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JumpyTheFrog

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Everything posted by JumpyTheFrog

  1. After one month, I decided DS1 needed to go back to Derek Owens. It became obvious he wasn't really learning the material. He figured out some pattern in the answers that allowed him to eliminate 3 out of 5 choices, then do a problem partway and pick which remaining choice seemed more likely. I discovered this when the system showed he did several problems in 30-60 seconds, but when I wrote the problems on paper and told him to show me how to solve them, he couldn't even figure out how to get started. This also explains why he rarely had much work on his scratch paper. Now DS1 is a weasely kid, so now I can't recommend it for kids who hate school and will try to do the bare minimum. I still have DS2 using it for geometry because he actually does the problems, rather than guess at them. (Although he agrees with DS1 about the pattern in the answers.) But he has a different, more trustworthy personality, and I can see him writing down work. DS2 was starting to take too long to get his XP, so last week I switched it to doing three 20 minute "math sprints" with other subjects in between, rather than one long session, which was often taking him 1.5-2 hours because of general dawdling. It seems to be working better.
  2. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought the not judging voices part had become more general, but perhaps the posters meant it more as "Men shouldn't judge women for NOT having the submissive voice." If that's what they meant, then I agree. People shouldn't be trying to make women put on these affectations.
  3. That's true, but I think most people depend on their voice to earn their living, at least to some degree. Is it the same as a professional speaker? Of course not, but most people would struggle in their jobs if they completely lost their voices. Just like we advise people to wear cleans clothes that fit reasonably well and fit the culture of a place in order to be taken seriously, I think we should encourage people to drop the affectations. Note that I said affectation, which isn't the same as a stutter or having a high-pitched voice. For those of you who don't think we shouldn't actively encourage people to improve their voices, does this mean not trying to get our kids to stop mumbling? (Serious question...no snark intended.) DS14 tends to be a mumbler. It has been a multi-year battle to get him to cut down on it. Sometimes when tired or upset he reverts to being more mumbly, then he gets mad when we can't understand him. I was once in a Sunday School class with a teacher from the local high school. When he read anything out loud he became so monotone that it was almost impossible to pay attention. (He didn't speak like that.) While agree that the standards are different for anyone who regularly does public speaking for a living, I think the importance of a voice is underestimated. This Art of Manliness episode about The Fascinating Secrets of Your Voice is almost two years old, so I don't remember much of it, but I do remember it being interesting. He talks about vocal fry, uptalk, and airy voices vs voices with edge.
  4. That is creepy. I wonder if there is a market for proctoring centers where you can go take paper and pencil tests? I also wonder if oral exams will become more popular.
  5. I need to push back on the idea that only women are judged for their voices. I listen to probably 2+ hours of podcasts per day, and I can assure you that various voice affectations do distract from someone's message. Yesterday I was listening to a male professor who had good information, but his endless uptalk was annoying. Vocal fry is another trait that is a distraction, just like someone who uses endless filler words.
  6. Do you have problems with your kids not understanding what cheating is? My kids are 18 and 14, and it seems like it takes sooooooo much work to try to get them to understand the line between cheating and not cheating. When we were kids, it was easy. If you were taking a quiz or test in school and used any resource, it was cheating, unless it was specifically allowed. The ability to google everything, plus these websites that solve math problems for you seems to muddle things up in their minds. DS18 (ADHD and ODD) in particular is weasely, and last week I had to lecture about how the default is supposed to be use NOTHING on a test or quiz UNLESS told it's allowed. He seems to think the default now for everybody is that resources are allowed unless specifically banned. I've heard that students seems to have a harder time now understanding plagiarism. When I was dealing with that a few months ago, I stumbled across a website talking about patchwriting, which is the term used to described when students think they aren't plagiarizing because they changed a few things here and there. I printed out info from multiple websites, and this was much more helpful in getting through to DS18 than my attempts to say that he had plagiarized when he thought he hadn't. Somehow it seems that reminders to not patchwrite didn't make him defensive. Anyway, I don't want this thread to be all about my kids. I just wanted to see if others are observing the same thing with students now.
