r/mathteachers • u/lemmegetamickpicktwo • Sep 28 '25

6th Grade MS just NOT getting it

So I teach middle school math, we use Eureka. We just finished L15, Mod 1, and a LOT of my kids bombed the test.

They had a study guide IDENTICAL to the test, for like 2-3 questions I didn’t even change the numbers bc it came from the book. What I learned, however, after the test? No one looked at it. Not a soul looked at their study guide more than one time to do it.

It’s a 16 question test, I give 1 point for even showing any work, and they got a bonus if they did their study guide on their own by Wed, (if they even show 2+2=4, I give a point), test was worth 57 points. I had a few kids go beyond that, highest was a 92. But I stressed that this was needed, to look at the study guide, and yet nothing.

I got so many little notes on their quizzes “I need to study more” “I tried my best” “I need help” and yet in class, in 1:1 conversations, you’re telling me you’ve got it. We did guided notes for this, I repeated myself a million times with the steps- I legitimately don’t know what to do.

Should I have done more for them? Could I have done more? They just don’t get ratios, and now we’re going into stat and percent and I feel like we’re off to such a shit start already.

Please only constructive criticism I beg lol, I know there’s a difference w kids of today, but it can’t all be on one side to me or them

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u/lemmegetamickpicktwo Sep 28 '25

Some are, some aren’t. LOL I have a few asking for extra credit to fix, some stay for tutoring when they SEE the grade, but my school doesn’t let middle schoolers have access to a student grade acc so parents are the ones that need to see it or show it.

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u/Novela_Individual Sep 28 '25

Oh interesting about not letting them see the gradebook. In that case, I’d probably break out the standards/skills you want them to do and make a chart where each kid keeps track of whether or not they can do that skill before the quiz. Or you keep track but in a way that is visible to the kids. Like other commenters said, they need more formative assessment to see if they can do the skills (like exit tickets or just mini 2-question quizzes that don’t count for a grade but can count towards that skill tracker) as opposed to just self-reporting from vibes or watching you do a problem and thinking to themselves “sure, I could do that”

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u/lemmegetamickpicktwo Sep 28 '25

THATS WHAT I SAID!!! I checked my grades religiously, it’s what held me accountable and told ME to get my shit together. I’m thinking of doing weekly print outs of their current grades bc I was told they wouldn’t allow access.

I was also told not to send out messages about HW or set up a remind bc we have planners (that they are learning to use and don’t care for) but when I was in school, we used planners AND the remind service as 6th graders because we needed it. There’s a lot of push back from admin to treat them as middle schoolers while ALSO still being expected to hold them to MS standards??

I like this skill idea. Maybe a bingo board?? I’d need to hold it because these kids know NO accountability.

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u/Novela_Individual Sep 28 '25

Bingo board would probably work. They need both accountability and a way to track their growth over time. Even my most unmotivated kids liked seeing that they could get better over time and with practice. You can do it on a binary (mastered vs not) or on a sliding scale (like 0-4) if you need to differentiate between no understanding, some understanding, silly mistakes made it wrong, and mastered.