Review: Standard Deviants Accelerate

10/20/2014

Humour, math, short snipperts of learning, science, learning tested.. and this and more found through Standard Deviants Accelerate. Come walk with us and we tell you about this program we just reviewed for the Schoolhouse Crew. We had a chance to review some of the differenthomeschool courses they have available.

Let me tell you first a bit about Standard Deviants Accelerate. They offer online courses to homeschool students, starting with grade three math up to grade 11. Not all courses for all grade levels or even all grades, but the basics of what you need for much of those years. Their goal is to help students understand everything they need to know about a particular subject. Short study sessions, containing all the basic facts about a given area of study. Supplemental e-learning for your students, enabling them to learn in a multi-media format.

How did we use this homeschool e-learning course?
Allow me to walk you through using their on-line program. We given access to all their courses for one year. Of the fourteen courses available, we chose four to look at. Grade three math, Nutrition (grade six) Fundamental math (grade four) and earth science (grade six). I set up my parent account and then with a separate email, set up my son's account. Each student needs their own account with separate email. My student would be grade four.

We looked at grade three math first, just to get the feel for how they set things up by doing some review Gave us a chance to see how the program worked without having to (in my son's case), stress over learning a bunch of new things at the same same time. This worked really well and gave us our bearings. Off then to check out nutrition and Fundamental math. My son quickly decided that nutrition was one he would do later and enjoyed listening to the lessons in math. Earth sciences though... this course sparked my son's interest and so we divided out time between earth sciences and Fundamental Math.

When you open each category you will see a list of all the videos/topics in that subject area. You can take them in whatever order you wish, but they do build upon each other so taking them in order is what I would recommend.

After you click on one of the underlined topics, you are brought to a screen like this. One side is the video, on the other a transcript of the video. You can read and listen at the same, choose to listen only or just read through the transcript. Whatever choice, its all good. :) The transcript can be printed off as well for putting in a binder or just reading away from the computer. In the white box below can be used for taking notes. I very much appreciated that the lessons can be backed up, paused, played again as many times as we wanted. This was very helpful in helping my boy finally get a handle on what division is all about.

The lessons employ a number of ways to keep the students interested. A variety of actors, diagrams, and images to help teach the lesson. The actors have different ways to present themselves from sitting , standing to walking around and are of both genders.

Once you have watched the video, you can then go one of four pages. Vocab, Diagram, Quiz and Written Answers. You'll also notice a SOS button on the side where if you you need you can press on it. A sliding window will open up that says

"Adrift upon an endless sea of questions? Perhaps you’re having an “OMG this stuff it TOTALLY over my head” moment? Or maybe you’re just a little too shy to raise your hand and ask a question.

Fear not! Send a note to your teacher right now and ask a question about the topic.

Now about being too shy to raise your hand in class… try working on that skill. It gets easier every time you do it."

Here is an example of one of the diagram questions. When you are finished it will tell you how many tries it took you to complete it. if your number of tries equals the amount of items you needed to move you got it right first try.

We both liked how when doing the quiz, if you got an answer wrong it showed the correct answer and where you could go back for the teaching on it.

So what did we think?
it's a good program, well worth investing in, and using as supplementary material. If you have a child struggling in a certain area, this program will help to ensure that they have the basics of the subject area nailed. They havea low key way of teaching that removes the stress of learning. The variety of methods help to ensure that ll child can learn that material regardless of their preferred method of learning (other than the tactile must have hands on learners). Most child should be able to learn using Standard Deviants Accelerate quite nicely.

Product Details:
Vendor: Standard Deviants Accelerate
Program: Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses
Age Range: Grade three to grade eleven plus
Price: Ranges for each class from $99.99 to $249.99 (for teacher use unlimited students). This might work well for a co-op situation.

For homeschool use courses for one student would range from $14.95(AP courses) to $24.95 per month, or $99/year. But look! They have a six months free trial period. So check it out!

Crew members reviewed different courses. here is the list of the courses available.

Arithmetic- Grades 3+
Fundamental Math- Grades 4+
Earth Science- Grades 6+
Nutrition- Grades 6+
Algebra- Grades 7+
Biology- Grades 7+
Chemistry- Grades 9+
English Composition- Grades 9+
U.S. History- Grades 9+
A.P. Biology- Grades 11+
A.P. Chemistry- Grades 11+
A.P. U.S. Government and Politics- Grades 11+
A.P. U.S. History- Grades 11+
A.P. English Composition- Grades 11+

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