Answer Jake's homework for him please.

[david3103]

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.



Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

[doubleup]

Why are the questions terrible?

They seem quite straight forward.

If the question said they bought X at £X each then the kush answer would be right. But they didn't.

The number of items is completely irrelevant information.  In the context of an arithmetic homework question when information is supplied it is reasonable to conclude that it should be used in the calculation.

[HutchGF]

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.



Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

Can't see how this question is challenging higher level thinking skills?

It is clearly poorly worded and vague.

[david3103]

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.



Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

Can't see how this question is challenging higher level thinking skills?

It is clearly poorly worded and vague.

As someone who has devoted her life to teaching and whose current job is as Proncipal in a Primary School, I think my wife's opinion carries some weight. She says

"It is, clearly, very cleverly worded to test the pupils' comprehension of the subject."

In essence, it is not a question that measures/tests numeracy skills.

[Jon MW]

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.



Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

Can't see how this question is challenging higher level thinking skills?

It is clearly poorly worded and vague.

As someone who has devoted her life to teaching and whose current job is as Proncipal in a Primary School, I think my wife's opinion carries some weight. She says

"It is, clearly, very cleverly worded to test the pupils' comprehension of the subject."

In essence, it is not a question that measures/tests numeracy skills.

Did you tell her that the teacher put a big red cross by the answers and offered no feeedback?

The question 'could' be used to evaluate developmental level - but I think in this case it clearly wasn't.

[titaniumbean]

Thanks for the answers.

Jake gave the same responses as Kush and when confronted with the questions, so did I.

Obviously the last 3 posts are technically correct and we are wrong.

But his teacher just put two big red crosses next to his answers without any explanation as to why they were wrong.

Terribly worded questions IMO.

Or would she ask trick questions to 9 and 10 year olds?

tell her to do her job if that is the case.

the correct answer to the second question is clearly where did you go that accepted 50's AND sells CDs 

[Dewi_cool]

Smack the teacher

[HutchGF]

Think this is one of those wonderful moments where you get to sit down with your lad and tell him he is smarter than his teacher.

My wife is an incredibly experienced and excellent educator and suggests that this question is less about the arithmetic skills of Jake and his peers and more about their ability to apply those abilities.

Bloom's Taxonomy (Google for more) charts the stages of learning, broadly according to the diagram.



Anita says your son is being challenged to show higher order thinking skills and is obviously doing well.

Can't see how this question is challenging higher level thinking skills?

It is clearly poorly worded and vague.

As someone who has devoted her life to teaching and whose current job is as Proncipal in a Primary School, I think my wife's opinion carries some weight. She says

"It is, clearly, very cleverly worded to test the pupils' comprehension of the subject."

In essence, it is not a question that measures/tests numeracy skills.

You have made my point David - comprehension is NOT a higher level thinking skill, it is only 2nd on Blooms taxonomy. I also work in education and one of my many roles in school is helping NQTs and evaluating their progress. In my humble opinion, this kind of question will cause pupils to become frustrated, especially with the very poor, lazy feedback from the teacher.

How to reword this to make it a higher level thinking question...... I'm not sure this type of problem can be! Maybe you could try the following?
1. Evaluate the following situation : I bought 3 oranges for 29p and two drinks for £1.04. The cashier charged me £1.42.

[david3103]

Hutch,

Maybe it would help if you think about why this question was set.

Was it

A) to find out if they could work out (3 X 29) + 104

 B) to find out if the pupils could add 29 to 104

Or C) to see if they could understand which of A and B would provide the right answer

Given that by Year 5 or 6 which is I think where Jake is being able to calculate either answer should be within their knowledge base I suggest that C is the answer.

Wouldn't be happy if the big red cross in the book wasn't followed up with an explanation though.

[Girgy85]

Thanks for the answers.

Jake gave the same responses as Kush and when confronted with the questions, so did I.

Obviously the last 3 posts are technically correct and we are wrong.

But his teacher just put two big red crosses next to his answers without any explanation as to why they were wrong.

Terribly worded questions IMO.

Or would she ask trick questions to 9 and 10 year olds?

tell her to do her job if that is the case.

the correct answer to the second question is clearly where did you go that accepted 50's AND sells CDs 

Woolies?

[Junior Senior]

These are two questions Jake had for homework this week.

Please just give what you think the answers are, but don't give your workings.


1. I bought 3 oranges for 29p and two drinks for £1.04. How much did I spend altogether?

2. I buy 6 CDs costing £6.99. How much change do I get from £50?

Thanks!

1.33

43.01

[doubleup]

My brother is a teacher and I asked him what he thought.

These are two step problems and the children of that age would find them tricky. Towards the end of the academic year you would hope at least a third of the class would be getting these all correct, but you would also differentiate the questions to suit the ability of the children e.g. I bought 3 oranges for 30p each and 2 drinks for £1 each. How much did I spend altogether?

BTW, if you miss out the word 'each', children would be likely to answer your original questions £1.33 and £43.01.

So he assumed 3 x 29 + 2 x 1.04 was what was required from the question but that it was badly written no "each" (and a typical child would think like Celtic and Byron).

Perhaps because Jake's answer was an "adult" answer the teacher suspects Camel of homework multi-accounting....

[MintTrav]

Can't agree with your reasoning David. The ambiguity of the question is apparent immediately to a child or adult but, even as an adult, we are unsure which answer is wanted. It's not cleverly worded - it's a silly trick question.

[celtic]

I don't even think it's a trick question.

Just can't see how it's terribly worded either.

I asked a guy I know today who is 20 something but thinks like a 5 year old most of the time, and he picked up on the fact that the word 'each' is missing so £1.33 & £43.01 were his answers too.

[doubleup]

So what is the point of saying three oranges, two drinks and six cds, if not to confuse?