery is lost to the world.  
 

stepping of the soapbox now …

[Ann.without.an.e]

24 minutes ago, EKS said:

Not necessarily.  In the case I mentioned above, it was something that could be done on a calculator but the point was to be able to do it by hand.  If it were me doing the grading, I wouldn't have given any credit at all for that sort of answer.  But at the time, I didn't know that sort of math very well and I had farmed out the entire thing to DO.

 

 

5 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

I don’t know the answer to your question because I’m of the opinion that it’s important to show your work.   It isn’t silly to require their work to be shown. This is the training ground for learning to communicate well, even in math.  There’s more to math than just getting the solution.

If a person makes a great discovery in math, they had better be able to show their work to communicate their brilliance. Otherwise their discovery is lost to the world.  
 

stepping of the soapbox now …

 

 

I totally agree that work is important. I stress this to him all.the.time. I meant showing every single little bit of work down to things that are way too simple.  Like showing that 100/10=10 sort of simpleness. If the next line is clear that this was the conclusion, does he have to actually write that part out? This is a legit question. 

[Miss Tick]

We had an already established home policy that if you didn't show any work there was no way to discuss where you want wrong, so progress stopped while you redid the work. Writing down the work was probably quicker and less painful than hearing me preach about the importance and how it is half the value of the problem and blah, blah, blah.

No, not every miniscule step. I need to be able to follow your reasoning start to finish, but it doesn't have to all be spelled out.

[EKS]

1 minute ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I totally agree that work is important. I stress this to him all.the.time. I meant showing every single little bit of work down to things that are way too simple.  Like showing that 100/10=10 sort of simpleness. If the next line is clear that this was the conclusion, does he have to actually write that part out? This is a legit question. 

I've found that the answer changes depending on what is being taught.  So if you're in an Algebra 1 class that is learning how to solve for x by doing the same thing to both sides, you should probably be showing each step (subtracting 2 from both sides, dividing both sides by 3, etc).  However, that level of algebraic detail isn't expected in a college calculus class (at least it wasn't expected in mine), though other things were expected to be written out in a detailed manner.  

In general, I'd say that at a minimum it is important to write out work that supports what is being tested to demonstrate that you know what has been taught.

[Lucy the Valiant]

We required the kids to write it out "clearly enough that Mom could find the error" - IF there were errors, ha! (If no errors, ever, no need to write out.) My zero-tolerance-for-busy-work kids respected this rule.

[domestic_engineer]

1 hour ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

 

 

 

 

I totally agree that work is important. I stress this to him all.the.time. I meant showing every single little bit of work down to things that are way too simple.  Like showing that 100/10=10 sort of simpleness. If the next line is clear that this was the conclusion, does he have to actually write that part out? This is a legit question. 

Depends on the kid and depends on the problem. But if in doubt, write it. 
 

I have kids who might write 100/10 = 9 as their last step, but they’ve done gobs of correct math before that point in the problem. Well then that’s just an arithmetic error, and I’m more concerned about the math and reasoning skills above the error. So we move on and don’t dwell on the incorrect answer.   But if they showed no work and just wrote down 9, well then I don’t know where they made their error. The kid might not understand the crux of the problem.  Thus I need to reteach or expound on that lesson. 
 

Also, how can a kid learn from their mistakes if there is no record of their work to examine and dissect?  Learning how to find your own errors is an important skill. 

[Coco_Clark]

On 8/28/2022 at 4:24 PM, Ann.without.an.e said:

 

Not to thread steal but I have a question...My son is really good at math in his head and has the right answer but isn't good at showing work. To him, it is too easy to have to show work even if many people would've had to have worked it out, he didn't. How would this work with Derek Owens grading it? 

This was our biggest highlight to DO grading.  My son often doesn't show work at all, or skips steps and only shows some work.  When I was grading I often didn't understand where he went wrong when he had an incorrect answer and I wasn't sure how to give partial credit.

DO has never docked him for correct answers with no steps shown.  And often even with just an incorrect answer he leaves a note saying how he got that number (with no partial credit).  That being said, he's very generous with partial credit when steps ARE shown so it's taught my son to only skip showing work when he's VERY confident. 😂

[kiwik]

We use the parent graded option.  It was right on the prices page when I enrolled in January and still was last time I looked.  But it didn't used to be.