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Email your
questions to me, Edison
(info@mathcubed.com),
and I will post the answers every 2 weeks.
Questions can be about math generally
or specifically, and come from parents or students.
Be sure the check back regularly to
see if your question has been answered, or to learn
from what others have asked.
Sincerely,
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Questions 5 - 8, posted March 20, 2007
5) What does my child have to
do to get an 80% in math??
6) What should my son be doing
to make sure he’s understanding the math?
7) I got a test back from my
teacher and I think I deserve more marks, what should I
do?
8) My daughter seems to lose
most of her marks to slip-up errors. Is there anything she
can do to reduce these?
5) What does my child have to
do to get an 80% in math??
Two questions: I) Is your child in alignment
with this goal? and II) Are they willing to do whatever
is necessary to achieve it? If the answer to both is a resounding
yes, then continue. To get an 80% means they have to be
taking the necessary action each day that will put them
in a position to get 80’s on quizzes, tests and on
the final exam.
And what is that action? Ensuring they
are understanding at least 80% of the math every single
day! If they can do that then they are ready for any challenging
questions thrown at them, they will be ready for any pop
quizzes, and studying for a test will be a lot more straightforward
because they will have a solid foundation in place already.
There is no magic or luck involved in
getting an 80 in math, but I would say the biggest challenge
most students will have is sticking with it – i.e.
ensuring they are understanding 80% of the math every day.
The students who end up getting the 80 are the ones who
really wanted it, the ones who had a compelling reason on
why achieving an 80% was so important. Why is that so? Because
when the course gets harder, when the going gets tough and
it will, the kids who can stick with it and keep aiming
to understand the math every day, will be the ones that
will accomplish the goal of 80%. Note: What steps a student
has to follow to ensure they really understand the math
is addressed in Question 6 below.
6) What should
my son be doing to make sure he’s understanding the
math?
To understand a math concept or question
means he knows why he is doing what he is doing.
Math builds on itself, and it is extremely
important that your son recognise that. This “building
on itself” means he will not really see anything new
in math this year, but what he will see is a lot of math
that is similar to the past math, and builds on that past
math. So if he I) knows the past math and II) can make the
connection between the “new” math he is seeing
now and the past math, he will begin to see that he is not
really learning anything new – it’s just the
past math presented a bit differently. And if he is thinking
in that manner it will be a lot easier for him to understand
why the concepts work the way they do.
Note: One of the biggest mistakes I
see students making is that they fly through the easy questions
on the homework, thinking that they understand them, when
in fact they really don’t know why their doing what
their doing. That’s a missed opportunity because the
easy questions are where the student should be making the
connection to the past math. It’s where they begin
to solidify their understanding. Understand the easy questions
and they will be ready to tackle the moderate and challenging
questions!
7)
I got a test back from my teacher and I think I deserve
more marks, what should I do?
Go in and ask your teacher for the marks
you feel you deserve. But before you do that you might want
to keep two things in mind:
I) Make sure you know why you deserve more marks and
II) Make sure you can defend your solutions
What if your teacher says “No, I won’t be giving
you any more marks”, what will you do then? Will you
give up, or will you go back in there and defend your solution
and convince them why you deserve those extra marks. Because
if a teacher questions you on a certain part, and you don’t
know the answer, you will not get the extra marks.
The bottom line is you will get the
extra marks you deserve if you can convey to the teacher
that you knew what you were doing.
8) My daughter seems to lose most of her
marks to slip-up errors. Is there anything she can do to
reduce these?
Yes!
I) Make sure she reads the question being asked very carefully.
A correct solution to a misread question will get her a
zero.
II) She should show all of her work.
Skipping steps is the # 1 reason she will make a slip-up
error.
III) Slow down. Yes, there is a pressure
of time on tests, but it is better for her to do the questions
she knows how to do first and foremost and get those correct,
rather than rush through and attempt all the questions,
and make many slip-up errors.
IV) Check over her work: Every time
she completes a part of the question she should ask herself
“Does the answer make sense?” If it doesn’t
she should check over her work right away. This will allow
her to pick up any careless errors sooner.
V) Once she has finished a question
she should go back and re-read the question to make sure
she’s answered all parts.
