to be annoyed about Online Maths Homework?

[MathsMadMummy]

my DH's DDs have just finished yr7. every single homework throughout the year has been a set of (20 IIRC) questions on a particular maths site where they have their own username etc.

even if it's a complicated algebra question, they just put in the answer. it's marked automatically, they get the marks straight away when they finish it.

but it's just a % - it doesn't even tell them what they got wrong, let alone why it's wrong. the teacher doesn't know either - all she gets is the %. so they get no feedback and the teacher has no real grasp of what the DSDs find difficult.

it also worries me that they're getting no opportunity to have their working-out marked when this is a major part of exams. they can just guess, or technically get someone else to work it out for them, and nobody would know.

I admit that I'd be slightly less peeved if my DSDs lived with us, because at least then I could be with them while they did the maths. but they live with their mum who doesn't give a toss about schoolwork (ok that's another thread! ) so they're on their own with it.

OK, I can accept in this age of technology it's got a place in school blah blah blah. and it frees up time for the teacher. but every piece of homework? really?!

AIBU to think it's a bit... lazy? would really appreciate teachers'/parents' views.

is it mathletics?

dd1 has this, but she has just finished yr1 (!) so i am clearly not worried that all her maths homework, once a week, is set on this. it does tell them when they get it wrong, as they go through though.

are you sure that ALL the homework is on here?

if so then yes i agree with your comments/concerns.

Homework should be set according to what's been taught that week and differentiated so that all pupils are learning at their ability level. This sounds like a generic site that generates questions based on a certain topic. It should be more personal and informative, otherwise what's the point? I'd complain.

yes it's definitely all the homework they get.

unfortunately I can't remember what site it is, but I do know it's not one of the more 'fun' ones like mathletics/mathswhizz. it's specifically designed for this purpose so no concerns about content, I'm sure it covers everything, it's just the sort of 'distance' from their teacher IYSWIM. I'm not too keen on worksheets generally but even that would be preferable sometimes, as at least the teacher would see their work!

I'm a teacher and we use online assessment. However I would be very dubious about using online assessment with no feedback, particularly as one of the big trends in teaching at the moment is Assessment for Learning, which relies on feedback so the students can improve.
If the program doesn't let the student or teacher know where they are going wrong, it is badly flawed and I wouldn't use it, except perhaps for spot practice. I would query it with the school.

ok thanks. I'm wondering if they use it because it gives a higher chance of students actually bothering with the HW?

I will wait and see if they use it in yr8... vaguely hoping it was just a yr7 thing to make things easier on them. surely at some point they'll have to practise the proper methods of setting out their answers etc

My DD ( aged 13) gets homework set via internet - MyMaths - I hate it,,,,,she struggles and says some of the questions they haven't even covered in class! 9 times out of 10 I have to sit down with her and explain how I would work something out and it's 30 years since I left school. sometimes she guesses the answer and at the end of each page you click on the "mark it" icon and it gives you a % score of correct answers.I think it is an awful system.

Alsdo are they allowed to set only online homework? What if the family doesn't have a computer? Even if you do, I'm far from convinced that online homework is appropriate quite frankly...

If it is mymaths then there is always an on line lesson as well. It is a very good system but the teacher should be differentiating the work set. There is also an option to try the homework again as many times as you like.

As much as I like mymaths and think it a very good way of setting homework, it should not be the only homework.

Sparkle, the deal with online homework is that if they can't do it at home, the school will have the facilities for them to do it there.

I think it's going to become more and more popular. The better systems for it really are very good, they give feedback to the kids, and keep a record for the kids and parents, they may also be linked to virtual learning resources that can tailor themselves to the child's weak areas. Then of course there is the government plan to get everyone with school age children online.

Some kinds of work can't be replicated online, but for the sake of simple practice and testing they can be much more efficient.

This sounds very like the maths homework DD got in Y7 and Y8. However, IIRC this did tell them which ones they had got wrong rather than just give them a mark.

I was a bit dubious about not showing working too but DD told me that they covered that in class.[hmmm]

For her it wasn't every piece of homework though, only occasional ones and I don't think they had it at all in Y9.

Oh drat my sceptical face went wrong !!

I just find the idea of sitting passively at a screen very off putting, why can't they do it with paper and pen - what's so wrong, so bad about that? It's so much more interactive, your eye and hand working together makes it sink in so much better imo. And I share 5foot5's concern oover showing working - that's much easier to do by hand. I love maths and just can't imagine doing it on a computer!

It will be mymaths. It is not down to the school but rather the teacher to decide what homework is set. I am a Maths teacher and personally I hate it as I think it is very lazy and has limited benefit.
The occasional online homework is fine but everyone online is poor teaching. It makes life easier for the teacher but teaching is not about the easy life!
They are meant to do the working out on paper and then oput the answer down but they don't. They try and do it all in their head meaning they make more mistakes. It does tell you which questions you got wrong but not WHY. The whole point of marking homework is to suggest how to improve. Mymaths doesn't do this. A child needs to be told why it is wrong and what to do differently for it to be a meaningful exercise. e.g. for nadding fractions they may be adding the bottom numbers together. A teacher will tell them what the mistake is and they have learnt. The computer tells them it is wrong and they have no idea why. In an ideal world they would then go and ask for help, but let's face it, most the time they don't. It is possiblr to get 90% of the working correct and still get all the answers wrong. A teacher can explain this a computer doesn't.
Rant over, sorry. Can you tell this is one of my pet hates?!
I would complain if my child got online homework more often than every other one. Take it to head of Maths if necessary. Print this out and show them. See how they defend themselves!!