  7. They say the algorithm takes time to finish a problem into consideration. For example, a right answer done quickly shows more progress than taking a while. The goal is to get topics not just mastered, but automatic. We'll need to use it longer to be able to tell if their system is successful at it. One claim is that they break topics down into much smaller pieces. They specifically said that a typical calculus book will have everything broken down into something like 100 lessons, but they break it down into 600 lessons, so the difficulty is gradually increased one piece at a time. (I may be misremembering those numbers, but it's something along those lines.) I'll give an example of how this worked in my algebra 1 course today. (These may have been pre-algebra topics they thought I needed.) First I had to find the area of a triangle with easy numbers. I got the first two problems correct quickly, so it upped the difficulty. Then it started having me find the length of one side knowing the other side and the total area. Then it started giving me triangles with heights drawn to two different sides. I had to find the area of the triangle using one height, then use that area to find the height drawn to the other side when given the length of the other side. Finding the area of trapezoids was similar. It started with the most basic problems, then switched to having me calculate the height or the length of a base given the area, then finally had me calculate the area of a triangle that was part of the trapezoid.
  8. Quizzes seem to be around every 120-150 XP, so about once a week.
  9. Examples of DS 2's lessons yesterday (38% through geometry): surface area of spheres equations of lines in standard form (He can easily do slope-intercept form, but for some reason doing it this way confuses him.) 30-60-90 triangle triangle proportionality theorem Tomorrow's lessons: review: reflections of geometric figures in Cartesian plane trig ratios using Pythagorean theorem intro to inverse functions calculating side lengths of right triangles using trig
  10. As I said, I took the algebra 1 diagnostic test and did very well. It's a little strange which random pre-algebra topics MA keeps having me do. It seems to think that I need to practice finding the area of triangles and trapezoids. I'm wondering if the diagnostic test didn't include these topics, so it's assuming I don't know how to do them.
  11. They say they use a spaced repetition system. I love using Anki for studying foreign languages, and DS2 needs regular review of older math topics. (That's one reason I thought I'd have him try Saxon Geometry.) Most of the questions are multiple choice, although for Algebra 1 I occasionally have one where I have to type in the answer. I don't know if either boy has had problems like that. The algorithm also has us working through several topics at a time, which I think they do for interleaving. I can see it's usefulness, but I'm also a little annoyed about it. I was hoping DS1 could use it to shore up a couple topics so he can finish the first semester of DO's Calc AB. He can click on topics in the table of contents and do a short lesson, but it doesn't seem to affect the algorithm, so I have no way of knowing if it will have him do those topics next week or several months from now. I originally told him we could try MathAcademy (MA) as an experiment. I was hoping the remaining topics he needed would come up quickly so he would know enough to do the chapter 4 homework for DO, and then he could take the midterm and be done. (DS1 is tired of the DO videos. He seems to prefer reading through one example at a time in MA, but it hasn't been long enough for me to know if the teaching is as good or better.)
  12. Extra XP is awarded if you get every question in a lesson correct, and this has led to both my sons working more carefully. Since they have to earn a certain amount of XP per day, they really want the bonus points.
  13. The diagnostic test placed DS1 at 38% through Calc AB and DS2 at a similar percent through Geometry. I tested at about 85% through Algebra 1. Things I like so far: The problems are generally designed to not need calculators, although DS2 does need a calculator for trig values. The interface is clean and not cluttered. Both kids seem to like earning XP and seeing if they have been promoted to a higher league than me. This is the least complaining I've heard about math in a long, long time. If you don't do well on a quiz, it has you review the relevant topics, and then you can retake it a day or two later. Things I don't like: One XP is supposed to equal approximately one minute of focused work. I'd say that for all three of us each XP averages 2-3 minutes of work. That said, DS2 will work for 1 1/2 hours to get 25-30 XP. If you reconfigure the course, it may require the student to take a long diagnostic test. I changed some settings for DS and now it wants him to complete a test that looks like it will take 3 hours to finish. I can't see a way to undo this and have him go back to the original course mode.
  14. I wasn't able to find many reviews for Math Academy, so I thought I'd start keeping a log of our experiences. Background: DS1 Algebra 1: AOPS (first half of book) Geometry: first half of Jacob's (2nd ed.), ch 5-12 from Derek Owens, two chapters from Thinkwell Algebra 2: Foerster Precalc: Derek Owens Calc AB: has currently finished 3 of 4 chapters of the first semester with Derek Owens DS2 Algebra 1: Foerster Geometry: first 25 lessons of Saxon DS1 started MathAcademy's Calc AB course two weeks ago and DS2 started Geometry three weeks ago. I decided to also use them, and I tested out of most of algebra 1 and will finish it in a few weeks.
