Online Tools that Helps Teaching a Schoolhouse Crew Review

My first review of the 2016 Schoolhouse Review Crew Year! I am down to one 9th grade High School Student this year, so I may not have many reviews to share with you. So – If one of these comes by, know that I ~~asked~~ begged for the Vendor and the Product after researching them online. For those of you who are new, the Crew requires that we use the product for 4-6 weeks. So this is not a simple glance over – we have plugged it into our home and given it a full test drive.

Today I am sharing the vendor / online resource HelpTeaching.com. They have
Generously given us the Pro Plan for HelpTeaching.com.

The Reason I requested this product is because we are now required to test every year with my son in Oregon as he is wanting to participate in OSAA Sports as a homeschooler. We have had an Eclectic / Relaxed Charlotte Mason / Project Driven type of environment in our home with top of the line resources. This has built a solid knowledge base, but not a lot of practice with Accredited School Testing, or tests that lean towards Common Core style – Specifically with English Language Arts for High School.

I browsed the 9th grade offerings and found the topics spot on for what we needed to help him practice funneling his knowledge to a test. As you browse the list below, this is only the LA, 9th grade portions, and not a full representation of the list. The items with a lock next to them are for the subscription package, the open items are available to you for free with an account.

These are found under the Tests and Worksheets tab. Each one can be assigned to a student to be taken online, or printed out. The print out sheets are clean, professional, no marks for the HelpTeaching.com spot, free of advertising, headers or footers. I did not take a photo of them as I wasn’t sure of copy write issues for content. It is above what we have experienced with ‘printables’ that seem to have half of the page filled with items that have nothing to do with the content.

This year my son is more self directed with online content. This new skill has led me to look for more online lessons that he can do on his own. HelpTeaching.com has integraged worksheets and videos with practice tests that are simple to walk through.

The above is a sampling of the online lessons for Arithmatic / Math. The key indicates if your student will be directed to a HelpTeaching.com, Khan Academy, Educator.com or Misc. video source.

We are working on Slope Interface Function and Algebra Concepts so we chose the Linear Equations Using Slope Intercept Form. After a short online lesson (2-3 paragraphs) We had a choice to View Practice Questions. A simple pop up appears with radio buttons to choose your answer.

Along with the online text and Practice Questions, there are additional Activities, Related Worksheets, and Additional Resources.

There is also an online test of 10 questions for Slope-Intercept Form.

After completing the test, he was given a score of 0. What? It had a message that the teacher would need to grade the test. It was simple for me to find on My Content. What I ~~LIKED~~ thrilled me to no end, about this process – is that it showed the Question, the Answer and the Student’s Answer for each question. We have had issues with other online programs – the student gets it wrong, but we can not for the life of us figure out why.

On this test? Y was used instead of y. So all of them were wrong.
It was simple to look at the box and click, Correct Answer, or Incorrect Answer.

Changing the test to a 90% for the one that he actually didn’t do correctly.

There are so many options on the HelpTeaching.com website for multiple ages, grade levels and subjects. I liked that even with the Language Arts, some of the worksheets were history, literature or science based. I could print out a Compare and Contrast Science worksheet and he could read about rainforests, frogs, and hurricanes, tying in our General/Physical Science work in another program. I could print out a Cause and Effect worksheet that tied to his time period in US History.

Which brings me to my recommendations – It key is in the name – HelpTeaching.com. This is a tool to help you with your teaching. This could fill in some gaps, create extra worksheets for practice, be a tool to be able to produce grade appropriate work samples, and practice for state testing – without actually – only – practicing for testing.

I can keep my eclectic relaxed style – and incorporate high school level worksheets and tests. I’m not convinced that this would be a beginning step to learning a topic for the first time. The focus is on Testing and Worksheets indicating that the student would have already been involved with receiving instruction. The video lessons that they have now are a great step – but we used them for a touch up and to show that the knowledge was obtained. However, nothing on the site is indicating that this may replace a resource – just help you with the subjects you are already teaching.

This is just a snapshot of what we played with over the last few weeks. Stop by the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to see how other families with various ages used the online quizzes, printable worksheets, lessons and assessments!