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Alcumus - is this enough?


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My 12yr old is using Alcumus. She enjoys seeing those green bars building up. It's a great visual for progress.

At the moment she's got about half of the Algebra list as green. The difficulty level is perfect. It's a good challenge, and some of them really stretch her, but she gets them out, usually on the first attempt.

My question is this: If she gets green in a section, does that mean it's mastered? Is there any need to do more from the corresponding sections in the book?

I realise that this will be different for each student, but I'm really asking if she may miss anything by only using Alcumus. This child loathes repetition, by the way. I don't want to be assigning more of the same just for the sake of it. But I also don't want to mistakenly assume that Alcumus is enough.

Thoughts?

Thanks for your help, as always.

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So your daughter is not using the AOPS text at all, and just Alcumus?

Alcumus is a supplement for practice that enhances the AOPS books, but I don't think it's a standalone curriculum. All the theory is in the books, and to me that's the main element of the program. Otherwise Alcumus is just a challenging math problem generator. 

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Thanks for your input and advice. It is much appreciated.

We do own the AoPS books and we used to work through them, but sometimes just jumping straight to the challenge problems was enough. In fact, that's all she did for the pre-algebra book back when she did that one. In hindsight, we probably could have jumped straight into algebra. I don't regret it though, because it was a nice gentle easing into AoPS-style problems.

My thinking is that if my daughter can do the challenge problems, then she must be grasping the underlying theory, whether we've read the whole chapter or not. I'm not sure if this is wonky logic or quite reasonable.

It's just that at the moment the format of Alcumus is appealing to my daughter. Every now and then she'll come to a problem on Alcumus that we hadn't yet done in any text (we don't only use AoPS), and then we'll crack open a book and work it out, often collaboratively.

My daughter is certainly quite capable and intuitive with maths, but it isn't a passion, so I tend to roll with the method that motivates her at that time.

 

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Often times all it took for my son to turn Alcumus green was 2-3 problems, so I don’t think Alcumus is enough. In fact the textbook itself doesn’t seem to have that many problems either, so we have always done it all and then Alcumus. 

However, this is an accelerated board and I know there are profoundly gifted kids amongs us here. If you have one of those PG kids, your path will be very different. I am a parent of an accelerated but not a gifted kid, so my answer is guided by that (just to give context). 

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27 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Often times all it took for my son to turn Alcumus green was 2-3 problems, so I don’t think Alcumus is enough. In fact the textbook itself doesn’t seem to have that many problems either, so we have always done it all and then Alcumus. 

However, this is an accelerated board and I know there are profoundly gifted kids amongs us here. If you have one of those PG kids, your path will be very different. I am a parent of an accelerated but not a gifted kid, so my answer is guided by that (just to give context). 

These are really good points. Thank you.

I have absolutely no idea of my daughter's LoG, or if she's technically gifted at all. We've never done any sort of evaluation. We've had no need to. I just sort of follow my nose with her, and try to offer what's best for her at that time. I do feel like I second-guess myself a lot though.

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1 hour ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Thanks for your input and advice. It is much appreciated.

We do own the AoPS books and we used to work through them, but sometimes just jumping straight to the challenge problems was enough. In fact, that's all she did for the pre-algebra book back when she did that one. In hindsight, we probably could have jumped straight into algebra. I don't regret it though, because it was a nice gentle easing into AoPS-style problems.

My thinking is that if my daughter can do the challenge problems, then she must be grasping the underlying theory, whether we've read the whole chapter or not. I'm not sure if this is wonky logic or quite reasonable.

It's just that at the moment the format of Alcumus is appealing to my daughter. Every now and then she'll come to a problem on Alcumus that we hadn't yet done in any text (we don't only use AoPS), and then we'll crack open a book and work it out, often collaboratively.

My daughter is certainly quite capable and intuitive with maths, but it isn't a passion, so I tend to roll with the method that motivates her at that time.

 

She does sound competent and capable! I’m glad she’s found Alcumus - it’s a great resource. Bars in the blue are considered mastery. If it’s any help the AOPS online courses expect students to do extra challenging problems and one fully written solution each week, in addition to passing off Alcumus topics.  In order to get an A in the classes I’ve noticed you’ve got to have the majority of the bars blue in edition to doing well on your challenge problems (dd got a B+ in geometry even with all the bars in green and over half in blue). I would read each chapter, watch any videos, and then try the challenge problems in the book. If you do well move on, if not go back to the specific topic you didn’t do well in and work the problems and exercises.

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7 minutes ago, Targhee said:

She does sound competent and capable! I’m glad she’s found Alcumus - it’s a great resource. Bars in the blue are considered mastery. If it’s any help the AOPS online courses expect students to do extra challenging problems and one fully written solution each week, in addition to passing off Alcumus topics.  In order to get an A in the classes I’ve noticed you’ve got to have the majority of the bars blue in edition to doing well on your challenge problems (dd got a B+ in geometry even with all the bars in green and over half in blue). I would read each chapter, watch any videos, and then try the challenge problems in the book. If you do well move on, if not go back to the specific topic you didn’t do well in and work the problems and exercises.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

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I will tell you my son’s story.  If it works don’t mess with it is my advice.  

My son spent his math time turning Alcumus blue once upon a time.  He showed me his progress weekly! Lol  I couldn’t motivate him with any other math and I have lots.  He did it on his own with help from his big sister, books, and Google, when he couldn’t figure it out. I never managed to get him to really do math from books again in a real way.  He went on to Coursera and other online mooc’s like MIT.  I spent years worrying about him not working formally through one of my books for each topic but the reality is that kid did not need to.  He could get A’s on year end subject exams and I left it there.   Btw,  he’s fine mathematically and has a math degree. ?

