Yes, a fair point! I truly have no issue with people who are finding MA a fun way to do math and keep up their skills (or push through towards some goal). My review was oriented around MA's claims and ambitions, and honestly I was a bit grumpy about the gap between their claims and the product.
Anyway, I liked your review and you raise a bunch of interesting points. Thanks for it!
Thanks for this review, Oz, I kind of subliminally felt an unease towards Math Academy and the hype. Surely, they must be doing a great job in some aspect but I felt with the XP it almost brought me to think of Duolingo. All fun but doesnt bring one to think deeply about a topic. Perhaps, I will try them out to remember some stuff, but I dont think they would serve me in my goal to use part of math to solve something in my area of interest.
Yes, damn it! Finally, someone has actually put some thought into the review instead of just singing empty praises.
MA doesn’t connect the dots — it doesn’t help build a cohesive understanding of the subject. It’s just a grinding gym. If a student has access to a professor, a solid textbook, and lectures, then sure, MA can help improve their practical skills.
But if you're on your own and trying to figure things out using only MA, it’s a complete waste of time and energy — and an incredibly frustrating one.
The flow of MA is terrible. Those XP points and leagues look great at first, but once you get into it, you realize how poorly designed it is. Wrapping your head around a concept isn’t a competition. Building a skill isn’t a competition. Applying it might be — but MA doesn’t care. It offers only one explanation per topic, doesn’t let you skip anything, and forces you down a rigid, unchangeable path.
Worse still, if you're struggling with a topic, and you’ve Googled, read other explanations, and you're this close to that “Aha!” moment — MA kicks you out of the lesson with -10 points, making you switch to some other lesson that's simply irrelevant.
If I knew back then what I know now, I would’ve saved $500.
I like that this review is written by someone who gave Math Academy a serious try. You mention comments by a couple of other math educators (Michael Pershan and Dan Meyer), but I haven't seen any evidence that either of them has used Math Academy for enough time to evaluate it.
(At the time I recommended my son start doing Math Academy, I had done 3722 XP myself, which is about 60 hours' worth.)
It's true that there's a stronger emphasis on procedural fluency than on conceptual understanding. But honestly I think that's good: there's so much good material online for conceptual understanding.
Imagine you're studying linear algebra: use Math Academy for rigorous introductions to topics and exercises and feedback, and watch 3Blue1Brown videos for conceptual understanding.
For younger kids (my son is 8.5yo) I wish Math Academy had some animated or video explanations. For example, the prealgebra course includes the product rule for surds. It was hard for my son to grok based on reading the written explanation. Not because the explanation was bad, but because my son has the attention span of an 8.5yo. So I spent a few minutes walking through that same explanation with him, using a paper and pencil to guide his attention.
I also wish they had a mascot and a streak feature. Those features on Duolingo somehow help to motivate my son.
Yes, a fair point! I truly have no issue with people who are finding MA a fun way to do math and keep up their skills (or push through towards some goal). My review was oriented around MA's claims and ambitions, and honestly I was a bit grumpy about the gap between their claims and the product.
Anyway, I liked your review and you raise a bunch of interesting points. Thanks for it!
Thanks for stopping by Michael. I appreciated your article and agree about the gap.
How many XP did you earn before you wrote your review?
I did 3722 XP myself, before I recommended MA to my son.
Thanks for this review, Oz, I kind of subliminally felt an unease towards Math Academy and the hype. Surely, they must be doing a great job in some aspect but I felt with the XP it almost brought me to think of Duolingo. All fun but doesnt bring one to think deeply about a topic. Perhaps, I will try them out to remember some stuff, but I dont think they would serve me in my goal to use part of math to solve something in my area of interest.
Anyway, thanks for the through review
What is the DAG?? Directed Acyclic Graph? 😀
Yes!
Yes, damn it! Finally, someone has actually put some thought into the review instead of just singing empty praises.
MA doesn’t connect the dots — it doesn’t help build a cohesive understanding of the subject. It’s just a grinding gym. If a student has access to a professor, a solid textbook, and lectures, then sure, MA can help improve their practical skills.
But if you're on your own and trying to figure things out using only MA, it’s a complete waste of time and energy — and an incredibly frustrating one.
The flow of MA is terrible. Those XP points and leagues look great at first, but once you get into it, you realize how poorly designed it is. Wrapping your head around a concept isn’t a competition. Building a skill isn’t a competition. Applying it might be — but MA doesn’t care. It offers only one explanation per topic, doesn’t let you skip anything, and forces you down a rigid, unchangeable path.
Worse still, if you're struggling with a topic, and you’ve Googled, read other explanations, and you're this close to that “Aha!” moment — MA kicks you out of the lesson with -10 points, making you switch to some other lesson that's simply irrelevant.
If I knew back then what I know now, I would’ve saved $500.
I like that this review is written by someone who gave Math Academy a serious try. You mention comments by a couple of other math educators (Michael Pershan and Dan Meyer), but I haven't seen any evidence that either of them has used Math Academy for enough time to evaluate it.
(At the time I recommended my son start doing Math Academy, I had done 3722 XP myself, which is about 60 hours' worth.)
It's true that there's a stronger emphasis on procedural fluency than on conceptual understanding. But honestly I think that's good: there's so much good material online for conceptual understanding.
Imagine you're studying linear algebra: use Math Academy for rigorous introductions to topics and exercises and feedback, and watch 3Blue1Brown videos for conceptual understanding.
For younger kids (my son is 8.5yo) I wish Math Academy had some animated or video explanations. For example, the prealgebra course includes the product rule for surds. It was hard for my son to grok based on reading the written explanation. Not because the explanation was bad, but because my son has the attention span of an 8.5yo. So I spent a few minutes walking through that same explanation with him, using a paper and pencil to guide his attention.
I also wish they had a mascot and a streak feature. Those features on Duolingo somehow help to motivate my son.
If you are still taking votes for teachyourselfcs.com, as a self-learner I vote for:
CMU 15-445 Intro to Database Systems
For semesters when Andy Pavlo is teaching:
* All lectures are available on YouTube
* Class projects are available on github and non-CMU self learners have access to Gradescope autograder.
*.Homeworks are not autograded, but solutions posted.
* Great for learning about the implementation of databases (systems programming--not so much how to use a database but some exposure to SQL).
* Lots of history on the big ideas in databases
MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems
* Lectures on YouTube
* Projects available on github
* Comes with unit tests
* Example midterms and solutions
* Lots of discussion of original papers on big ideas in distributed systems
I gots lots of inspiration from teachyourselfcs.com. Thank you!
Andy