Video Text vrs Chalkdust

[christine in al]

I'm calling up here to you highschool folks to ask which direction to head.

It's down to these two, ( with a Lial's pre-year possible if that's what lots of folks suggest)

What say the sages of the HighSchool Baord ?

~Christine in al

[Leanna Tomlinson]

My two dc, who have done both programs, would say Chalkdust. They both did VideoText for Algebra, and Chalkdust for Geometry, SAT Prep, and PreCalc. Both my dd and ds love Dana Mosely's teaching. They also prefer having a real textbook for reference verses the "class notes" provided by VideoText.

The lack of a textbook with VideoText was very frustrating for my dd when she was reviewing for tests.

[KnitWit]

We have done ALL Chalkdust and have NO regrets!

 

The *only* experience I have with VT is via a friend's kid who got frustrated and ended up with a tutor on top of VT...which, can mean nothing about VT

[Grace is Sufficient]

In our house, VT was wonderful, and CD got dumped after a couple of months. Our high school schedule was too busy to spend 45 minutes to over an hour (!) watching the lecture, before even getting starting on the problem sets.

 

I can certainly see the benefit of the written textbook for review, however, but we were generally able to make do with the lesson summaries in the student book, with occasionally rewatching a video if something hadn't sunk in well enough.

 

Blessings,

Debbie

[Susan C.]

I'm calling up here to you highschool folks to ask which direction to head.

It's down to these two, ( with a Lial's pre-year possible if that's what lots of folks suggest)

What say the sages of the HighSchool Baord ?

~Christine in al

 

We did both, and didn't like either....:tongue_smilie:

 

Both are very different. The largest consideration is that Video Text does algebra over two years one time. That is very different, and a very large negative IMHO. Here's why. Algebra is hard enough to do and remember. Traditional programs do Algebra 1 (algebra kind of light), then Geometry, then Algebra 2 (review of Algebra 1 concepts, going much deeper and adding more concepts in prep for precalc.). So with the traditional method you get algebra twice. I think it takes at least two passes of algebra to have it stick (and what if people did it three times.... oh what a thought). Also, I found Video Text having a strange review structure, you review what you did the day before, then the tests were spaced too far apart. That was frustrating. Then, when we got half way through VT (at the end of the year), I found out that we were not ready for chemistry, which needed a full year of algebra. It is also hard to bail from VT, you need to do five of the six modules to get a true Algebra 1.

 

For Chalkdust, I liked the traditional structure, but it was too fast and too hard for both of my kids. But, my kids are more creative and not math/science types. If you have mathy kids, they would probably love CD. I would also look at Lial's since it gets such good reviews.

 

HTH

[christine in al]

This is extremely helpful.

I honestly was leaning that way, but it's so nice to have folks who are farther along, holler back some ideas of the terran ahead.

Thank you for taking thie time to reply :-)

~c.

[Pemberley]

We own both VT and CD for Alegbra 1.
I LOVE Dana Mosely's teaching...LOVE it...but 45 minutes is way too long for a teenager to sit through.
We tried pausing the video each day and working some problems and then coming back the next day to unpause and watch some more.
With 4 kids total who all use our video player, that simply was too much work on our part.

I hated having to pick through the text book and select problems for my son to finish. 180 problems for one lesson is simply too much...even if we did half of those...still too much.

BUT...I love Dana's teaching. It's thorough. It's clear. It's understandable.

VT, however, offers so little review that I am was worried about it.
Until my son remembered to multiply by the reciprocal on both sides without me telling him to do so.

It dawned on me that VT was setting a foundation for my son. It is THAT foundation that I am hoping he continues to build his math knowledge.

It's sinking in with him. VT also has some computer animations that will help to very clearly explain 3-D concepts...like parabolas. I'm looking forward to finishing it. If my son needs to review something, we'll spend a few days on the concept until I know he gets it. VT offers plenty of practice for that. If we need to back up and practice prior learned concepts, I can pull from work in past lessons.

[Musicmom]

Both my dc did Videotext. They really liked it and felt it laid a solid foundation for them. They did well with the video presentations, and the 2 year sequence worked quite well for us, especially since they each started Algebra in 7th grade. Thus, they had all of Videotext finished by the time they hit high school, so the algebra required for chemistry and physics was no problem.

 

On at least a couple of occasions, I had them watch a lecture by Dana Mosley of Chalkdust--one was at the CD booth at a convention where they were showing videos as a demonstration (we were trying to decide which program at that time also), and the other time was an online lecture that Mosley did on a math topic we were trying to learn more about (maybe it was for test prep, or a concept in precalc... I can't remember.) But anyway, on both occasions my kids (and I) found the Chalkdust lectures long, tedious and boring. We didn't relate to the style at all, and thus it was hard to learn from. So, Chalkdust would have been a flop at our house.

 

But that's not the case for everyone. Different styles and approaches work for different people. So, my suggestion would be to try to have your dc watch some demo lectures of each program and see which one clicks for them. Try to anticipate also how the problem sets, number of problems and amount of review are going to work for your particular kids. I've found that the best curriculum is often the one that gets done--and the one that gets done is usually the one that clicks best for the child.