Reply to AOPS - why didn't it work for you?

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[quote=Anonymous]The main reason AOPS is raising some challenges for us is the volume of content per class. I use Introduction to Algebra as an example, the class is typicaly 1.5 hours meeting once a week. An illustration on the volume, it goes through quadratic equations in 4 weeks and it includes simple quadratics (e.g. x^2=9), factorizations and expansions, special factorizations (e.g. difference of cubes), completing squares, quadratic formula, and imaginary and complex numbers. This is a really fast pace and I'd think there are very few students that could keep up with this volume independently on their own since you'd also have to read through the book, do example problems, some exercises, the Alcumus database and homework problems. It is very easy for a student to fall behind early in the beginning and not be able to recover for the entirety of the class. To the preivous posters that didnt get much out of AOPS, I'd say that just signing up the student for the class and expecting it will work seamlessly is a little unrealistic, especially if it is material at first sight.

Form the class discussions there tend to be several types of students. Some take algebra early (4th-5th grade) have a lot of support from parents, and use this curriculum as a basis to build upon and ace the class when they take it in regular school. Another group was students that were taking the class in parallel with accelerated regular school classes (i.e. 6th-7th grade Algebra 1), and who wanted to compensate for poor instruction in distance learning. Last there were 8-9th grade homeschool students, whose parents could not keep up with high school math and outsourced it to another provider.

It's anecdotal, but I thought for at least a sizeable chunk of students, the online class was a review from working ahead, which does make sense considering how fast it moves.

My recommendation is that if you sign up your child for AOPS be very realistic with the level, take the diagnostic quizes, and go to a lower level if it is too challenging. The basic learing theory for zone of proximal development is essentially saying that learning is optimized when the material is challenging, but doable with some scaffolding. Make sure this is the case, and don't overload the students beyond their capabilities. Just because the student had some prealgebra in regular school, who known how rigurous and got an A along with three quarters of the classmates, doesn't mean he is ready to blast through AOPS algebra flying solo.

I only have good things to say about the actual contents of the curriculum, and if it doesn't work for your child, try to understand what the issues are and address them. The complaints that  AOPS is just a bunch of tricks and that it is only for geniuses are completely off base in my view, and most likely stem from mismatching the student to the class.[/quote]

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