Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments EPGY math courses; advice needed

Is there a difference between open enrollment and regular EPGY with regard to the boring man?

I think the only difference is that open enrollment doesn't give you an individual mentor on the EPGY end, but I'm not 100% sure.

Hmmmmm... I hadn't realized that open enrollement was an option. Sounds simpler (and way cheaper!) than the "real" thing.

Is the program adaptive -- starts with an assessment and then speeds up/slows down depending on pattern of errors -- or linear? How much repetition do you have to slog through? Can the boring man be turned off to switch to a non-audio lecture?

(while my son currently prefers spoken instructions classes that require slogging through oh-so-slow audio/video components while the same info could be conveyed in 3 paragraphs of text drive *me* nuts!)

I "think" the regular epgy is also accelerated. I am not sure about open enrollment.

hee hee . . .

I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate the nickname we've given him in this thread.

It's adaptive, but I think the regular EPGY requires less repetition before a given topic is considered mastered. For us, having me listen to the lecture then explain briefly worked. But I don't believe it's intended to be done that way.

I personally didn't dislike the lecture component - and DD was filling in holes, so the material was really lower-level than I'd have otherwise started her.

OK, all knowledge is contained in this forum. Poor "boring man" has a name: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/75752/Re_EPGY_OHS.html

The needs/likes of undergrads are probably not the same as that of elementary school kids, however gifted .

Too bad the people who produce NatGeo/Science Channel shows like "Naked Science" can't produce a math series. DS would eat that up!

Here's a quote from that thread:


EPGY sent me a sample of the geometry course materials. Aesthetics are definitely lacking. The course materials were LaTeXed/TeXed (so, all black and white).

Now, I wrote my M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses with LaTex and know how powerful it is and how far ahead of its time it was. But for me, LaTex isn't a good choice for course materials. Color is generally a superior way to highlight important points and is definitely better for diagrams. Actually, I livened up my thesis by including colored graphs. I just left big blank spaces on my LaTexed pages and then ran them through the color printer to add the graphs. I also glued color photos into the thesis.

Re: the boring man. I think that part of the Khan Academy's popularity stems from the guy's voice and the way he speaks. He has a nice voice and he changes his tone when he lectures, which makes him easier to follow.

LOL

I cannot recall any of my math profs or upper level/grad classes being boring. In fact, they were the funnest classes and teachers I had. Only a couple of profs in the history and Greek departments even came close.

In some of the classes we'd get to arguing over a particular problem and it would go on for the whole class. Heaven help you if you got picked to do a problem and were not prepared. You got to really see how visual vs sequential learners dealt with different classes of problems.

One of the things I took from math to other courses was the need to completely memorize certain things.