Mr. V. here. I purchased a product called Kuta Software's Infinite Pre-Algebra to help me generate content during summer school. After using it all through the past few weeks, I thought I would give it a review for their information if they ever stumble over my blog, and for any fellow teachers out there.
The options on Kuta's website are Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Calculus. All of these options would load in the same program if ordered together. As a teacher of middle school math, I limited my purchase to Pre-Algebra. Any Elementary teachers should do the same, as the content will quickly become more and more limited to the specific subject, and Pre-Algebra had the broadest set of concepts.
Kuta is strong at reinforcing the mechanics of calculation, as you have near complete control over difficulty of problems through slider bars and can "regenerate" them as needed (the software will swap out one problem for another). You could also use it to try to build teaching worksheets, that move from easier problems and concepts to more difficult ones or ones that use the previous information. I found this style to be a bit more successful, as it reminded students of what they needed to keep track of when they were doing more complicated questions.
Where I found Kuta falling down a bit, and this may be just the package that I bought, was in measurement of shapes and solids. It seemed like the program's idea of difficulty was to include decimals in measurement. Basically this challenges students who's foundation of multiplying decimals is weak, and that's it. There were no Integers only check boxes for measurement, and the number slider did not seem to adjust the shapes in the same way it did other problems like fractions and order of operations.
Another area that I wasn't quite pleased with was Kuta's attempt at creating word problems. While some seemed interesting to the students, they seemed to lack that STAAR craziness quality that the students hate. It was usually very clear what the student was supposed to do. This is a strange complaint, I know, but one of my goals is STAAR readiness, and these word problems do not come as close as I'd like. While there is a way to write custom questions, this somewhat defeats the purpose of buying this software as an aid.
Overall, I would give Kuta's Pre-Algebra package an 8 of 10 and would recommend it to late elementary school teachers onward.
I bought all the Kuta products , I dont see this software much useful, lot of topics are missing, does not have word problems for lot of topics
ReplyDeletePythagorean theorem does not have word problems , no cube roots, no Fuction domain and range and lot of other topics missing,expensive and not worth.
Thanks for the review... I used the free content to supplement Springboard for the 'mechanics' you alluded to, but the word problems are for the most part basic. Free trial allowed me to generate lotsa different worksheets... especially for differentiation.
ReplyDelete