Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources EPGY at school

It was much easier with ALEKS, especially as that teacher was adamant about having regular scores from quizzes & homework to plug into his grading software. I manually generated quizzes based on recent topics and homework based on any trouble spots. I couldn't produce the equivalent of chapter tests, so his only test scores came from the end-of-year tests from (and based on) the school's curriculum.

With EPGY, I still manually prepare his homework based on problem areas, but have no feature in EPGY for generating quizzes like ALEKS (which is a very cool feature!). I report his percentage correct on in-class work at the middle and end of the quarter and his teacher averages that with his homework grades. At the end of the course (which is rapidly approaching), EPGY has a 70+ problem "final" that he must take, and then he will also take the end-of-year test from the school's curriculum, just as he did with ALEKS.

They have an extensive catalog that goes up to college level and ventures well beyond math:
http://www.aleks.com/about_aleks/course_products

As mentioned in the previous post, I produce the homework packet daily based on the work completed in class. In ALEKS this was really easy -- I just created a "custom quiz" and included the problem types (and qty of each) he needed to practice, printed it out (along with the answer key) and -*poof*- homework was ready.

Producing homework for EPGY is a bit more convoluted. Because EPGY has no "create-a-quiz" feature, I simply took screen-caps of any missed problems from the day's session and pasted them into a word-processor. For the times he has needed additional practice, I've resorted to creating problems from scratch and/or finding web-based worksheet generators. The problem generators were especially useful during his extended battle with the 3-digit-long-division-beast-from-hell.

Here's a great discussion regarding EPGY & ALEKS:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/62015/1.html

I started out looking for help in choosing between ALEKS & EPGY and the conversation really took off in a few different directions.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the switch to EPGY, as it has proven to be much more demanding... but I really, really, REALLY wish EPGY & ALEKS could join forces.

I'm going to look at Thinkwell over spring break because the sample lectures were excellent -- I just need to see how the rest of the program works.

And... when our son is ready, Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) will be another consideration:
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com

Question about the EPGY open enrollment for those of you who are in it (since I think any of you will know, I thought I'd ask here rather than pestering melmichigan by PM): which maths courses are available in it? Initially it was said to be just K-6 but I think more were added later, only there are now so many hundreds of posts about this that it's hard to find! I've seen mention of a Beginning Algebra course I think, but did I read something about this being a slower-paced version than their tutored course (M011)? Looking at http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/index.html I don't think DS would stand for MOWC (5-6) even given that EPGY is said to be harder than ALEKS - he's finished ALEKS 6 and we wouldn't have "space" for EPGY until he's finished ALEKS Chemistry [or as much as he does, don't really ?want to? believe he's going to finish this] and Descartes' Cove, both of which he's in the middle of at the moment and both of which are reinforcing a lot of that material and more. But I do think it might be time to try something different from ALEKS, so I thought maybe M0WD (7th) or M011 depending how he gets on with Chemistry and the rest of DC. But I'm worried about the repetition thing, and definitely don't want to put him in at too low a level, that won't work; he doesn't have the emotional maturity just to speed through stuff that's too easy to get to the good stuff.

Also, is there a significant date approaching e.g. the beginning of a new school year?

oops, sorry I missed that before. Thanks for the information. It sounds like a perfect match for DS5 at this point. What do you all do for reading or LA? DS5 is several years ahead in that as well. Right now they use a computer program for that too...which may be okay to continue.

Actually ALEKS is more expensive for a year compared to the EPGY Open Enrollment program. If you are talking the Individual Program then yes, EPGY is more hands down.

(Sorry, my computer has been down so I haven't been on the board to reply. )

Wow, this thread has taken off. I am really interested in how you guys have handled issues where your DS or DD has had trouble with a particular subjet. My son whipped through K and the first half of 1st, but is really having a hard time with double digit addition. He just doesn't get the ones and tens column concept. What should we do? Any resources you would suggest?

Stop for a while and play with money: dimes and pennies.

How about poker chips? Whites = 1, Blues = 10 and Reds = 100. You can stack them up and play games trading equal numbers.

I'm inferring that it's the concept of the columns and not just keeping them straight on paper. Otherwise, graph paper helps immensely, or you can turn notebook paper sideways. My kids understood the concepts far before they could keep their columns straight without some kind of ruled line to help.

*Asked a question here, but discovered better place for it in other thread, so I deleted this one*