{"id":10447,"date":"2016-02-12T08:50:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T16:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/?p=10447"},"modified":"2016-03-29T15:01:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T22:01:55","slug":"teaching-the-value-of-hard-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/teaching-the-value-of-hard-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching the value of hard work"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teacher asks: \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our teachers just had parent\/teacher conferences and had a few parents concerned about their student “not passing” levels in Rocket Math. The students AND parents of these students are having a hard time with their child struggling on Rocket Math when it is apparent that they “know” their facts. Their parents don’t know why they should have to have the speed when they clearly know their facts and these students are truly some of the top students (95th%ile on state standards). Although it has given those students some perspective on what it feels like and how you handle not accomplishing something with ease. \u00a0If they score 60 or above on their two minute timings consistently, should they be required to pass all levels<\/span>? \u00a0What would be your recommendation to do with these students or tell their parents?<\/p>\n

Dr. Don answers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most important benefits\u00a0of Rocket Math is that it teaches students the value\u00a0of hard work. \u00a0By practicing orally with their partner each day, and doing the correction procedure properly, students find they can\u00a0learn math facts to the level of automaticity–to where they can answer them instantly without thinking and without hesitation. \u00a0That takes some practice and work, even for gifted students. \u00a0But everyone can do it with enough practice. \u00a0Although it is only ten minutes a day, the work of Rocket Math is very important in teaching students the value of their own efforts. \u00a0Students learn that even if they can’t pass initially, if they practice every day (and maybe some more at home with a parent or sibling), they get to the point that they can answer those problems as fast as they can write. \u00a0When they achieve this they are justly proud of themselves, because they know they earned the achievement through their own efforts. \u00a0Learning this lesson is quite possibly\u00a0even more important than the math facts themselves. \u00a0This is an important lesson for life–that you benefit from working hard at something even if it doesn’t come easily.<\/p>\n

The only way you could take that away from those students is by rewarding some of your\u00a0brightest students with the same accomplishment without having to work through the levels. \u00a0You can use the placement probes to determine if students even need an operation–they can “test-out” of the operation in the beginning of the year. \u00a0But once you have determined that students need to work through the operation, the worst thing you could do to the class would be to suddenly announce that some students have “passed” without doing the work. \u00a0That would make everyone else feel like a dummy for having to work at it.<\/p>\n

I will write a separate post on the things you can do for students who get stuck and can’t pass in six tries. \u00a0However, I want to stress that a key outcome of Rocket Math is learning the value of hard work in school. \u00a0Don’t do anything to undermine that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A teacher asks: \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Our teachers just had parent\/teacher conferences and had a few parents concerned about their student “not passing” levels in Rocket Math. The students AND parents of these students are having a hard time with their child struggling on Rocket Math when it is apparent that they “know” their facts. Their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0},"categories":[42],"tags":[47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10455,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions\/10455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}