Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments online algebra options?

DD11 is taking 8th grade algebra. However, she is frustrated with the pace of the class. She needs the class's content, but she needs it to move faster. Her school cannot do curriculum compacting, but they will work with us to find another option. They mentioned an online class, but it is not for gifted kids and therefore requires lots of repetition, which would drive DD crazy.

Does anyone know of an online math source that allows the child to go at her own pace, perhaps testing out of sections and/or only having to do 1/3 of the written practice questions before being tested on the concepts? She enjoys Khan academy, but there are no tests, so the school can't really see that she has learned the concepts.

Thanks!

Not sure if this would work for you but the Art of Problem Solving might be interesting to look into http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/
It would provide greater challenge and depth, not necessarily faster though.

ALEKS pretests, only instructs in content not yet mastered, and has a low bar in terms of repetition (typically 3-5 questions) for demonstrating skill mastery. They are set up to work with school districts for the RTI process, also, which may be a selling point for the school.

Aleks also allows you to set up your own quizzes, which allowed our ds to show mastery of each topic by being quizzed on exactly the number and type of problems his school wanted to see for credit. Everything is tied back to state standards and you can easily generate reports tied to state standards which is another good piece of info to have for school credit. Aleks worked really we'll for our ds who likes math and doesn't need repitition to learn math concepts - he moved through the curriculum relatively quickly.

polarbear

Our son, DS11, is taking a class with Art of Problem Solving. He loves it! They do move quite fast. It's a 16 week class for Algebra 1.

If you don't want to take online class, they also offer free online learning called "Alcumus"!
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Alcumus/Introduction.php

You can choose to follow the textbook and work on a particular topic, and they also provide a detailed progress report. They provide detailed explanation / solution for each problem after you've answered them.

Thanks so much for all the ideas. It looks like Art of Problem Solving's algebra classes are in the evenings. Are all their classes in the evenings? We are hoping to find something that she can do during the school day during the same time that she would normally take algebra.

I'm going to look into Aleks and Kinetics some more. I also sent a note to the teacher asking if the district's requirements would be met by either of them.

The Art of Problem Solving class is once a week in the evening (late afternoon for Pacific Time). There is a weekly homework, as well as 4 challenge sets (about once a month). In addition, they also need to keep up with Alcumus. On average, they need to spend about 5-8 hours a week, including the time they spend in online class.

So that's what our son does during math time at school: working independently on Alcumus or weekly homework, which will involve working through some problems on the textbook, too. When he has questions, he has his textbook that he can refer to at school, or I'll help him once he's home.

It's not ideal since his interaction with classmates is limited to online interaction, rather than the physically in the classroom during math time. However, given the choice between this or working at a very slow pace at school, he happily chooses AoPS/Alcumus.

Ds11 took the EPGY Beginning Algebra course online. Concepts are demonstrated, then a few problems presented, if you get through these (2-5 problems) you move on.
The course has no testing that I am aware of, but one could presumably make some tests to go along with the course or contact EPGY to see what they recommend for fitting into/getting credit at a regular school for the course.

http://epgy.stanford.edu/

DS very much appreciate the lack of repetition.