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On one quiz she missed half the questions. If the questions were representative of the material, having 16 questions instead of 4 could very well mean there would be 8 mistakes instead of 2. I think it's not necessarily accurate reasoning to assume the child knew all the material except for one or two obscure facts missed. She got five 100's. She got a 90. She got an 80. She got three 70's. She got a 50. It clearly wasn't a one-time poor score on a quiz that was too heavily weighted. The OP said the teacher took ten or so assessments into account and averaged them. The OP wants the projects to count for more, but projects are the worst kind of assessment because they're more often measuring what kind of home life they have rather than what they've learned, unfortunately.
Additionally, she got a grade of "satisfactory." It's not as if it's a black mark on her record, and I don't think it's a bad lesson to teach that if you want to earn "good" or "excellent" you have to work a little harder than just the basic expectation. Not that the OP's daughter is lazy, but we do kids no great service when we surround them with low hanging fruit and never require them to struggle a little to achieve excellent marks.
I think the bold is very speculative reasoning. She might have only missed two on a 16 question test as well. If projects are a bad assessment, why assign them? I recall them taking large amounts of time, and I didn't do anything but provide a place to do them and buy a few supplies (since 9 year olds don't drive).
Referring to "low hanging fruit" is getting a bit over the top for a 9 year old, IMO.
Turns out the teacher has been converting tests under 10 questions to number grades. For instance, there were multiple assignments where she got a 3 out of 4, or a 6 out of 8, so she got a 75%. There was one where she got a 5 out of 7, so she got a 71%. Basically, only the ones where every question was right resulted in a grade that was "good".
Now, I don't really care about her 4th grade transcript. But I am wondering... is this unusual?
I have no desire to complain to the teacher or anything like that. But the poor kid has been freaking out thinking she "not as smart" as her friends because she got a 3 out of 4 as opposed to a 4 out of 4? Don't get me wrong, I think not being perfect is a good lesson for her, but I don't recall this sort of grade conversion on these kinds of tests before. I'll talk my kid down off a ledge and all, so no worries there.
But I do want to know if anyone has encountered this before? This just seems unusual to me.
Nothing unusual. When there is a small number of questions, percentages still work. If the teacher was not using percents, I would want her fired for incompetence.
Once your daughter has done 10 of those little 4 questions quizzes, she will have a very reasonable test size. Since the ending grade is an average across all of them, 36 out of 40 is still a 90%.
If your daughter only got 3 out 4 on every single test, then she would be getting a 75%, regardless of how many individual quizzes were used.
Math is universal. The teacher is doing it right. Instead of worrying about the letter grade on individual tests, look at the bigger picture. Missing a question here and there isn't a big deal, but consistently missing them is. When I get back a 50 question quiz, I don't worry if I missed numbers 21 and 23. I got a 96%. Looking at it as subsections of 4 would tell me that I had several 100s and one 50. It doesn't matter. Thank the teacher for doing math correctly and providing valuable feedback to your daughter. Some teachers are lazy and useless (not common), but there is no evidence of this teacher slacking. Give her a gold star
Once your daughter has done 10 of those little 4 questions quizzes, she will have a very reasonable test size. Since the ending grade is an average across all of them, 36 out of 40 is still a 90%.
Actually, that is not how math works. LOL
If the teacher had added up the 50 or so questions asked and then tallied how many were wrong, my daughter would have ended up with something around 90% across all in-class assignments.
Because the teacher broke them into subsets and averaged each, then averaged the averaged, she ended up with something closer to 70%.
It does not come out the same either way. That's the point. If you don't properly grade small quizzes, then you in effect "weigh" outcomes in their direction, because the resulting percentages are very rough estimates of outcomes. Percentages are more accurately desccriptive of ability when you ask more than 10 or so questions.
For instance:
1. I ask a student 20 questions, he gets one wrong. He gets a 95%.
2. I ask a student 18 questions he gets it all right and earns a 100%. Next time I ask him 2 questions and he gets one wrong so now he has 50%. Now his average is 75%, because he got one question wrong on one test.
But reading this thread does make me understand how stuff like this happens. LOL. It seems simple to me but I guess it's not.
Kitkatbar, I'm on my phone so I'm not going to quote you, it gets too hard to manage that way. But thanks for your reply!
I'm not sure if you read all my posts but I will attempt to make it clear again that I am not upset. I already stated I think it's a good lesson for her that she's not perfect, that we originally told her that she would just have to work harder if she was unhappy with her grades, and that I don't really care what is on her reort card as long as she is learning the material. I actually was glad she was getting a chance to learn this lesson now before middle school. My only goals now are to reassure her that she is not stupid (she's never gotten an S before and she is freaking out) and tell her that these are her teacher's rules and she has to play within whatever rules to get high grades going forward.
