CTCMath - A Schoolhouse Crew Review

A couple of years ago we were able to review an online math curriculum that we really liked, so when the opportunity came up to review that same curriculum but at the high school math level, we decided to go for it! The curriculum is CTCMath and we have been making use of the Homeschool Membership for the past several weeks.

CTCMath is a an online math tutoring curriculum developed by Australian math teacher Pat Murray. With over 1300 animated and narrated math lessons ranging from Kindergarten to high school level math, the program offers comprehensive math instruction for a wide range of ages. Each of the video lessons are concise teaching videos by Pat Murray, and are accompanied by interactive questions for practice, quizzes, and diagnostic tests. 

With an online tutor, a student can replay a lesson video as often as needed to understand all the information without embarrassment; and the lesson material is always available so you can work on it whenever it best suits you. Each tutorial video is between 4 and 9 minutes long, and engages visual and audio learners. A summary of the tutorial can be printed as well. After watching the lesson, the student can practice the concepts using the interactive questions online or the optional printed worksheet. The interactive questions are graded automatically, which gives the student instant feedback on how they are doing, and the correct solutions are shown on the screen so they can see exactly how to do the problems they may have missed.  CTCMath also builds individual progress reports for each student, which makes it easy to see results and areas that may need more work.

How did we use it?  Well, Kennady is a couple years further along in math than when we reviewed CTCMath before. (See our previous review here: CTCMath {Schoolhouse Crew Review}) She is now trying to get through high school level Algebra, and for grades 9 and up, CTCMath is recommended as a supplement rather than a full curriculum.  (For Grades K-8 it IS considered a full math curriculum.) Because we're in between school years and supposedly on a bit of a summer break, I decided to assign some middle school level work as review before starting on the Algebra course. Thankfully a CTC membership allows access to all grade levels, so this was no problem. It's good to know that you can "go back" and review a concept taught in an earlier level if your student forgets or is having trouble mastering a particular subject area.

Both the parent/teacher and the student have a log-in, so using the parent account, I could assign the lessons I wanted her to do and establish whether she had to just attempt the questions or had to reach a certain percentage passing grade before moving on. The parent account is where I could view her progress and grades as well. This task menu and assignment tracking system is expanded and different from a couple of years ago. The system also emails me reports on Kennady's progress weekly. 

This is the task list, where I can assign lessons to my student.

This is a section of the progress report, showing what has been worked on,

and the time spent on each task.

When the student logs in, they can see the tasks that their parent/teacher has assigned to them. So as long as I remembered to populate the task list for Kennady, she did not need to consult me at all before starting work. This was tremendous on quite a few days when the time she had available to work on math was when I happened to be out or occupied with something else. 

At first, Kennady tried to go too quickly, thinking it was "just review" and mistyped or misread questions which lowered her grade and frustrated her - but it was also a good lesson on paying attention to detail! And since on the review portions, I specified that she had to attempt each question, but did not have to achieve a certain grade, she was able to just carry on with the lesson learned.

Once she got to the Algebra portion - now at her grade level - she found a couple of pleasant surprises. The video lessons weren't any longer, on average! And the questions weren't nearly as daunting as she'd feared. However, she also found out that I had changed the passing criteria and she now had to earn an 85% in order to continue. So the first quiz she scored below that, the program simply told her to "try again" and she did great the second time around.

For the most part, we have not been printing the worksheets since much of what she's worked on so far has been essentially review. Also, she did the majority of her work on CTCMath using the laptop, which doesn't have a printer available. However, since her regular math curriculum doesn't have a great deal of written practice, as we get into the school year, we will definitely make use of the printables as CTCMath looks like it will work out great as a supplement. (Remember, it's considered a supplemental curriculum for high school level math)  

 

What we liked best:

• concise video lessons presented the concepts clearly and were easy to review when necessary
• the student can work very independently, while the program provides detailed progress reports to the parent.
• flexibility! We could skip topics if we felt she already understood them well; and we could jump back into an earlier grade if we found a concept for which she needed a quick refresher. Print lessons or not; set your own minimum passing grade; decide how often you as a parent want reports emailed to you.

What I need to mention:

• although we both really liked the new layout, it took me a bit of fooling with the parent task assignment area to get the hang of it. I didn't see an easy way to view which lessons I'd already assigned so I often had two tabs open - one with the existing task assignments, and one screen where I assigned new tasks. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that there IS an easier way to do this and I just hadn't discovered it yet! Because the truth is, we just jumped in and didn't spend much time in orientation.

Our bottom line: Whenever I find supplements that make math a little easier and dare I say it - fun - for Kennady, I'm happy. We previously liked using CTCMath as a primary math course, but its value as a supplemental tutoring program for higher level math is clear to us as well. The brief and easy-to-navigate lessons will serve Kennady well during this coming year alongside her regular math curriculum and the two will complement each other. I highly recommend CTCMath for homeschool families that are looking for thorough math instruction that students can work on independently.

Would your homeschool benefit from an online math tutor? Here's what you need to know:

Visit the website: http://CTCMath.com/

Find out more about How It Works.

Pricing: We have a one-year subscription using the CTCMath Homeschool Membership. Visit the website to see all the pricing options available.

Recommended Ages: Kindergarten through High School. For K-8 it is considered a complete math curriculum, and for high school grades it is recommended as a supplemental curriculum.

You can connect with CTCMath on Facebook, on Twitter, on Pinterest, and on YouTube.

Visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog for more information and to read other reviews. Crew members reviewed different levels of CTCMath courses so be sure to check out all the reviews!

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I have done my best to provide accurate pricing and links at the time this post originally appeared. Please be aware that these may change.