Today’s entry is a great tool for supporting the practice and learning for all things Maths from age 11-16. With all of the topics built in to support Mathematics teaching from Year 7 to Year 11, the brilliant Arc Maths is a great tool to support the Maths teaching taking place in your classroom.
How does it work?
Arc Maths starts by asking students a series of 12 questions. From this base level point, the app then starts to learn about you, your skills and knowledge within Maths.
Using brilliant hand-writing recognition, many of the questions posed to students require them to write their answers onto the screen.
If you’re a parent, the app can work stand-alone so you can access Arc Maths so that you can support your child with their Maths learning. Alternatively, if you’re a school, you can sign all of your classes up and track their progress through the whole school dashboard.
Why does it work?
Arc Maths takes on board a number of cognitive psychology principles to help learning undertaken through the app really hit home.
Retrieval practice: The purpose of the testing is not to assess whether the knowledge is known but to strengthen the memory of that knowledge. A student doing a session of Arc Maths is undertaking retrieval practice as opposed to learning new things. Much research has shown that this is a powerful tool for improving long-term retention of knowledge and skills.
Spacing effect: Arc Maths spaces learning out over time because research shows this is more effective than massed practice in which the same skill is practised repeatedly in one sitting. The increased effort required to retrieve the information after a period of forgetting helps to strengthen the memory.
Interleaving: When a student uses Arc Maths, questions that might require a follow-up question may be followed by such a question, so students need to identify what maths is required. This is a more demanding task than repeat practice and the greater effort required to retrieve the knowledge or skill has a positive impact on the strength of retention.
Cognitive Load: Research has shown that adding unnecessary complexity to a task inhibits learning by overloading the working memory. The questions in Arc Maths are presented with minimal wording and without real-life context where possible. The interface is uncluttered and consistent so that the user can give their full attention to the maths.
How can I learn more?
Developed by a Maths teacher, Arc Maths is a great solution to support and consolidate Maths learning in the classroom. If this sounds like a great solution to support your Maths team in your school, you can learn more about Arc Maths and how to get a free trial to check out with your students here.
