Those of you who've used ALEKS: did you follow the course sequence recommended for advanced students (Levels 3-6, Middle School Maths 2, MSM3, Pre-algebra, Algebra 1...) or did you telescope further? DS5 has done levels 3 and 4 and is doing fine with level 5, but is less enthusiastic about it than he was, and TBAH, I think it's because it's not challenging him (eep). Obviously there just are a lot of things they have to know that aren't difficult, so we can't expect it all to be challenging, and that's the role of separate problem solving activities, but still... The steps in Lv5 are so small, and although he gets to skip a bit by answering things in assessments that weren't on his pie, there doesn't seem to be much opportunity to do that (especially if he also makes "silly" errors in assessments, which happens a bit, though remarkably little given his age), so it's happening a lot that he picks a topic and can do it straight away, and even the 3 questions to get it on his pie is too much repetition. Looking at the syllabus for level 6, it seems to be a small increment over level 5, and I'm wondering whether we might skip it and go straight to middle school maths 2 once he's finished with level 5. Am I crazy?