I did however find this particular method strange, simply because while percentages are mathematically accurate, they become less meaningful with small numbers in a testing context. I'm used to people using other methods with small exams just to avoid this sort of weirdness, and a number of the most common methods have already been outlined. Especially the tally all the scores as one category method.
For example, say a teacher gives 2 tests in the same subject during the quarter. The result:
Test 1: 100/100
Test 2: 2/4
Using my daughter's teachers method, this student has a 75 average. But if you tally the scores, this student has 102/104, which is a 98. 98 comes closer the reflecting this kid's ability than a 75. And that's why I find this method odd.
But no, I'm not bothering the teacher with it. It's just an odd thing to discuss on a message board for kicks.
Every teacher I've ever had has used the method that would bring you to a 75, though. That's how it's normally done.
Every teacher I've ever had has used the method that would bring you to a 75, though. That's how it's normally done.
I've never had a teacher who used the method of simply adding the percentages up then dividing by the total number assignments (the 75 example). It's always out of a total - ie if there is an assignment out of ten points, an assignment out of twenty points and an assignment out of thirty points, and you got 5/10, 20/20, and 30/30, you'd have a 55/60 (92%), not an 83%. That's how is normally it's normally done. (gosh, I hate that phrase. I experience something differently, so who's right/'normal'? Unless you've been to every single school, you really can't say what's normal...)
Kitkatbar, I'm on my phone so I'm not going to quote you, it gets too hard to manage that way. But thanks for your reply!
I'm not sure if you read all my posts but I will attempt to make it clear again that I am not upset. I already stated I think it's a good lesson for her that she's not perfect, that we originally told her that she would just have to work harder if she was unhappy with her grades, and that I don't really care what is on her reort card as long as she is learning the material. I actually was glad she was getting a chance to learn this lesson now before middle school. My only goals now are to reassure her that she is not stupid (she's never gotten an S before and she is freaking out) and tell her that these are her teacher's rules and she has to play within whatever rules to get high grades going forward.
I did however find this particular method strange, simply because while percentages are mathematically accurate, they become less meaningful with small numbers in a testing context. I'm used to people using other methods with small exams just to avoid this sort of weirdness, and a number of the most common methods have already been outlined. Especially the tally all the scores as one category method.
For example, say a teacher gives 2 tests in the same subject during the quarter. The result:
Test 1: 100/100
Test 2: 2/4
Using my daughter's teachers method, this student has a 75 average. But if you tally the scores, this student has 102/104, which is a 98. 98 comes closer the reflecting this kid's ability than a 75. And that's why I find this method odd.
But no, I'm not bothering the teacher with it. It's just an odd thing to discuss on a message board for kicks.
I'm with you. It seems ridiculous that a little assignment can have that much of an effect on the grade. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but any decent teacher should be able to figure out a system that weights things differently depending on how many points they're out of.
I've never had a teacher who used the method of simply adding the percentages up then dividing by the total number assignments (the 75 example). It's always out of a total - ie if there is an assignment out of ten points, an assignment out of twenty points and an assignment out of thirty points, and you got 5/10, 20/20, and 30/30, you'd have a 55/60 (92%), not an 83%. That's how is normally it's normally done. (gosh, I hate that phrase. I experience something differently, so who's right/'normal'? Unless you've been to every single school, you really can't say what's normal...)
That's not how it was done with us, and other kids I know currently in school. It's also one of the reasons our teachers hardly ever gave very short assignments or quizzes that were graded.
What's odd to me is that the teacher gave so many such short assignments (a four question assignment or quiz?) and such few assignments/quizzes in the first place.
If the teacher had added up the 50 or so questions asked and then tallied how many were wrong, my daughter would have ended up with something around 90% across all in-class assignments.
Because the teacher broke them into subsets and averaged each, then averaged the averaged, she ended up with something closer to 70%.
It does not come out the same either way. That's the point. If you don't properly grade small quizzes, then you in effect "weigh" outcomes in their direction, because the resulting percentages are very rough estimates of outcomes. Percentages are more accurately desccriptive of ability when you ask more than 10 or so questions.
For instance:
1. I ask a student 20 questions, he gets one wrong. He gets a 95%.
2. I ask a student 18 questions he gets it all right and earns a 100%. Next time I ask him 2 questions and he gets one wrong so now he has 50%. Now his average is 75%, because he got one question wrong on one test.
But reading this thread does make me understand how stuff like this happens. LOL. It seems simple to me but I guess it's not.
Oh well.
pssst....95+100+50=245
245/3=81.7
not 75 :-)
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