Close Gaps

As students there is often a lot of pressure to pass, whether it be a quiz, test or the overall course. Because of this, we often only focus on doing what we have to in order to pass as opposed to actually taking the time out to fully understand what we have been taught. This leads to partial explanations and a lot of question marks as we progress, because the basics that should be second nature to us at this point, have not been fully comprehended, leading to “gaps” in their learning. I remember going through a similar experience growing up, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. However, there are many ways that these fundamental gaps can be filled, starting with eliminating a lot of the “passing pressure” and allowing people to do their absolute …show more content…
Or, if it does, if we want to be more practical, it only effects a very small portion of that grade. The purpose would be to see exactly how much of the topic the students understand and whether or not, they need more practice or can move on to the next topic. The reason why I say it should be a small portion of the grade is because this way, students won’t have to worry as much about doing good or bad, and can spend more time actually trying to grasp the concepts and understand it. This will also allow the student and the teacher to see where their deficiencies are and what they need to work on before the actual …show more content…
It immediately made me think about my 8th grade math experience. This was the first time I was introduced to algebra and I found it extremely difficult. Being in an accelerated math class, the teacher would often go through the topics very quickly and that’s how I learned the art of imitation. For some of the topics, I didn’t really understand them, I just knew how to imitate the previous problems that were done on the board. This left many “gaps” in my mind at that time as far as algebra was concerned. I didn’t notice these “gaps” until it came time to take the regents and I didn’t pass, causing me to have to retake algebra in high school. Now although I was extremely upset about this, when I got to high school, I understood algebra very