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21 minutes ago, Targhee said:

.  In order to get an A in the classes I’ve noticed you’ve got to have the majority of the bars blue in edition to doing well on your challenge problems (dd got a B+ in geometry even with all the bars in green and over half in blue). 

 

I am surprised at this. SeaConquest posted earlier (I hope she sees this one) that her son’s AOPS class in person considers green to be an A. I am telling my kid to keep up with the blues. I thought he had a buffer there, but maybe not. ?

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14 minutes ago, mumto2 said:

I will tell you my son’s story.  If it works don’t mess with it is my advice.  

My son spent his math time turning Alcumus blue once upon a time.  He showed me his progress weekly! Lol  I couldn’t motivate him with any other math and I have lots.  He did it on his own with help from his big sister, books, and Google, when he couldn’t figure it out. I never managed to get him to really do math from books again in a real way.  He went on to Coursera and other online mooc’s like MIT.  I spent years worrying about him not working formally through one of my books for each topic but the reality is that kid did not need to.  He could get A’s on year end subject exams and I left it there.   Btw,  he’s fine mathematically and has a math degree. ?

Thank you for sharing this!

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2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

 

I am surprised at this. SeaConquest posted earlier (I hope she sees this one) that her son’s AOPS class in person considers green to be an A. I am telling my kid to keep up with the blues. I thought he had a buffer there, but maybe not. ?

 

I've missed this. Is it in another thread? I'm off to hunt it down...

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https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/handbook/current/documentation

This is what AoPS says:

"Getting an A"

Students are told that their progress bars will turn green when the system has evaulated that they've done enough work to "pass" that particular component of the week's work.

As a result, there is only one promise that we will make: if every bar on a student's report is green or blue, then we will always give that student an A. This rule is simple: Green is where we tell the students that they're done and they can move on, and it would be unfair not to reward students for reaching that point. This is the baseline we start with when we're assigning grades.

This does not mean that a student who has a few non-green or blue bars cannot receive an A. Aside from the above, we will not commit to a particular grade without fully assessing the student's progress.

Another note: we don't look very hard at the overall bars when assigning grades, so a student shouldn't think too hard about what they mean in terms of final grades. The weights we put on the individual scores are meaningful and send students the message we want them to get, but when assigning final grades, we've found they don't tell a very complete story.

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55 minutes ago, Targhee said:

She does sound competent and capable! I’m glad she’s found Alcumus - it’s a great resource. Bars in the blue are considered mastery. If it’s any help the AOPS online courses expect students to do extra challenging problems and one fully written solution each week, in addition to passing off Alcumus topics.  In order to get an A in the classes I’ve noticed you’ve got to have the majority of the bars blue in edition to doing well on your challenge problems (dd got a B+ in geometry even with all the bars in green and over half in blue). I would read each chapter, watch any videos, and then try the challenge problems in the book. If you do well move on, if not go back to the specific topic you didn’t do well in and work the problems and exercises.

 

This is interesting because it doesn't jive with what AoPS says about grading on its website.

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1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

 

I am surprised at this. SeaConquest posted earlier (I hope she sees this one) that her son’s AOPS class in person considers green to be an A. I am telling my kid to keep up with the blues. I thought he had a buffer there, but maybe not. ?

That's the only thing I can figure. She got As in her other AOPS classes, and she does very well with her written Solutions.  It is rather subjective, I think - no formula or numbers breakdown in the grade reports (they do give you a letter grade, a picture of your bars, and comments from the teacher). 

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1 hour ago, SeaConquest said:

https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/handbook/current/documentation

This is what AoPS says:

"Getting an A"

Students are told that their progress bars will turn green when the system has evaulated that they've done enough work to "pass" that particular component of the week's work.

As a result, there is only one promise that we will make: if every bar on a student's report is green or blue, then we will always give that student an A. This rule is simple: Green is where we tell the students that they're done and they can move on, and it would be unfair not to reward students for reaching that point. This is the baseline we start with when we're assigning grades.

This does not mean that a student who has a few non-green or blue bars cannot receive an A. Aside from the above, we will not commit to a particular grade without fully assessing the student's progress.

Another note: we don't look very hard at the overall bars when assigning grades, so a student shouldn't think too hard about what they mean in terms of final grades. The weights we put on the individual scores are meaningful and send students the message we want them to get, but when assigning final grades, we've found they don't tell a very complete story.

This must be new(er).

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1 hour ago, SeaConquest said:

 

This is interesting because it doesn't jive with what AoPS says about grading on its website.

I went and pulled out her grade report just to be sure. My apologies. She had 1/3 (not 1/2) topics in blue and the rest in green.  However, I completely forgot about this and I'm sorry, she missed 3 classes (red participation those weeks) and the 24th week writing assignment ? I forgot, and I hope I didn't stress anyone out. 

That was a rough semester all around at our house. Perhaps I had selective memory about it. ?Feeling sheepish, but I hope that cleared things up ?

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My kid got an A+ in one of the classes. He did just as well in that course as in others, but we have never ever seen a plus sign before. I didn’t realize they graded with +/- before. I wonder if here is a system to this or if t really is to the discretion of the teacher.

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Just now, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Just a quick update.

I mentioned to my daughter that AoPS  says green is a pass and blue means mastery, so she's now on a mission to get all the bars to blue.

Thank you everyone for your help and advice on this.

 

Whereas Sacha is perfectly content with just passing. I swear my child inherited my lazy genes.

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