this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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"Why didn't you show your work, so I can see how you think?"
Because I did it in my head and got the right answer. This isn't about you.
It’s funny, because in high school, I remember getting poor marks on proofs - and HATING them - because I was like “this is so fucking obvious jesus tap dancing christ” and just… skipped lots of steps.
Fast forward to college and logic theory: that ended up being one of my favorite classes, because machine theory and problem reduction is a fascinating domain, and FAR more interesting than “prove this shape is the shape we say it is” or whatever vapid bullshit they had us doing in high school.
Lol I hated this too, I really did. But like a lot of answers here, I can appreciate it somewhat now. Especially when trying to learn to code.
I think learning to break down problems might even be MORE valuable to people like us with ADHD, even if we hate it, because we tend to intuit our way through things by the seat of our pants.
Also sometimes I got really lucky and arrived at the correct answer in a bizarre and inconsistent way.
In the end, it's very valuable to be able to communicate your process to others. Even if it's irritating and awful to get through.
I also wonder if those like myself, who really REALLY hated math until my brain started to appreciate it in my adult years, just gnash our teeth at these memories because it made us feel stupid when we struggled to keep up with that slow, methodical raw-logic stuff...
EDIT: I can see you were the polar opposite of myself, ridiculously GOOD at math but found it a waste of time showing how you got there. That makes sense. I have zero idea what that's like lol.
I wouldn't have minded it nearly as much, had they not accused me of cheating on the exam. That sticks in the craw.
The "show your work" is about checking if you understand the logic in getting the answer. We had lots of questions out of 5. Right answer was only worth 1 mark, the other 4 were the steps and reasoning. This type of setup punishes those that skip right to the answer, or have memorized answers. But rewards those that show they know the concepts
What part of what you said changes what I said?
That you need to show your work, so they can test if they taught you the principles.
Right, so nothing.
My brain didn't go through the steps like that. It looked at the problem and found the answer.
It's why they thought I was cheating: my scantron results were above 90% correct, and the written portion was scored abysmally for lack of work.
That's a failure of Test Design, not of student ability.
It doesn't matter if you use mental math or not, you just need to write what you did in your head on the paper.
Yes. Having been there, and done that, I would agree that it should count. My teacher disagreed.
What did you write then? I'm confused. You showed how to solve the problem and got it marked wrong?
I didn't list all the steps in the way they wanted the work shown. I showed the parts that allowed me to formulate the answer in a way that worked, but that was declared "insufficient."
So giving an answer with partial work for the written section, in combination with my high score on the scantron = cheating, I guess?
As you might surmise, the teacher was absolute shit, in retrospect.
The Principal too, since he cosigned her demand that I retake the exam twice, including while in the Principal's office, while he lurked about.
Makes my blood boil even now.
SAME. This bullshit “show your work” principle cost me at least as many points as its companion “you wrote your name at the top of the LEFT SIDE of the paper instead of the RIGHT SIDE so that’ll be a C+ for you instead of an A+!”
Sometimes I think the only reason I pushed myself to get advanced degrees was the need to prove that I wasn’t the idiot in those scenarios. The teachers and/or the pedagogy they were required to follow were idiotic. It’s kinda therapeutic having my own students now and taking a completely different approach.
I think you are missing the point about the goal of schooling, it is not to get correct answers but to teach people methods of problem solving, so when faced with a brand new problem you can extrapolate methods and find a solution. As acedemia progresses solutions are not possible in your head, so applying principles is the goal.
So, by your logic, any student who doesn't conform to the specific, approved processes and methodology is therefore wrong, is that it?
Tell me, do you value the perspectives of others, or are you concrete in the surety that yours is always the infallible way? Is everyone who does something differently from the way you do it, wrong?
What do you hope to gain in your escalation of commitment? Or is lecturing me its own reward?
Having gone forward from high school to undergrad, to half a dozen graduate schools, I do think I'm at least somewhat privy to the methodologies of academia- in fact, I even studied process design at MIT, among other things. What I find most, is that rigid thinking is more susceptible to Group Think than allowing room for alternative paths to a desired outcome.
Does that make me right, and you wrong? Or vice versa? No, probably not in either case. But it certainly doesn't make you right in an absolute sense, which is the sentiment you seem to be pushing.
I was explaining why they want you to show your work. I work with a lot of engineers who got the right answers on tests in university, but you give them a unique problem they can't reason out a new method to solve it. This is why testing wants you to show your work so somebody can check you are connecting the dots of reasoning. All they would have to do tgough is make the question multipart, so step A asks for a certain portion, step b asks for next portion, and so on. Passing University doesn't always mean you can think. Granted other testing is needed to assist non typical learners
Thanks Daniel Kahneman
I had the exact same problem.
