this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Exam questions should be designed so that answers (that follow any instructions) demonstrate understanding. If they are not, that's the exam's fault, not the student's, and so should have no impact on the grade.
In this case, the exam could verify understanding by either asking additional questions (in the number 123, what digit is in the tens place), and/or by modifying the existing questions to require circling the correct place or not using the specified number outside that place. But regardless, if an answer is correct, then it is correct.
I'd agree that it's perfectly fine for a teacher to follow up with the student to make sure they know what they were expected to know. But they should not make the exam score itself dependent on the follow up.
The exam is over, the questions and answers were what they were, the student should not have to worry that they will have to continually resit exams as teachers decide that they didn't like the questions that they asked.
Oh come on. This is obviously a kid's test, and the kid knew they were being a smartass. What's less clear is whether the kid knew the actual answers.
In your world you start having to write "solve the equations to their simplest forms" on tests for kindergarteners who won't even know what that means in order to avoid technically correct nonsense like "1 + 1 = 1 + 1". Room should be made for genuinely unclear test directions, but this is not one of those cases.
Edit, maybe he should have gotten credit for literally writing "a number with a 2 in the ones place." The test should have used "provide an example," not "write!"
Yeah, sure, it's for a kid. But even for kids - especially, in fact - it's important to stick by what you say. And that test question says "write a number with a 3 in the 10s place" or whatever, which they did.
Basic use of language is fine. When you're teaching you define what it means to "solve" or "provide the answer to" 1 1 = _. For a young kid, this is through examples, and later on it might be with an explicit written definition.
And then the question says "solve the following", which does not mean "write any true statement", and so excludes 1 1 = 1 1 as a correct answer.
Yeah sure, the kid is probably being a smart ass in this case. So? It's ok for a kid to pull one over on you occasionally. Do better with the language next time, and it won't happen again.
Reward the kid for being a smartass and intentionally misreading directions, and it ABSOLUTELY will happen again. Unless you're gonna start spending an hour writing incredibly precise paragraphs for each exercise like a magician giving instructions to a genie, there will always be some technically correct version that wasn't what the question intended.
This is so silly. Kids aren't code compilers. They know what's being asked of them. This is like shrugging your shoulders and just letting it happen when a kid is doing the whole "I'm not touching you!" shtick.
It's not rewarding. It's assigning points based on the completion of the task. This is math, it does not have to be warm and fuzzy touchy feely nonsense with room for interpretation. If you can't write clear instructions for a math problem, that is on you. If you cannot communicate your expectations to your students, that is on you. This problem would be incredibly easy to redo so that this answer was not allowed.
Ask the question you want the answer to. If you can't think of a good way to ask your question to get the answer you want, ask of a different question covering the same concepts. If you can't do that, then maybe you shouldn't be writing math exams.
Unless you actually somehow think this was a genuine misunderstanding of the test directions, then they were clear and the student provided useless answers on purpose.
Getting points is a reward for giving right answers. If the student wants to play language games on his math exam, let em fuck around and find out. But they do have to find out. Literally all I've suggested is making the student demonstrate actual understanding. Thinking even that is somehow going too far is absolutely ludicrous.
Getting points is not a reward for a right answer. It's a consequence of a right answer. There is no judgement or personal opinion or generosity involved. Right answer implies points. Anything else is dishonest.
Answering the question as written is not playing language games. It is answering the question. If your question allows answers that don't demonstrate what you want, then that means that you suck at language, not that your student is playing games. If the student is playing games as well, well students are allowed to have fun, and the screw up is still yours.
The language is very clear and the answers absolutely meet the requirement. The teacher does not get to withhold points because they're embarrassed that they wrote a crappy question.