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    Joined: Aug 2008
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    CAMom Offline OP
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    DS's teacher just implemented this in the classroom last week as her solution for differentiation. I'm unfamiliar with the program but see it's made by the Accelerated Reader people. I'm not a fan of AR and certainly not as a differentiation tool.

    Does anyone have a kid using it that can explain how it works to me? The teacher explained that they use a scanner to put in their scan-tron answers but didn't really know how it would let the kids actually work at their individual level.

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    I wish I had first hand experience to help here - did you check out

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Math


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    I've never seen this website before, but it looks interesting -
    http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/middle_math/accel_math/


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    CAMom Offline OP
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    Thanks Grinity- I hadn't seen the ed.gov site. I had seen the wikipedia site and a few other websites but nothing looks definitive. I couldn't find a single thing about using it with a gifted population as opposed to remediation.

    Silly me, I heard "accelerated" and got excited.

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    Originally Posted by CAMom
    Silly me, I heard "accelerated" and got excited.
    I did too. I certianly is possible that a self-paced program would be a good match for your dd.
    Best wishes,
    Grinity


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    CAMom Offline OP
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    He's doing ALEKS at school now +2 grade levels, but she's trying this new program out and wants him to stop doing ALEKS in the meantime. He will be doing Accelerated Math with other kids so that's a bonus, but I'm not totally convinced yet that this is actually a like substitution!

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    We used ALEKS 7 years ago. It was great at diagnostic, and for assesment and for leading us through a Math curriculum, but if the kid didn't understand where the mistake was, I had to teach him myself, and ususally search around the internet for 'homework help.com' or some other tutorial. I hope that has changed in the last 7 years...


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    My son recently started using accelerated math as well. I'm not a fan of the AR program, but I do think they did a much better job with the math program. It's not perfect, by any stretch. And you have to work through the fundamental stuff before getting to the advanced stuff (which bored DS to tears). But once you wade through the BS, it's not a bad program. As a former math teacher, I have minor issues with the way they present some of the material. I think the way it is taught may make it more difficult to use that knowledge when they get into higher math classes. But as I said, they are MINOR concerns. I spent a little bit of time discussing it with my son, but it wasn't enough to make me go to the school and throw a tantrum (again).
    Basically, they have objectives to master before they can move on to the next set. It starts out with fundamentals, such as counting and recognizing numbers. Then it slowly builds up. As soon as you master one level, you can move on to the next one - so you can move as quickly or as slowly as you like. I also like that it fills in any gaps in the child's math background. For example, my son could do three digit addition and subtraction with regrouping, and was in the process of learning multiplication - but what I didn't realize is that if you asked him to write the number forty-eight, he would write 408. It never occurred to me to go over that with him, but he figured it out within a couple of days on this program.
    As I said, it's not perfect. But it's a heck of a lot better than sitting there with the rest of the class counting dots during their math time.

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    That's our current issue with ALEKS right now: it's not really a teaching curriculum. I was hoping it'd be closer to a traditional online LMS where you're first presented with a lesson and then take the assessment. It seems like that component is missing. (Of course it might be that the course assumes that instruction is happening outside of ALEKS). There is a way to get an explanation for a missed item, but it's still just presented in the format of a bunch of test questions. Thankfully this is only part of accommodations this year.

    JB

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    CAMom Offline OP
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    So far he's done well using the ALEKS dictionary and the "Explain" button. I have pretaught him a couple of things that I knew he'd need a different explanation for but it gave him something to do at school. I also have covered a few things at home with him completely, then he does the review at school. I think this has been easier because he hasn't reached any truly new material for him yet- it's all building on something he already knows. So if you know long division, it's an easy step to long division with decimals, if that makes sense.

    Treecritter- your "Then it slowly builds up" comment concerns me. How slowly? Is there a way to test out of material or do you have to cover each lesson no matter what?


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