TYVM everyone, I was a bit worried I'd be told IABU. I feel really old-fashioned sometimes (at the ripe old age of 23), as much as I appreciate the importance of computers in modern life, I feel it's very important that children don't lose touch with skills like researching from a book, rather than Googling!

I do feel the school puts too much emphasis on computers and the easy life. very often they have been unequivocally told to use wikisoddingpedia to research something, they aren't allowed to use books! their primary school was the same.

it may well be mymaths actually in which case I apologise if I was incorrect about pointing out which questions were wrong. but no, they definitely don't show why they were wrong. agree about the 90% of working out being correct too, it can be very demoralising if they do the correct method but get no marks because of a silly mistake at the end!

DD2 and DS absolutely hate MyMaths, there is always a lot of shouting at the computer if homework is set on it. DS (year 8) has been set loads of work on this year but DD2 (year 12) only does bits and pieces. There are a few flaws in the programming as well which mean that it won't recognise an answer that is correct but is written slightly differently. DS has a habit of not to showing workings and working it all out in his head (and then making a silly mistake and getting it wrong) so I'd much rather he did his homework in his book rather than online.

another one here who hates mymaths. We have also found that sometimes the system marks something incorrectly when it shouldn't - particularly when it comes to measuring angles. Ds hates it too and it discourages him from writing down his working out, which is something we have spent sooooo long trying to encourage him to do in the first place. grrr

"very often they have been unequivocally told to use wikisoddingpedia "

I marked some (undergraduate) essays last month, as an external lecturer. I failed every one of them that "referenced" wikipedia. The department said they do the same, and although the OU don't take quite the hard line on the foundation arts thingie I did recently it's made quite clear that WIkipedia is worthless as a real source. That children are told to use it is a scandal, as it's crap.

I have a private list of things that are in my field and preposterously wrong and/or misleading (usually by quoting as fact something that is in fact distinctly more nuanced, because of using secondary sources without realising they are secondary), and in several cases my attempts to correct them have been repeatedly reverted: the Dunner-Kruger effect in action.

If my children were set homework other than in books, which were then marked by the teacher, I'd be complaining.

it is such a relief to know that DH and I aren't the only ones who feel this, tokyonambu.

DH and I are absolutely in agreement that when our own DCs go to school (his DCs don't live with us so we have no real say in their education TBH ) we will actively encourage the use of those old-fashioned book thingies. I have fond memories of doing my homework looking up things in our big set of ancient encyclopaedia britannica with my dad! or once we had it, occasionally Encarta 96 on the PC ah, they were simpler times... (wow I sound old don't I?!) by the time I was in college (2003) internet was obviously commonplace but I preferred my massive textbooks.

of course it's important that they learn to use computers (and therefore learn that online sources can be crap), and I do feel there's perhaps a place for MyMaths for occasional revision... it's just the idea of it replacing traditional methods, it makes us really sad.

I'll generally try not to be one of those parents who bugs the teacher but OMG if my DCs are told only to use the internet I will be complaining. I'm more worried as I hope to be a primary teacher one day and if I'm told to favour electronic methods all the time I will have real trouble sticking to the rules

I wouldn't be too complacent: Enc.Brit is hardly authoritative, and you'd get just as failed for referencing encyclopaedias as you would for referencing Wikipedia. Both are only worthwhile as jumping off points into the real literature.

The great shame, and another one of those "how the social divide is enforced" is that if you're a parent who is in higher education, either as a student or as a member of staff, you have access to things like JSTOR which mean that, in a crisis in which your child really wants to know about something, you can easily get hold of real primary literature. Even being an OU student is enough. And if you have access to big copyright deposit library, or an older university library which will be nearly as big, you can get real physical books when required.

Everyone else has to make do with crap like wikipedia. It's a real shame. It would be a real act of charity for organisations like JSTOR to reach out to secondary schools and make access to real journals available to pupils, who could then access real material rather than McInformation. Hammering into children the difference between primary and secondary literature, and the problem that Wikipedia in particular is effectively tertiary literature, would be really worthwhile. Instead we have politicians and teachers who appear to believe that Wikipedia is an appropriate resource to send children to as a means to learn about stuff.

"If my children were set homework other than in books, which were then marked by the teacher, I'd be complaining."

My school would tell you to bog off. At KS4, for example, each class is set two lots of homework per week. Our marking policy is that I mark one lot of homework per week. The other homework is either then peer-marked in class or set on mymaths. To demand that I mark both sets of homework would reduce the quality of the marking.

A lot of my students like mymaths homework and are more likely to do it than a book homework.

well I'd say it was an OK source for a primary school child, right?

(BTW I mean encyclopaedia type books, not wiki)

So at a tangent (ho ho), what's the current way to do www.mymaths.co.uk/samples/sketchingQuadratics.html which I came on while having a squint at mymaths? I figured out the minimum by differentiation (2x+2=0) , and then was able to get the zero crossings pretty much by inspection (they're obviously in (3,4) and (-5,-6)). I couldn't even reverse engineer the current method from the workings boxes...