Review of YourTeacher.com

I have seen and reviewed several video-based math teaching lesson systems in the past, and YourTeacher.com stands out among them. It is not that they have invented something totally new; but the totality of the package supersedes what the competition has to offer.

YourTeacher.com excels:

• in the comprehensiveness and clarity of the lessons,
• in the ease of use, and
• in functionality.

In each lesson, you will get

• several video and audio clips in which a teacher explains the concept on whiteboard, or goes through examples
• seven or eight practice problems with increasing difficulty!
• partial work shown for each practice problem
• answers to each practice problem
• step-by-step explanations for many practice problems
• a challenging Deep Thought question (the author must be a fan of Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy...: )), plus answer and solution to it.
• a multiple-choice self-test
• a printable extra worksheet
• a printable notes page

It is almost easier to just go view the free sample lesson on the home page than to list it all.

I listed all those so you realize what all this facilitates. The student can proceed at his own pace, skipping examples and doing only the most difficult problems if he finds it easy - OR go slowly, repeat the video clips, work through problems, check his work, and learn from the provided step-by-step solutions.

As a teacher, I wish to give my students time to work on a problem, and also be there to guide, explain, review, reinforce, encourage each individual when he encounters problems. Yet, this is hard to do in a classroom with many students.

Or, if you are a homeschooling parent, you might be very busy too with multitudes of other tasks to take care of.

And of course how to differentiate the instruction according to student's level has always been a major headache for teachers.

YourTeacher can solve this problem: it is very much a self-teaching system. The student listens to the teacher, works problems, and gets help from the system itself.

Ease of use

I also want to emphasize how easy this system is to use. I logged in and rushed to find my first lesson totally green, without checking "help" or instruction pages first.

I just clicked to start a video to watch. Then, I noticed all the littel buttons and wondered what they'd do. After trying a few, I DID click "help". Up popped this image:

(click to enlarge)

...and it made the whole system crystal clear in NO TIME.

Functionality

You can pause, fast forward, or rewind the video lessons. You can jump from a lesson to a practice problem or to Deep Thought question, or back, without having to wait for one thing to finish.

You can stop one problem and go to the next. No need to go through anything in any given order. This, of course, promotes self-disciplined learning.

I really liked the fact that all this is shown within the same screen. It means I have no chance of getting lost within multitudes of windows or links. Also, I could see in one glance what all there is to do.

The programmers have really done a fine job!

Comprehensiveness

As of this writing, the lessons number 495. This includes Pre-algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2.

You can search for lessons by keyword, by popular textbooks, or just browse the lesson library. Obviously I did not watch all of them... You have to see the lists of lessons yourself to see how massive the amount of material is.

Criticism

I personally didn't like to hear a music clip after the Deep Thought question... it's distracting to me.

I saw several different teachers. All spoke very clearly and fairly slowly. The only thing I was wishing for was some smiles... : ) They all kept a pretty straight face.

Limitations

The system keeps track of the self-test scores, but does not give other tools for evaluation or for tracking student progress.

You will not know if your solution (I don't mean the answer) is right, would it happen to differ from the given solution path. So in that sense, nothing can totally replace a human teacher who can check if your thinking is right.

Not every problem is solved in a way that would inspire the most efficient problem solving. While everything is very clear, it is also fairly "legalized", as if stuck into one mode of thinking - that of the lesson at hand. This is, again, where an automated system reaches its limits.

For example, to write 4/5 as a decimal, I would not use long division, but simply use equivalent fractions: 4/5 = 8/10 = 0.8.

A good teacher knows his or her tools, and uses them appropriately. YourTeacher does not totally replace a good knowledgeable teacher, mathematical investigations, group discussions, or open-ended problems. But it is able to replace a lot.

YourTeacher.com - subscription service. Price: $5 for the first week, $29.50 a month thereafter.

Review by Maria Miller MSc, author of www.homeschoolmath.net and www.mathmammoth.com