| RATING: 5.0 | ||||
| SUBJECT AREA: | Math | |||
| PUBLISHER: | Educational Activities
P.O. Box 392 Freeport, NY 11520 (800) 645-3739 FAX: (516) 623-9282 e-mail: learn@edact.com http://www.edact.com |
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| COST: | $369.00 (Complete Skill Program- Disks with back-ups or
CD-ROMs,Management,
Teacher's Documentation, Reproducible Activity Masters) $738.00 (Lab Pack of Five) $1,107.00 (Lab Pack of Ten) $65.00 (Single Skill Program-Disks with back-ups or CD-ROMs,Management, Teacher's Documentation, Reproducible Activity Masters) $195.00 (Lab Pack of Five) $357 (Pack of Ten) |
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| USE: | Pre-GED
GED Elemantary & High School Alternative Education Workplace |
GRADE LEVEL: 3 - 8
SPECIFIC SKILLS: Lessons cover the following math skill areas: Four basic operations with tables 0-12, whole numbers, fractions, and decimals; rounding whole numbers,decimals, and mixed numbers; graphs; mean, median, and mode; converting fractions and percents; problems with percents; measuring with a ruler; perimeter; circumference; and area
DESCRIPTION: The Basic Math Competency
Skill Building program includes eight separate and sequential units
of math instruction, with each unit containing eight to twelve lessons
on various levels of difficulty (easy, medium, or hard). There is
a separate lesson for each of the four basic mathematical operations. At
the beginning of every lesson, the student has the option of choosing the
sample problem, practice, or quiz program and setting the difficulty level.
The sample program option provides a tutorial in the form of a sample problem,
where the students is taught exatly how to complete each step of the problem
and pertinent vocabulary terms are introduced and defined. There
is also an audio component available in which the instruction and the directions
may be read to the student. This section may be repeated, with each sample
randomly generating different numbers on the same difficulty level. Then
the student progresses to the practice section which includes five problems.
If any part of the problem is incorrect, the error is identified and the
student gets a second chance. If the same mistake is made twice,
the student is automatically branched to a guided tutorial. again. In this
section, any student who does not solve at least three problems correctly,
will automatically be provided with five additional problems. The third
component of every lesson is a ten problem quiz. The current score
is displayed after each problem for encouragement, and an incorrect response
brings the correct solution to the screen. A score of 100% brings
up a colorful graphic, while a score of 60% or below recommends more practice.
The management system provides individual or class scores with reports
of the lesson status (complete/incomplete), date, time on task, number
of times lesson was repeated, and percentage scores for each lesson.
Numerous reproducible worksheets are provided in the teacher's manual
for each individual math skill.
EVALUATION SUMMARY: I have successfully and effectively
used the Basic Math Competency Skill Building (BMC) program
in my adult education program for over ten years now. My students
like and benefit from the consistency in the lesson format and in the presentation
of the skills. An especially attractive feature of the program is
that teachers can purchase individual skill units (if that is all their
budget will allow), and build their math program year after year.
For GED instruction, I highly recommend the "BMC-Unit 8 Program" which
teaches perimeter, circumference and area and only costs $65. Since
there is an excellent audio feature in all tutorials, even my literacy
level students were successful with this program. I t is important
for teachers to note that all programs from Educational Activities are
automatically loaded into the same management system, no matter if it is
an inexpensive, single skill unit or a complete developmental program.
So teachers can track students' development and progress across content
areas without paying "big bucks" for an expensive integrated learning management
system. Another nice feature of the management system is that is
automatically adds unassigned students to the program. So if the
teacher doesn't have time to create classes and add students' names, they
are still automatically tracked and reported. BMC is
a tutorial program, so when mistakes are made, branching and reteaching
help the student to achieve success. Sometimes my students would complain
that the program "forced" them to the review of the skill when they understood
the concept, but they had just miskeyed in a number. As a teacher,
I like this branching feature because it provides the reteaching opportunity
for students who really need it, and it encourages the students to be more
careful with their math answers. Since a record sheet is not provided
in the BMC documentation, I developed one which is attached to this review.
I found that some students like "manually" recording their progress and
seeing the entire sequence list of math skills they hope to acquire at
a glance. Other students prefer accessing their own computer generated
reports and placing them in their portfolios. I encourage teachers
to allow students to do this themselves. They will learn valuable
organizational skills and become more independent. I found Basic
Math Competency Skill Building to provide the opportunity for specific
math skill development, and the complete, core math curriculucm that
is integral to every classroom.