Note: It is not enough for her to be
thinking I will do these things when I get to a test. It
has to be a habit, second nature to her when she gets the
test. And the best way to make it into a habit is by doing
these 5 things when she’s doing her homework each
and every night.
Archive of past questions
1) My daughter is in grade 8
math and is not doing very well right now. Is there anything
I can do to prepare her for grade 9 math next year?
2) I go in for extra help to see my teacher,
but I don’t understand his explanations, what should
I do?
3) I study for tests but I always seem to blank
out. Why is this happening? And what can I do to stop blanking
out?
4) My son finished up grade 10 Academic math
with a 55%, and the school has recommended he does Grade
11M. But he wants to do Engineering or Computers at University,
so he needs to do the grade 11U. Can he make it through
the 11U course?
Answers
1) My daughter is
in grade 8 math and is not doing very well right now. Is
there anything I can do to prepare her for grade 9 math
next year?
There are two primary reasons why students don't do well
in math: either they have a bad work ethic and/or they are
not understanding the math.
Right now you can make sure she is doing two things:
1. Doing math homework each night at home and
2. Ensuring that she is understanding the math at school
i.e. not memorizing it.
The time spent at home will help her reinforce the key concepts
learnt that day in class and get her into the habit of doing
math nightly, as this will be expected at the grade 9 level.
And even if she tells you she has done her homework at school,
then that still does not let her off the hook.
As for understanding, it is extremely important that she
is doing this because everything she will learn in grade
8 math will come up again in grade 9 math, so understanding
the math she is doing now will not only ensure she is strong
in these concepts, but it will also give her confidence
a boost.
Before her grade 9 math class starts (and the best time
to do this is in the summer) it would be important to get
her support in any area where she is weak. So if she has
math gaps those will need to be addressed or if she has
terrible study habits, she will need help in that area too.
2) I go in for extra help to see
my teacher, but I don’t understand his explanations,
what should I do?
Ask your teacher “why” questions!
So rather than saying "Sir, how do I do # 6a?”,
the next time he explains something, you ask him “"why”"
. In other words, you are not looking to be told how to
do a question as that means the teacher will end up telling
you or lecturing to you, which does little to help your
understanding, you are asking a "why" question
as that will help you to really understand the concept much
much better! If you know why the teacher is doing what he
is doing or saying, then not only will you understand the
concept but you will also be in a much better position to
tackle other questions. You could also ask other teachers
or a classmate for help, but my vote would be that you try
and make it work with your teacher, because you see them
every day.
Now, I have had some students say to me,” but whenever
I ask my teacher a why question, he just says that’s
just the way it is, so what should I say to the teacher
then?” Well, that’s a question I will answer
in a later Ask Edison
column.
3) I study for tests but I always
seem to blank out. Why is this happening? And what can I
do to stop blanking out?
The odds are you are memorising the math
when you are studying.
So if you want to stop blanking out on tests, stop memorising,
and aim to start understanding. You might have thought you
understood it, but remember, tests test to see how much
you understand, so a bad mark reflects that you did not
really understand the material.
The problem with memorising the math, is that all you have
essentially done is invested time knowing how to do one
form of the question, and that will definitely not help
you at all if the question is presented differently. When
the question changes a bit, you will be thinking “I
know I’ve seen it before”, but the bottom line
is you can’t figure it out, because you have not built
up a solid foundation in your level of understanding –
i.e. you never really understood the concept. And that leads
to what students call blanking out.
4) My son finished up grade 10 Academic
math with a 55%, and the school has recommended he does
Grade 11M. But he wants to do Engineering or Computers at
University, so he needs to do the grade 11U. Can he make
it through the 11U course?
Yes, but there is a lot of work he will
have to do before he starts his 11U course.
He will have to make sure any weak areas he has (e.g. gaps
in grade 10 math and past years math, doing homework, being
effective at doing homework, test preparation, test writing,
organisation etc.) are addressed before he starts the 11U
course. If your son is motivated to address his weak areas
then he has a chance.
The 11U math course is a very fast paced and demanding course
when compared to the 11M or 10 Academic. And when you take
into consideration that many of the kids in 11U are the
stronger kids in math, and that about 60-70% of the grade
10 math comes up again in 11U, you can see why a weaker
student coming out of grade 10 math has their work cut out.
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