Art of Problem Solving Pre Algebra Videos

Guest post by my husband, Jody Chambley.

The Art of Problem Solving – Pre-Algebra Review

Several months back Anna wrote an article titled Beast Academy and Art of Problem Solving Reviews. In that article, she touched on The Art of Problem Solving and our shift from Beast Academy. I wanted to follow up on how things have been going as we are nearing completion of Prealgebra.

While Beast Academy was whimsical, entertaining and colorful, The Art of Problem Solving is anything but. However, the content is thorough, logical and complete. On the surface, the Art of Problem Solving text looks like a typical textbook that many may have used in school, but it is quite different.

Most typical text books introduce new material, then provide exercises for the student to complete. By contrast, The Art of Problem Solving presents problems at the beginning, before presenting new material. Their philosophy is that students learn best when challenged, and what better way to challenge than to present problems first?

Each chapter is broken into manageable sections. These sections may begin with a brief introduction, then lead quickly into a series of problems for the student to work through. They provide step by step instruction on each of the problems, then present supporting information and concepts as part of the explanation.

After working through the problems, there are a series of exercises. The exercises increase in difficulty as the student works through them. Generally, there are one or two challenge problems that require a bit more thought and reasoning.

As students work through sections of a chapter, the lesson culminates with the chapter summary. The summary begins with a review of the concepts learned throughout the chapter in a nice concise format. Following a series of Review Problems is a number of Challenge Problems. In many cases, they provide hints that students can look up in the back of the textbook, but the solutions to the exercises can be found in the solutions manual.

This is the typical flow through each chapter. I think that this alone provides a solid understanding of the subject matter and would provide a superior educational experience. It is much more challenging than a typical Prealgebra course and is described by the authors as an honors-level curriculum.

In addition to a great text, The Art of Problem Solving provides additional free resources to supplement the text to provide a more extensive experience. On their website, www.aops.com, they provide video lectures on most sections. The video lectures are presented by The Art of Problem solving founder and co-author of the text, Richard Rusczyk. The videos are typically around 5 minutes in length, with a few that may be as long as 10 minutes. Some sections have multiple videos to explain the concepts in more depth.

They also provide an online learning tool called Alcumus. Alcumus is free, however, it does require an online account. It is an "intelligent learning system" that gets more challenging as the student progresses. The sections within Alcumus align with the text and videos and serve as a great supplement. The student gets two opportunities to answer questions before being presented with an explanation. If the student misses questions, it adapts and asks him additional questions to ensure a solid understanding.

So how do we use all of these tools on a daily basis? I created my own syllabus based on all of these components to provide a consistent, thorough and hopefully enjoyable experience. We begin each section reading any introduction that may be presented. Following the introduction, my son watches the related videos from The Art of Problem website. I have found that Richard's lectures are more in-depth than the text, and the fact my son finds him funny is an added bonus. In fact, he looks forward to the videos more than anything.

After the videos, we work through the problems in the textbook, paying particular attention to the explanations and any additional information presented. I encourage my son to keep a math notebook to record key concepts for later review. As he works through the exercises, he often consults his notebook when he gets stuck.

After the exercises, I have him work through the problems in Alcumus. There could be anywhere from 2 to 6 problems per section, depending on how many may have been missed. My son enjoys that he gets points, and badges as he progresses.

All in all, The Art of Problem Solving provides a very thorough curriculum with great supplementary options. They also offer an online community, but we have not taken advantage of that yet. I would highly recommend AoPS to anyone looking for a challenging honors Prealgebra curriculum.

Art of Problem Solving Pre Algebra Videos

Source: https://www.giftedathome.com/the-art-of-problem-solving-prealgebra-review/