Practice Makes Perfect

Tired of using the same tired math problems?IXL has thousands of online math worksheets for pre-K through sixth grade that cover everything from geometric figures to basic math facts. The problems can be customized to meet student needs and the teacher can get a progress report. It’s free for 30-days and costs $200 for the typical 30-student classroom.

More Math

If figuring out new and creative math assignments and lessons has you down, Key Curriculum Press’s Critical Math can help with a slew of online content. The interactive activities not only help students relate to the assignments but they actually retain it. The service is aligned with state standards, is meant to augment the traditional teaching of Algebra 1 and 2 as well as Geometry courses and comes with lesson plans, worksheets and teacher notes. It will be available in September.

Math Help for those in Need

What math class doesn’t have one or two students that never seem to catch up with the class and are always lagging behind the group. Here’re are two ways to make sure that those in need of a little extra instruction and practice get it and the rest of the class doesn’t get bogged down.

HotMath can help with a service called Catchup Math that seeks to help at-risk math students. The online remediation program starts with a 15-minute quiz to establish what the student’s strengths and weaknesses are, which then moves on to a structured series of reviews and practice problems. There are videos, games and interactive activities to help reinforce the material and drill the student. Catchup Math is for those having trouble in Pre-algebra, Algebra 1 and 2 as well as Geometry. Along the way, teachers get progress reports, scores and an idea of how much time was spent on each topic so they can fine tune the process. Discounted school pricing for the 2009-10 school year starts at $3 per student.

Guaranteach’s Web site lets teachers customize a curriculum for each child based on their abilities and needs. After filling out a 30-question survey, the program identifies what help the student needs and how best to approach the situation. Guaranteach then creates an individualized lesson plan. On top of quizzes, there’s a textbook reference tool and more than 5,000 instructive videos. The service costs $4.95 a month per student. 

Supercharged Calculator

The graphing calculator takes a big step forward for teachers and students with two new sites from calculator maker Texas Instruments that are chock full of customizable lessons, examples and help for the numerophobic. There’s a TI Npsired site for algebra and geometry that are aligned to popular textbooks and state standards and have lots of downloadable assignments and teaching resources. No surprise, the focus is on lesson plans that use the handheld devices to help kids learn about everything from linear functions to transformational geometry.

 

Next Gen Geometry

Teachers heading to this week’s NCTM conference can get a sneak peek of Key Curriculum Press’s next version of Geometer’s SketchPad. It’s still under development but Version 5 of Geometer’s SketchPad provides more power and the ability for students and teachers to more fully use algebraic expressions. The program’s Learning Center has click-by-click tutorials as well as fully built classroom activities. The best part is the LessonLink online library of curriculum keeps growing, which has to make teaching math a lot easier. The program should be out by this fall and you can sign up for information about the program.

Math Tutor on Call

Nothing can come close to a well-trained and experienced math teacher to help kids master the intricacies of algebra, geometry and early calculus, but it seems that there are too many struggling students and too few teachers to help them. HotMath’s Tutoring Plus can help students in need of extra attention because the online service not only has a series of helpful how-to videos for most math concepts, lessons on how to best use popular graphing calculators, practice exams and help with the odd problems of 200 popular math textbooks but actual live tutors on call to show kids how to do major operations and solve examples on a digital white board. Whether it’s resolving quadratic equations or word problems, there’s always a qualified teacher to show the way via online video. It’s all personalized, although several kids having similar problems can watch at once. At the school level, the service costs as little as 75 cents and 15 cents per student per year for the problem solving and videos. The online one-on-one tutoring costs $19 an hour with volume discounts available.

 

A Smarter Way to Teach Math

Does this sound familiar? Either math education programs are too simple with cartoon like graphics or are too complex for your students. Britannica’s SmartMath is versatile enough for first through sixth grade classes. Based on the Planetii program, SmartMath is divided into 91 individual skill topics and correlates to established math standards. There are 35,000 practice questions and can track students’ progress.

Gaming by the Numbers

Tired of dealing with bored kids whose attention is fixated on a Gameboy or Playstation game and not on the algebra you’ve written on the board? Try teaching through a game, like Tabula Digita’s DimensionM MultiPlayer 2.0, a computer game that can sneak in math instruction while the kids think they’re playing. I know it sounds sneaky but it works. Students can play alone or against each other in a series of missions that correspond to over teaching 200 math concepts and skills. Aimed at 3- to 12-graders, the program is aligned to state standards, can introduce and reinforce concepts and track a student’s progress.

Instant Tutor

Hotmath may have the answer to kids who need some extra after-school one-on-one help. The online math site now offers online tutors anytime day or night to explain everything from the order of operations to geometric proofs. The first 50 minutes of help costs $5, but after that this program costs $20 per 50 minute period.

A Minute of Math

Not much has changed in the past hundred years with practice and assessment being the keys to instilling math facts at an early age. The big step forward is the ability of Mad Minute Math to help kids get the fundamentals of addition and subtraction or multiplication and division in a lively, interactive and fun setting. The program has several timed puzzles that need to be solved – you got it – in a minute. The best part is that teachers can leave students to explore these math problems and then go over their strengths and weaknesses. The program costs $98 or $329 for a lab or $689 for a site license.