We received math class materials for Shawna on Friday. These are from Keystone High School. Shawna had taken the same Pre-Algebra class online with BYU but didn’t do as well as we had hoped. Keystone has a different philosopy. They send a text book (something vital missing from the BYU course) and a packet with worksheets, tests, envelopes to mail back tests and a three ring binder. Also included was a student handbook which outlined exactly what was expected of the student and who, when, and how to get ahold of them in case of trouble. The Keystone classes are all workbook and textbook based, not computer based. That is- the correspondence classes are. Keystone offers online classes as well but since Shawna didn’t achieve the results we had hoped for through BYU online, we opted for correspondence.
From an organizational prospective the Keystone course is FAR better than the BYU course. There was lots of confusion about what to do with the BYU course and, quite frankly, the content was WEAK- very weak. I feel like I have room to talk because Shay is taking a 7th grade mathematics class from BYU as well and doing better than Shawna, but her course had the same flaws as Shawna’t Pre-Algebra. First- no text book and weak content. There was no instruction on how to contact the teacher. I think they don’t want students to contact the teachers. Shay’s class came with a CD containing videos. There are better math videos on YouTube.com! The videos were from 2 to 5 minutes long and nothing more than the teacher reading the material in front of the student online. I was quite suprised to see the videos on a CD instead of embeded online via teachertube or youtube. And I was very suprised to see the poor content, quality, and length of the videos.
Maybe I’m a perfectionist, but I quess I expect more from a college and in education. I’m hopeful that the Keystone classes will be better.
Shawna has 300 pages to complete in the worksheets. I am expecting her to do 10 per day, 5 days per week. This way she will be able to finish the class in 6 weeks. Realistically I would be happy to see it in 18 weeks, which is one school semester. This would put her on track for taking the Algebra class and have it finished prior to entering 9th grade- that’s the final goal. We’ll have to play it by ear and see if she is able to handle the content but she realizes that we are going to be pushing her hard.
Popularity: 3% [?]
