13th November 2015 1:00
By Blue Tutors
A child’s school maths exam paper has become an internet phenomenon after they got the right answer, but were marked down for the way that they worked it out. The question, 5x3, required students to write their working out as 3+3+3+3+3, with students who wrote 5+5+5 being marked down. The school defended marking students down with the rationale that the former method of working out is more likely to teach students how to think about maths problems. It has become a matter of some debate amongst the education community, and had got me thinking about how tutors choose to teach when they begin working with a new student.
Is there one proven method that we should stick to, or should we be adapting to our students? Do students deserve to be marked down if both their answer and their working out are correct? It’s a little of both. In the case of this maths problem, it may well be confusing for children to be marked down when they get the answer right with correct reasoning. However, it is also the case that it is helpful to confirm that children understand that 5x3 means 5 lots of 3 – writing it this way can help achieve this. With tutoring in any subject, there are good methods to stick to, but tutors should always be prepared to be flexible and adapt to their students.
Tutors understand on a broad level what works for students. For example, good tutors know that if they engage their students and ask them to participate in the lesson, they are more likely to get good results than if they lecture at them for an hour. This is a good rule of thumb to follow, as is the principle of encouraging students to show working out, so that it is clear that they understand why an answer is correct or incorrect. However, it is not enough to simply mark down where working out doesn’t show the simplest path to the answer, without discussing it with the student. Had I received the exam paper in question I might well have said ‘correct – working can also be shown as 3+3+3+3+3.’ Given the luxury of time, I would want to check with the student that they understood, which is the great thing about tutoring – it allows teachers to do this. What we want to avoid is confusing students in an attempt to enlighten them.