  15. Has anybody here with previous HG gone on to have a pregnancy with normal levels of morning sickness?
  16. That's great! How old does he have to open an investment account there? In my area, it seems like banks don't want to bother with offering even savings accounts for kids. Even most of the online banks don't offer them to anyone under 18. I opened one for DS17 when he needed an account for direct deposit for his job. When I checked a few months ago, it was pay 0.3% interest when the adult accounts were paying over 4%! What a ripoff! Where I play indoor soccer, there are tables next to the field. It's common for about half of each team to stay after the game for another 20-60 minutes to chat, half-heartedly watch the next game, and sometimes buy a pitcher of beer to share. In contrast, there aren't any tables next to the field where I play outdoor soccer. This means that everyone's default is to hop in their cars and go home. Nobody really accidentally meets people from the other team. In the mid-90s my parents babysat a set of 14 twin girls for the weekend. They were quite surprised my parents let them use steak knives because their parents wouldn't let them use knives. I'm not sure about the reasons for other parents, but we can't be the only parents who didn't allow sleepovers because of hearing about how many kids were molested by trusted people such as coaches. When I was 15 my boyfriend was having to testify in court about how he and his best friend had been molested by their Boy Scout leader maybe a year or two before. I don't know any of the details because I assumed he didn't want to talk about it, but it certainly made me aware that not everyone who seems trustworthy is.
  17. I would look at getting a Going.com membership to see what sort of cheap flights you can find. It's cheaper to travel by finding good deals on flights and figuring out what you want to do there than by choosing a place first and then looking for tickets.
  18. I don't really remember learning to read. My mom says she went through some book with me before I went to school, but she doesn't remember any details about it. I guess our school didn't use phonics because she wound up buying "Hooked on Phonics" to help my younger brother when he was having trouble reading in 2nd or 3rd grade. I went through Phonics Pathways with my own kids. It was useful, but it didn't go far enough. @ElizabethB has lessons about dividing words into syllables that helped with longer words, and my younger son also needed the extra help of Rewards Intermediate. So why am I bumbling along with making this YouTube channel you ask? It's because the state of reading in this country is so terrible, yet I know most parents won't ever even think of looking for phonics programs to go through with their kids. I'm hoping the videos inspire regular parents to work with their kids - parents who wouldn't come across this information in print. (This is aside from the surprisingly high percent of viewers from other countries where English isn't the native language.) Will I ever have everything in the best, most perfect order? Who knows. Can I help make a difference anyway? I hope so.
  19. I've added quite a few more videos since my last post, including videos on teaching sight words phonetically. Now I have a few more questions as I design my next program. It seems like many reading programs start with short vowel sounds and wait a while to introduce long vowel sounds. It seems like this results in having to teach many common words, such as "I," "a," and "the" as sight words. Is there some benefit to waiting to introduce long vowel sounds that I'm not aware of? Do you think new and remedial readers would feel successful faster if the program introduced a few sounds at a time and then had them reading words and sentences with just those sounds rather than learning all the basic sounds for all the letters before learning to read any words? For example, I was thinking of working with just 5-6 consonants and 1 vowel to start. I made a spreadsheet of all the phonograms and their frequency so way I can teach them the most common sounds first, keeping in mind that some consonants are easier to learn first.
  20. Can you share more about this? We all got Covid last December, and ever since then, we've been getting sick about every 4-5 weeks, even my son and husband who previous rarely got sick. I think the longest any of us have gone without a cold or worse this year has been two months.
  21. When did AP courses start to have so much work? In high school I usually had about two hours of homework per weeknight, even the year I took AP calc, US History, and Chemistry. For chemistry we only had six tests for the entire year, but they were each two hours long and made up entirely of old AP questions. When I read about students taking AP classes today, it sounds like they have so much busy work!
  22. Do you have any suggestions for where parents can find books for reluctant readers? I never had to deal with this myself.
  23. Now I wonder if I should have a video about helping kids find books they like to read. What would be some for reluctant late-elementary or middle school readers? I didn't have reluctant readers, but I know that Diary of a Wimpy Kid was a big hit here.
  24. Do you think parents want an ordered path, as in watch the videos in this order? Or would some sort of placement test to help find specific videos be more useful?
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