Reply to Anyone having serious issues with Mathspace? FCPS

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[quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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