Anyone having serious issues with Mathspace? FCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would call or email Mr. Sloan Presidio,Assistant Superintendent, Instructional Services Department of FCPS.
Contact info : https://www.fcps.edu/department/instructional-service-department

Also, you need to call your school's math department and speak to the department head to voice your concerns.

OP here - thank you, I will definitely do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have serious issues with a lack of actual textbooks, period. I’m not convinced that students are learning much these days - no grammar, spelling, writing composition, etc. The math curriculum is especially confusing. If it’s not specifically on a SOL, forget it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have serious issues with a lack of actual textbooks, period. I’m not convinced that students are learning much these days - no grammar, spelling, writing composition, etc. The math curriculum is especially confusing. If it’s not specifically on a SOL, forget it.

I completely agree. The movement to put everything online is going to seriously backfire. These kids need actual textbooks available to them, and they don't need to waste their limited time on confusing and laborious websites.
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a prealgebra/algebra teacher, I am FURIOUS at how this software was rolled out and presented to us.

1) They chose to implement 2 different programs for middle school and high school courses. Middle school teachers now must utilize two completely different (night and day) programs if they choose to use them at all.

2) They rolled this out in a year where we also got new standards from the state, new pacing guides from the county, and are supposed to be implementing new teaching methodologies using math workshop. It is too much change in one year to do anything more than half assed.

3) The software is buggy and we weren't given solid training on it. One teacher from each school went to an all day training over the summer, and then was supposed to do "turn around training" in 3 hours during our back to school week. We now have representatives from math space coming to our department meeting next month to discuss any concerns we have (and apparently they're going to all schools with this).

4) The program will not accept x = 4, it wants X=4. It won't accept -3, it wants T=-3. If the problem asks you to distribute 3(x+2), you have to write at least one midway step before writing the answer, so it won't allow you to go straight to 3x+6, you have to do 3(x)+3(2) first. It's soooooo picky about how you answer problems, so kids are getting frustrated and not understanding why they did something wrong.

4) It doesn't work on your phone. 95% of my students don't have reliable computer internet access at home. They get on the internet from their phones.

A year or two ago when they first started talking about new "basal resources", the county math office sent out a survey asking what we wanted. I responded that I'd rather have $200 to spend on my own materials and continue using the old textbooks. I stand by that. The new stuff is a waste of my time, a complete waste of money because I'm not using it, and is just way more work for teachers.

AND, the new pacing guides aren't even complete. They're getting them out to us about two weeks before the start of each new unit. We only have a vague idea of which SOLs go with which unit now and it makes planning impossible. We are seriously struggling this year...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, and one more thing. The level of difficulty of the problems in mathspace is nowhere near the difficulty on the SOLs. The level of difficulty in math techbook (the pre-algebra/math 7 book) is way too hard. Neither is sufficient for assigning homework or creating an assessment.

I know staff well at 4 different county schools, and only 1 school is using it at all. WASTE. OF. MONEY.

Yes..and the techbook barely matches what we're teaching. Unit 1 - conversions, ordering, real number system, square roots, tax, tip, discount, interest, proportions, percent of change, balancing a checkbook. The techbook has square roots, CUBE roots (not even in curriculum), and rational/irrational (but nothing on the rest of the real number system). Super helpful. We were sort of excited about the online assessments with the techbook but when we tried to create one, not only does it not have questions relating to about 85% of the unit, but the questions it does have are repetitive and either ridiculously easy or ridiculously hard.

[Anonymous]

This sounds awful for everyone! Good grief!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4) The program will not accept x = 4, it wants X=4. It won't accept -3, it wants T=-3. If the problem asks you to distribute 3(x+2), you have to write at least one midway step before writing the answer, so it won't allow you to go straight to 3x+6, you have to do 3(x)+3(2) first. It's soooooo picky about how you answer problems, so kids are getting frustrated and not understanding why they did something wrong.

This just brought up my temperature and I'm not even involved and was just browsing this forum! What a ridiculous dumbed down crutch. So the kids who can see things one step ahead have to fall in line and write everything out? Ridiculous...

[Anonymous]

Fcps math teacher here and I despise this program. I’m happy to spend the time looking at my students’ paper/pencil work. Computers can’t decipher student thinking.

[Anonymous]

I asked my 8th grader in Algebra 1 about this. He is an A student in Math.
He hated Mathspace from the first day of school and while has tolerated it, he is not loving the experience at all.
He said that what would take him 15 minutes in pencil and paper would take him 45 minutes on Mathspace because he would have to type in all the characters in the way that the program wants to see it.
The program is also really slow.

This is really discouraging. 30 minutes of additional homework time + frustration isn't conducive for learning anything.

[Anonymous]

Our DD complained about Mathspace to me a lot about a month ago, when she just started using it. She said the system is confusing and doesn't work properly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. Cooper Middle School says they still use a textbook for their math courses as well as math space. Could you use these books as a supplement?

https://cooperms.fcps.edu/resources/resources-students/textbooks-and-homework-help

Every single link to a math book is dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD taking HS precalc/trig and hates that everyone in her class can see her score on an assessment in Mathspace, especially when simple typing errors are the only issues. Technology detracts from the math completely and just another annoying tool to add to Blackboard and Google. Too many tools and no standardization just leads to added stress foe these kids.

This is actually illegal. It's the first FERPA rule most teachers learn...

[Anonymous]

Students can't see other scores. They see "points" based on amount of time spent in the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students can't see other scores. They see "points" based on amount of time spent in the program.

And even then, it's only a kid or two with similar points, and I can't remember (no real training, yay!) if it's anonymous.

[Anonymous]

Mathspace is horrible!

My kids are excellent at math, and they came to me frustrated beyond belief over it.

They showed me how it worked, and how it fails them at every step of their work over things as simple as an extra space on the line. This program should not be used, period! It doesn't work, and will only turn kids away from math!

As for no textbooks, I can't understand how any child can achieve at math without a physical textbook? Yes, they can look things up online, or use the klunky online textbook, but if they want to help the kids achieve at math you need a physical textbook!

What is worse (and worse for the trees), is that the teachers have compensated a bit by handing out printouts every day of the materials. By the end of the year, the kids have 2 textbook thickness of handouts from the teachers. This has got to cost more than a text book to print out every year for every student.

If anyone has connections, PLEASE, get them to get rid of Mathspace!!!