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http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/distance-learning-for-gifted-kids/
Distance learning for gifted kids
April 18, 2012
Filed under: home school — gasstationwithoutpumps @ 11:29
Tags: AP calculus, Art of Problem Solving, calculus, gifted kids, high school, home school, math education, online education

Suki Wessling, a local writer who is home-schooling her kids, recently wrote an article about distance-learning oppoturnites for gifted kids: Boutique distance learning offers variety for gifted kids – National gifted children | Examiner.com. We have not used any of the “boutique” services she mentioned, nor, for that matter the large services like Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth or Stanford’s Education Program for Gifted Youth.

There are several reasons we’ve been reluctant to use many on-line courses:

Many are quite expensive. EPGY courses are around $500 to $750, plus $50 registration and shipping fees, JHU-CTY courses are $500–$1280. I’d want to know that the course would be a very good fit and of higher quality than a corresponding community college class (about $300) before committing to an online course.

Too much screen time. My son already spends more time in front of a screen than is healthy (as do I, so I can’t chide him too much). At least with community college classes he gets the exercise of bicycling to the class (in fact, this provides so much exercise that it counts as his PE class: about 4 hours a week).

Difficulty in finding courses that fit his educational needs and interests. There are undoubtedly a number of courses that would be an excellent fit for him, but it is very difficult to distinguish them from other courses that have similar descriptions but would be at the wrong pace, wrong level, or have too much busy work.

So far we have only used one on-line course provider: Art of Problem Solving. A year ago, I posted about our experience with with their precalculus course: Good online math classes. My son did their calculus class this year with the same instructor, and we had similarly good results. The AoPS calculus classes are not cheap ($500 with books), but they were an excellent fit for my son. If I could be assured of as good a fit in other online courses, I would be more willing to use online providers.

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My comment: EPGY and CTY are cheap compared to the tuition of 4-year private colleges, if one is paying full freight. For example, Harvard's annual tuition is about $40K for two semesters of 4 courses each. That works out to $10K per full-year course, making an online calculus course for $1K look reasonable.

Hey, Bostonian,
Thanks for the post. Hopefully this isn't too OT, but DD and I did a trial run for home schooling in the Fall today (she was home recovering from stomach flu) and I am thinking because she likes to read so much that for history/ literature (English) it might work well to have her do reading on her own but in order to ensure even coverage as well as 'mastery' of a particular subject area I was wondering if we could combine some kind of self-reading program with worksheets/workbooks/checklists from either some kind of common core curriculum or some commercial product. Has anyone heard of something like this?

I must admit one of my concerns about homeschooling is that it might be too patchy to really be a good education. But I think some combination of rotating areas of concentration (e.g., this month it's Africa history/culture/cuisine; next month Australia), along with the worksheet etc. approach above, might work well to provide balance. Any thoughts?

DD13 started with Art of Problem Solving last year, and she is now taking her 3rd course (Counting & Probability). She really enjoys it and has good things to say about the teachers. DS10 will probably take Algebra over the summer.

Prior to Art of Problem Solving, we tried the Russian School of Mathematics (not distance learning, but a local option for Boston area residents). However, we were sorely disappointed. The teacher made some fairly simple mistakes involving rate problems.

https://www.coursera.org/#

Has anyone here tried Coursera? Some of the options looked pretty cool and the price is right (free).

Here's the link to the blog entry.

My son is starting Algebra 2 with an AoPS book. He reads it during math class at school and attempts problems, and then we work together on stuff he didn't understand later. We're impressed with how rigorous it is.