When thinking about online math activities for students to take advantage of, one of the obvious choices is Khan Academy. After all, it includes excellent short videos for teaching necessary math concepts.
While online math practice can be considered a substitution activity, as you are substituting a worksheet for an device screen, I believe it has value in a student’s learning due to its ease of use and differentiation for students . There are two particular online math tools that I’ve found to be especially useful in promoting with students and their families. They are Xtramath and Front Row Math.
It is amazing how something so simple can be devastatingly troublesome for young math learners. However, I see this all too often in math education with basic math facts, which has brought me to the realization that mastery is a necessity for consistent success in math education. Enter Xtramath.
Xtramath is truly a substitution activity, where students are practicing their basic math facts in short and simple sessions. This web application has no glitz and no glamour, which is perfectly fitting for a skill that has no glitz and no glamour. Xtramath simply provides that quick and easy platform that is necessary for practicing math facts without adding unnecessary and unrewarding work for the student or the teacher.
Once a teacher has loaded their class into xtramath.org and provided students with their unique pin numbers, students can begin. There is an initial diagnostic test to determine which facts the student needs practice with before setting him/her free to practice routinely. These practices only require 3 or 4 minutes a day and students see their progress with a simple color coded chart indicating student progress with each fact.
There are reporting options for teachers and parents as well, so everyone involved can easily stay current with progress. Teachers can easily differentiate by changing the operation and/or the amount of time given for each fact in a session, in order to provide each student with the most meaningful basic fact learning experience.
Basic math fact mastery is an important skill to gain, but let’s be honest, it is a skill that can only take a student so far and won’t be continuously pushing a student’s math knowledge and abilities. However, if you are looking for an online application that might push your student’s math abilities, I suggest Front Row Math.
Front Row Math provides a platform for adaptive math practice, meaning that the math a student practices will become more challenging or more simple depending on the student’s results. After taking an initial diagnostic test for an area of math, which determines the student starting point, students can practice independently at their appropriate level. Therefore, the differentiation is automatically built in!
A teacher simply needs to sign up, enter their class roster, then share student sign-in and class code with each student. As students practice on Front Row, teachers have access to reports that identify standards that students are strong or weak in.
Added benefits are a whiteboard for showing work, videos to assist students with understanding concepts when stuck on a problem, and an electronic currency that accumulates for the student as they improve (not real money, just a fake currency that can be used to outfit a character on Front Row).
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