Need some math perspective

[Miss Marple]

My 14 yo has always found math to be a chore. He is very right brained and we have tried to accommodate that learning style. I am finding that there is another aspect to his learning that my other boys never exhibited. He tires of doing the same subject/text for very long. He is the perfect student for semester long courses. I've thought about block scheduling (like our public high school), but it doesn't work well within our co-op and with the other boys.

 

So...we're plodding through Jacob's Algebra and there is no way he will finish by the time we stop for summer. I'm considering a couple of options:

 

1. Make him work through the summer on Jacob's because it was his lack of motivation and responsible work that has caused him to be behind. But we'll both suffer...

 

2. Let him finish Jacob's next year (9th grade) and begin geometry in 10th.

 

3. Let him end the year where ever he happens to fall in Jacob's, begin a geometry program over the summer (I have Math-U-See) and pick up Jacob's in the fall and do geometry interspersed with the last half of algebra 1.

 

4. I'm open to any and all suggestions.

 

If we stop Jacob's, is there a "best point to stop" in the text so that a long break would not be detrimental?

 

FYI: We do have a busy summer planned - at least until mid July. We will be ending school May 5. June brings all sorts of Boy Scout, church VBS, volunteer activities.

[LoriM]

I'd stop with Jacobs when school is over, pick up Geometry in the fall for one semester, and then do an entirely different Algebra 1 program (traditional, any you want) next spring. You'll need to assign one section per day, quizzes/tests on a regular schedule, and be his drillmaster (grin) for him to get through Algebra 1...and then press on into Algebra 2. Hire a tutor if you need to, but you'll just have to "encourage" him to do math daily, with carrots and sticks as needed. Don't use his learning style or brained-ness :) as an excuse for not doing math, but definitely take it into account *as* he does his math. Let him work on a white board (dry erase) instead of neatly-defined rows, or have him do problems for "himself" but present the solutions to three-five problems on poster board once a week. In colors. With drawings. :)

 

Whatever it takes...

[Leanna Tomlinson]

I think MUS Geometry can be completed easily in one semester. So if you want to continue Algebra next fall, your ds should still have time to complete MUS Geometry in the 2nd half of 9th grade.

 

However, if you don't want to push it, repeat Algebra I in 9th, do Geometry in 10th, Algebra II in 11th, and then Pre-Calc in 12th. This is plenty of math for a kid who is not going into a math related field.

 

I tried to push my eldest dd in high school because I thought she had to have pre-calc before the SAT. I regret pushing because it did not help her at all. She ended up hating math and eventually had to take remedial Algebra in college. No, it did not prevent her from getting a partial scholarship, and she ended up loving algebra the second time around.:)

[Brindee]

It looks like you 13yo ds is using LoF Beginning Algebra. Some people have compared LoF and Jacobs (I think it was, maybe it was ALEKS?) and they cover the same things (see 2008 posts). Would having him stop what he's doing now, have a break, and do the LoF starting in July work?

[Miss Marple]

No, LOF would not work for this fella. He does fine with the math, but he just needs a lot more practice than LOF would give him. LOF is great for the youngest, though.

[Miss Marple]

What would be the reason to change to a different algebra program after the geometry? Jacobs seems to be a good fit in that he does fine with it (we're using the Callahan DVDs & syllabus). He just tries to do the least amount of work possible when it comes to math. Obviously he hasn't thought it through and realized that he's going to have to do the work sometime. He was quite taken aback when I told him that he would have to work through the summer because Algebra is a 1 year program and he needed to finish it in 1 year.

 

I'm partly to blame in that I have allowed him to make too many excuses about *why* he didn't get the assigned work done. He started out being diligent, but since math isn't a favorite subject, it tended to get pushed to the end of the day and eventually he would just "run out of time" and carry it over to the next day.

 

I think I need to find the right carrot....

[Miss Marple]

I looked over the MUS and it certainly appears that one could complete it in a semester. If we started it this summer, he might be able to pick the algebra back up before Christmas. I've heard that these kids tend to do better with geometry than algebra...we'll see.

[rockala]

and am off to the hs convention today. I do know and have briefly seen that MUS is revised now with the honors worked into it. My dd 13 is only on lesson 10 of Alg I.

 

Here is the question I plan to ask-If we get to say lesson 18/19 before summer (end of June) at one per week. MUS geometry has review algebra worked in- can we run the programs simultaneously? I know it is more work but it could be a good thing and would only be for the first semester.

 

However seeing the new updated MUS, makes me want to perhaps buy the new student text and have her work thorugh that. The honors portion covers more of the LOF style of word problems I believe. I will see what they say.

 

kathy

[LoriM]

The main reason to try a different Algebra 1 program next spring after a Geometry break would be to mix up the presentation/problem-solving approaches. Despite his right-brainedness, a more traditional program would be a good balance for the Jacobs-most-of-the-lesson-is-in-the-problem-sets :) system.

 

How is he working Jacobs? Does he work EVERY problem in Sets I, II, III and IV? If he's like a lot of hsers, he may only be working half the problems...and missing a lot of the challenging thought. The real instruction occurs in the problem sets, as the student deduces how to solve based on the work they've already done in the earlier problems.

 

Anyway, MUS Algebra 1 and MUS Geometry could certainly be done in one year (even with the honors component). That might fit for him...

 

Carrots are trickier to find than sticks, but taste better with butter.

[Miss Marple]

a more traditional program would be a good balance for the Jacobs-most-of-the-lesson-is-in-the-problem-sets system.

 

Now that's an interesting idea! We're using the Callahan dvds and syllabus which has the student do problems from all the sets. I find, though, that I often have him do more than the syllabus requires - and we do the tests as scheduled in Jacobs, not as the Callahan syllabus schedules it.

 

I hadn't thought about using MUS Algebra 1 - would you consider it a more traditional approach than Jacobs? I could also move him into Lial's Intro Algebra. His older brother did Lial's so I'm familiar with that. I've even considered putting him back in Singapore using NEM, but I'm just not sure about where I would place him. Would you recommend MUS over some of the more main-stream texts?

[LoriM]

Would you recommend MUS over some of the more main-stream texts?

 

Oh, no, not at all...I would just use whatever is handy. If you already own Lial's Intro Algebra, then by all means, pick and choose selectively from that. It's got thousands of great problems in there. :) Solving a few "traditional" Algebra problems and learning to use another style textbook is just a great skill before going much further in math. I frequently hand my Algebra I students a "new" book and have them work similar problems to the ones we are doing currently, and show them how different texts give directions for the same ideas.

 

(It's a canned lecture I have at this point--"solution," "zero," "root," and "x-intercept" are all the same thing. But students get SO confused with a set of problems that say "Find the solution to the system of equations." vs "Find the point where the two lines intersect." ...So I make a point of making sure they understand all those things are the same.)

[mcconnellboys]

I guess I'd choose option number 3. If he's like my extremely right brained son, then geometry may be a breeze for him and it may make him feel better about math to have some successes interspersed with the "hard stuff". My son struggled mightily with Algebra I and II, trig and pre-calc have been simpler, and if he continues to follow the pattern, I expect calculus to be easier still for him. There seem to be an increasing number of boys who exhibit this pattern when it comes to math learning. West talks about it some in his book "In the Mind's Eye"....