Learning and Leading - March/April 2013

Teacher Controls

AC Math provides tools for teachers to orchestrate lessons. They can customize a lesson in the planning area by adding handouts, links, or just about any other resource they choose. Teachers can then assign the lesson to all students or select groups of students. They have the flexibility to teach to a whole group or to use a section or activity to supplement a lesson. Teachers can also assign part or all of a lesson for individual learning, leaving the teacher free to work with students who may need more support.

AC Math provides teacher resources to integrate science and math that can stand alone or be incorporated into STEM lessons.

motivates students to explore, make hypotheses, manipulate items, and see the impacts of their decisions.

Ease of Use

AC Math is a cloud program that uses everyday plug-ins, such as Java and Flash. No installations are required. The lessons load quickly on student netbooks.

Another advantage is that almost all of the interactive lessons are offered in Spanish. This includes student sheets and assessments as well as the lessons.

Pricing

Adaptive Curriculum sells annual subscriptions to AC Math on a per-student basis. The fee varies depending on the volume of the purchase, the length of the term (one to three years), and promotional pricing in place at the time you buy. On average, licensing ranges from $12 to $18 for a single access. The company offers a variety of math and science packages for middle and high school. Bundled discounts are available for multiple-subject purchases.

Accountability, Assessment,
and Data Collection
The makers of AC Math clearly
understand the need for formative
assessments as well as students’
need to assess their understand-
ing. It includes a lot of practice
for students and provides immed-
iate feedback. It also gives students
the ability to control the speed at
which they progress through the
lesson and the ability to revisit
any part of the lesson to clarify
any misconceptions. AC Math
also informs the teacher of stu-
dents’ progress as they advance
through each lesson. Every lesson
contains a short formative assess-
ment directly related to the lesson.
Quizzes scaffold questions from
the recall to the transfer level and
are automatically graded and record-
ed for the teacher in real time.