Product Review of Conceptua Fractions Online Courses
An online platform that takes teaching and learning of mathematics to a whole different level. The curriculum includes tutor guides for topics such as division, fractions, mathematical investigations, and much more. Students learn by what they see and experience.
What Users Love About the App
“It gives an easy-to-use platform for manipulatives and instruction. It seems to have lots of questioning built-in that follow the best practices for teachers. I think that it may be useful for teachers who are not sure how to develop effective questioning routines.”
“It cuts down on time by creating engaging activities on the whiteboard. It has interactive tools that allow you to make things, like equivalent fraction bars, simply by dragging your mouse. It already has created engagements that are scaffolded and have a lot of discussion points. This helps teachers create strong and rigorous conceptual math questions.”
“Conceptual-based learning is an excellent skill set for the student to have access to. The platform is very adaptable to their learning.”
“It provides specific practice of skills and concepts with examples that you can manipulate. Teachers can tell which students need more practice this way. Teachers are made a part of the teaching experience. They can do check-ins as provided by the program. Students must check-in before going on. There is an element of control that allows teachers to determine the next steps for students.”
“The product allows students to directly interact with fractions in a visual and numerical way. It provides direct feedback on where their errors lie and give them an opportunity to go back and fix things. It also allows students to interact with a platform similar to PARCC.”
What Users Dislike About the App
“The developers should increase the number of math concepts covered, provide lessons for remediation, and create programs for younger students.”
“It would be better to have a cheap version for teachers that allows them to save lessons without needing the whole school to sign up. Only allowing access to one unit for $50 seems like something most teachers would not be able to afford, especially knowing they only have access for one year. I also think the program doesn’t seem to have a lot of problem-solving involved, but I only saw a demo. If there could be in-depth multistep problems, that would be great. I am also interested in casting since our students will soon all have devices. So, I would like to be able to send the lesson pages to students so that they can interact on their own and then send it back to the teacher to be used in instruction or saved for assessment purposes.”
“I wish it would allow broken down steps to be given to the student for each problem. That way, the student can go back to that level, re-teach themselves, and then advance. A second chance, that’s what students they should get.”
“I would like if the program could recognize when a student is ready to move on to a higher level without making them go through the entire program. The developers should work on creating directions that are explicit and providing examples before beginning the program. They should allow the teacher to bump students to the next level if they have already mastered the concept.”
“1) Make it easier to use. It seems as though it would require a lot of training. 2) Demonstrate how to implement it in the classroom. 3) Explain how it can be interactive for students in a way that is easier for teachers to implement.”
“The read-aloud voices are clunky. The UI is clunky. Also, the language in terms of scaffolding could be improved.”
