Promotes math learning and employs a social approach to help learners think deeply and solve tasks.

Website: https://www.cuethink.com/

What Users Love About the App

“The recording feature is my favorite feature. It gives the students who are shy the ability to communicate with their group. I love how the group can comment on each other’s solutions. I feel that this program is great for those students who need visual aids. It makes learning fun.”

“The breakdown of the problem-solving steps of the app looks terrific! It enables students to try and identify what they know, what they want to find out in a given word problem, and it enables them to communicate their math thinking and strategies both with a built–in whiteboard and videoing capability. Teachers can even use this in a small group setting or as a center workstation and have students try to create their own word problems that they then solve. Cloud-based technology is great to be able to save problems and revisit them. Being able to save student work for e-portfolios, report card information and parent conferences is a plus. Teachers of blended learning or flipped classrooms definitely need to check this tool out!!”

“This product provides a great space for students to work together to solve challenging problems and see how others work through their solutions. This product emphasizes the importance of progress in working out difficult math problems. I love the idea of being able to put up a challenging problem for students to work through, and have students collaborate on the platform.”

“I think this product does something unique by recording student voices and having them do a “private” presentation. It helps those students who are shy or early learners of the language work with their classmate’s support to get their voices heard in the classroom. I love the idea that students can comment on each other’s solutions and see that as a way this product can switch from an in–classroom device to an out-of-classroom summary or review.”

“This problem allows students to share their thinking really well. Students are able to demonstrate their thinking through writing and drawing which is helpful in a UDL math classroom. There is a benefit to having graphic organizers for students who need a hard copy of something to write on when completing math. I like that it can be used on a Chromebook.”

What Users Dislike About the App

“I would make this product read for students so that I can provide all necessary accommodations. I would add extra tools such as a ruler, magnifier, and highlighter to help students with creating their visual models. I would make sure that it is easily accessible through Chromebooks and students’ Gmail accounts.”

“I have several suggestions. 1) Number lines, coordinate grids, empty tables, empty boxes with drag and drop options as something teachers can decide to add to the problems they present. 2) Sentence starter scripts, so students who are L1 or L2 can have ideas of how to start their presentations. 3) Similar problems already solved (this may be a feature that appears naturally with time). When students are stuck on a problem, sometimes seeing a similar problem solved will start them on a solution path.”

“I think one improvement would be to have it made available in all platforms so that there is more accessibility. Also, the cost is high for individual teachers who want to try it in their classrooms without the entire school having to get the funds for the purchase of the product.”

“They should build in the ability for the problems to be read out loud to younger students, including the words they can highlight and select during the problem solving steps. It would be a HUGE time saver if CueThink can partner with the big math programs so that the word problems in the teacher editions can be automatically inputted or chosen from to reduce the need for teachers to manually input sample word problems. I didn’t get a chance to view the teacher dashboard in as much detail as I wanted to, but just make sure the storage of completed word problems is easily manageable and quickly viewable by the teacher. E-portfolios are a hot topic in schools now and it will be important and helpful to make sure excellent examples of student problem solving is compatible with a system like that.”

“The review of a rubric for students to follow could help guide some students. Incorporation of graphic organizers and formula charts for student use could also be helpful. Showing buttons for advancement to other parts of the answering process would be a plus.”