I was always a space cadet in class, falling behind, but accelled in testing, add on top that I sucked at showing my work, and my teacher was adamant that I must be cheating somehow.
Do you understand the purpose of school, or...?
If I arrive at the correct answer every single time then I clearly understand the principles.
Maybe you do, but some arrive at the answer using the wrong techniwue that doesnt work when the equation is altered. There is no way you are doing calculus and functions and relations in your head. Process and method is the important part.
If Im getting it correct every time it is altered then clearly it isn’t an issue.
That is an assumption you aren’t really in a position to make.
By you, I mean plural you. Like a prof has a class of people to ensure they grasp the fundamental underlying concept, not just running through the paces. For a personal example, I had a Descriptive Geometey course in college. Early stuff is easy, later techniques for finding shortest distance between two topologies in 3d space based of 2 flat images are complex. I was working 50 hours a week and just had a kid, so my level of focus on this course was too low. For the exam I did not know all the mulitprojection methods well enough to solve them, so I just used my ability to imagine the spatial shape, and sketched them down. Turned out my guesses were good and got highest mark. Prof gave me kudos in front of class on how well i had completed it. But in fact I really had no clue hoe to solve the complex topologies properly. Had he asked for the staging projecrtions to be turned in I would have failed the course. This is what I meant by getting the right answers doean't test that "you" know the underlying concepts.
It’s endlessly amusing to me that people come into a post about adhd and then downvote anyone who explains their experience.
I struggled all through school with math classes (which I still passed) and it turns out Im actually extremely good at math. I just didn’t realise it until I was programming video games.
I was working on machine learning in games in 2009.
All this to say, the education system doesn’t deal well with people who think differently.
Looking back through the comments the downvotes aren't about denying experience. The topic raised was no need to show work if answer is right...but there is a reason the work should be shown and it is for the future course / work setup. If people have trouble doing that, your school can setup an IEP (individualized Education Plan).
If anyone had taken my explanation as insult to experience that was not my intention. Two of my kids have ADHD. They both had wildly fluctuating math scores. Working with them on techniques to work through the method and not jump right to answering, helped them steady their grades. They were often done first out of everyone, but rounding error or just plain old transposition often messed things up, so part of showing work reasoning was "OK, you have 1/2 hour left till test is over, go through your steps backwards, does it still make sense" and often they'd find their errors, but you can't do that with an empty page with only an answer.
Until the system has multiple types of learning and testing setup, which could take decades, working with the system is really the only way to get through it. Finding the students currency often helps provide a reward system to counter what the executive function and impulse system aren't coordinating on
i typed a bunch, but it disappeared. I will try again. For example I had a topology descriptive geometry solving exam, I had not had time to learn how it was done due to job/life events.
I used my spatial sense to sketch up the solutions, because I didn't know the methods well enough to actually solve it. Got a great mark on the exam, prof gave me kudos in front of class. So while my faked end solutions passed the check, had the prof asked for the projection stage sheets to be turned in (showing how you work through the problem) I would have failed.
Right answers don't mean you know the material. And by you I mean the plural you, not you personally.
The profs are aaking to see work to see if you know the principles. People can arrive at an answer that looks right by doing the wrong things
Ok but forcing me to show my work was one of those things I hated until I was extremely grateful for it. I didn’t need to show my work to prove my answer was correct in elementary school, but it was a slow drift from “I can do it in my head with ease” to “I need to document my steps so I can check where the error occurred”. Also “it’s not enough to be correct, you need to be correct with evidence” is the reality for people who do math for a living
Best I can do is lots of evidence proving I'm incorrect...
Better than no evidence
Literally every single damn math class I ever took
I had to retake an algebra 2 exam multiple times because they thought I was cheating- including sitting IN the principal's office, yet the scores were all within points of each other.
They were so fucking salty about it too when there was no "gotcha." I wish I could time travel back to advocate for myself, because I would have TORN THEM A NEW ONE. My parents were apathetic cowards.
Like all cutting injustices, it's stuck with me.
I would have sued them personally for defamation just under the small claims court amount ($10k) with a jury demand. Small claims cases in my state cannot be dismissed for cause of action. They could ask for a summary judgement, but that would still cost more in attorneys fees than just settling.
Suing who? Admins right? Because you wouldn't get much out of teachers. (In the US anyway) 😂
You can put a lien on their house if they didn't pay. Then if they want to ever sell the house or get another loan they have to pay you.
That's probably what better parents might have done. Mine did nothing.
Of course, to bring it up now is only to be met with a constant stream of, "I don't remember that."
The tree remembers what the axe forgets.
I deconstructed the underlying methodology of the creator of the system in order to understand their internalized blind spots or artificial limitations imposed on them by unrelated third parties at the time of the systems creation.