Can we talk geometry?

[Chrysalis Academy]

Sure. You can do the Introduction to Geometry course through Edx:

 

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-geometry-schoolyourself-geometryx

 

or you can cover the same material on the schoolyourself.org website:

 

https://schoolyourself.org/learn

 

 

The lessons all work the same way: there is a short, interactive video that starts with a review of needed background material and then moves into the current topic. Concepts are presented, and there are frequent problems you have to solve in order to move on. If you solve them correctly, the lesson continues. If you solve them incorrectly, you get an explanation of the correct answer. If you can't solve them and want a review, you can click on that and get a background lesson.These interactive teaching videos are unique, in that the student chooses her path through the lesson, based on whether they need more explanation or the get it. There are a lot of paths through the videos. They can go very quickly if it is review, and take longer if the student accesses new teaching, but I don't think any of them are more than 10 minutes long.  After you've done the interactive lesson, you then do a set of mastery exercises. They are also adaptive, so if you answer things correctly you move on to harder questions and get through the problem set quickly.  If you struggle with the early questions, you get more easy questions and gently ramp up. You can go back to the lesson and review at any time.

 

The adaptive nature of the problem sets is a huge strength for students who get it and are easily bored with repetition - I have one of those - but it also can be a weakness, in that you don't really get enough practice to truly cement a new concept. I've found that of course the problem sets are pretty easy right after you do the lesson, but if you breeze through the problem set, you might not remember everything a couple of days or a week later. You can always go back and review, though, either because you realize you need to, or because you can't solve the review problem on a later lesson!

 

The material on schoolyourself and EdX are identical, but the discipline of the EdX course, where it keeps track of your score on each problem set and your overall score in the class and displays it graphically, makes it easier to track your student's progress, so I'd do that one if I were you. It's self-paced, but set up to cover the material over - 16 weeks, I think?  But it is easy to do alongside other stuff, or would be ideal summer math.  Shannon and I did AlgebraX and GeometryX at the same time. So it definitely wouldn't be anything like an hour a day, just a nice supplement.

 

I also have the Great Courses Geometry course. I guess I should watch it . . . I'm so not excited about that! Which is why I think I should outsource. I just don't have the juice to be a good geometry teacher. The question on the table for us is whether Shannon can self-teach with me as a coach and facilitator, the way she has for Algebra. I'm sure she could, but I worry what we'll do if it gets to be mid-year and she gets stuck and I just can't help her enough. That's where the insurance of a class would make me feel better. 

[Farrar]

Rose, thank you for that description. So this is something you think kids are mostly capable of tackling after pre-algebra or concurrently with algebra?

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yes, definitely.

[deerforest]

I had to give this thread a bump and give Rose a virtual hug and also to admit that I've apparently been holding DD back.

 

I'm an algebraic thinker, and I thought DD was too. She took to algebraic concepts very easily so I just assumed it was her way of thinking and since I didn't like geometry as much, I just sorta assumed she wouldn't either. So, I've basically ignored geometry, but she got really into it with BA 5A, which I got only because she still loves BA even though we've long since moved to pre-algebra. The other 2 chapters were just review, but she adored the solids chapter. I barely survived it.

 

So, then we started watching the EdX Geometry, and we are flying through it because she loves it so much. She looked up after the first day and asked if we could find more stuff exactly like this class.

 

Uh, well, okay, then! I guess I'm not afraid of teaching geometry (I have Jacobs waiting for us), and I guess we'll just start playing with Patty Paper geometry now too. I think I can just kinda put it in front of her and have her figure this out. 

 

Thank goodness!