Tuesday, February 25, 2014

www.buzzmath.com is a really awesome website for students, parents, and teachers. There are different realms of the website for students, teachers, and parents. The student mode gives students several sets of interactive practice problems. There are many different lesson topics on this website. They are related to the Common Core Standards. In addition, there are problem sets that are outside of the Common Core. I love that this website doesn't just worry about "the test". There is a free version of this website, but you do have to join or subscribe for parent or family mode. You have to create an account for teacher mode but the basic version is free. If students just want to practice math, they can sign in as a visitor. 

Teachers can actually assign work from the website and it will grade the assignments students complete. I think this is also a really cool way for teachers to differentiate instruction for students discretely. Most of the activities have Levels 1-3 and Enrichment activities. Teachers can assign students homework in the different levels or enrichment activity based on how they are doing in class. Another cool way that this could be incorporated in class is by having the students complete level 1 or 2 prior to learning a new topic or concept. Teachers could see where students are in their understanding before or after a lesson without taking valuable class time to do these activities. However, it is important for the teacher to go over some of these problems with the student to address concepts that students did or didn't understand completely. 

In addition to helping teachers differentiate instruction, it provides more options for students to practice. Not only does it give students more practice problems, it is interactive and students can immediately see how they did on a problem. It also provides students guidance on how to complete problems, so that would be nice for homework if students get a little confused.