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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a PhD in Physics from MIT, and I used to tutor my son both AOPS (pre-algebra) with taking their online classes, and Eureka, which is a program many public schools use all over the country, so this would be an accurate comparison with typical classroom instruction.
Eureka is designed to be led by a teacher that walks the student through an example and is more like a script that even goes into what cues to use. Then it dumps a lot of similar exercises on the student to help develop muscle memory and automation. AOPS starts from working on problems and relies more on a discovery mindset, although the student still needs a teacher. Another key difference, AOPS aims to present math in a unified way with topics being derived from previous sections. There are no worksheet exercises and most of the questions are not cookie cutter type, no two problems are alike. Maybe some of the posters refer to this when they say it’s 90% tricks, but that would be a gross misunderstanding. It is expected the student gets the idea fast without endless drills, and most of the problems are designed to give a deeper insight compared to just regular formula plug in worksheet.
Overall for a faster but more shallow understanding of basic facts is probably better to stick to a classroom type curriculum like Eureka. If you have the desire to go deeper, put more effort for a more nuanced understanding, AOPS is better, so in the end it really depends on the student.
FWIW we quit Eureka and are sticking with AOPS as it serves our needs much better. Another plus for AOPS, the have a broad offering, so you have books videos, adaptive computer problem database, online and in person classes, forum and much more so you can take whatever part you like. Difficulty wise the questions are harder than the typical curriculum, but that’s the point, it’s is supposed to be more challenging.

On why it might not work. I believe it would require quite a bit of support for the student with some knowledgeable teacher available for guidance and bouncing off ideas. Also, it depends how much time there is available for math alone, other extra curriculars etc get into it only if you can dedicate at least 10 hours a week besides the class. Another reason, the kid might not be sufficiently inclined for math (don’t want to use the word smart, but think of the distribution of aptitude in this respect). I think AOPS is for the top 20% of the students and with enough support maybe for the top 50%, but in no way for everyone.[/quote]

Resurrecting an old thread for a follow up as our family used AOPS for a longer time in addition to other programs (IXL, Khan Academy and MAP for testing only).

The positives mentioned above for AOPS are still valid, however, the volume of questions for each subtopc is on the low side. It's fine if AOPS is used for review but if it is the main curriculum this could cause some issues. For example, on plotting linear graphs there arent enough questions to explore what happens with the slope/intercept in various cases of positive/negative numbers and they don't an interactive interface so the student can't visualize how different parameters change the plot. Another negative is that there are areas in the curriculum that are simply not covered, for example in statistics (whisker plots, data graphing, conversion of units of measurement, all common core standards). What I really like is that they include questions that are very important to work through not only for math but also for later in Physics or Chemistry, for example the average velocity is calculated as the harmonic mean of velocities, or how to find the concentration when different volumes and concentrations are mixed together.

Khan Academy is a free resource and I was pelasantly impressed by their coverage of grades 6-8 and Algebra 1. From what I've seen Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus were quite terrible, really limited to simple cookie cutter, formula plug-ins. Another area where AOPS falls short is diagnostics, and Khan is resonably good as you can test for the entire grade, or only subsections that the student is working on. The Khan Academy diagnostic question pool is somewhat limited, but covers the basics ok. Ouside of Math, Khan has the broadest subject offering to include English, Sciences, Economics etc, but I can't comment on how good they are.

Which brings me to IXL, which is the program my child's current school is using. In my view it has the best diagnostic feature of all, since it is very detailed and covers the largest number of sections among all, and is really good at finding gaps. It's supposed to be taken over ~3h that can be spaced over multiple sessions. I'd recommend running the diagnostic, then just work for a month or two in the suggested topics until they are understood. Unfortunatelly using IXL for instruction is really tedious, and essentially consists of grinding the same types of questions 20 times, unless one makes a mistake and then the grinding cycle starts again. This is repeated over the 100ish topics a grade typically has, so it can get quite boring and uninspiring. Overall, the questions probe the simple concept and don't have much depth. AOPS on the other hand really make you think about how to apply the concept and tend to take the student on a winded road, which in my view is a good thing.

We also used MAP for diagnostics purposes because it was required for math placement at my child's school. I paid $60 for the MAP 6+ version. The questions are a little more involving then IXL, but less so then AOPS, and it has the advantage that it is fast, taking about 40 min. The diagnostics report and recommendations are very detailed, but you'd have to use something else for the instruction, so there is a potential disconnect there. The good thing is that is has lots of data on national norms and percentiles, and it is very commonly administered in many school districts, so it can be used to advocate with the school teachers/principal for a higher grade math placement.

I'd say they all have their strength and weaknesses, and it really depends on why the student is interested in math. For competitions or for someone that wants to dedicate a lot of time to math, I'd recommend AOPS. For getting a solid background to support sciences, it's not absolutely necessary, and other programs (Eureka, IXL, Khan) are also good and can save time for other activities and subjects.

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