Quick start guide for teachers

Finding and selecting work

It is generally best for pupils to select a year before looking for work, so that more relevant question types are shown.

Work can be found by pupils in 5 ways.

1. By clicking the large coloured buttons for the topic. For early stages this brings up a mostly visual menu of work. For later stages it is text based.
2. By searching for a topic (ie typing 'addition' into the seaarch box)
3. By saying a topic out loud. In most modern browsers clicking the (bottom right) speech bubble and saying 'addition' into the microphone will bring up the 'best' hit for addition.
4. Weaknesses - questions answered consistently slowly, with errors, or with help are remembered and suggested to pupils at their next visit.
5. If the work to be tackled is the same as the last session, the yellow 'last time' button can be used to take pupils directly to it.

Assigning work

Work can be assigned by:

1. Short cut codes. View the text topics by clicking the large coloured buttons (and then for the first 4 years, clicking the top right icon). To the left of the topics on the list is a one or two letter code, or in the case of a specific question, a number. Students can enter these (case insensitive) codes or numbers into the search box to take them directly to the right topic(s)
2. If you select topics and press go, just above the first question you will see a faded out box with a url in it. Selecting this copies it to your clipboard and you can then paste it to students as a link.
3. Select 'show QR code' in settings. When you then select question types and press go, a QR code can be found by the URL (described in 2). Pupils can scan this with an appropriate device.
4. Create a log in, add students and set an assignment. This will allow you to assign work to individual pupils, groups, or the whole class. Unlike the other methods, teachers will have access to answers, workings, and statistics.
5. Directing them to find topics for themselves as described above.

Monitoring progress

Once enough (by default, normally 6) questions of a type have been answered without recourse to show me how, a wedge (quarter circle) may be awarded for that question type as follows:

• Bronze - Enough questions were answered but the difficulty was below the target for the pupil's stage on the given question type and mistakes may have been made and corrected.
• Silver - Sufficiently difficult questions were answered for the pupil's level, but were answered in a time exceeding the target time.
• Gold -Sufficiently difficult questions were answered in a fast enough time.

Overall progress is shown in a bronze, silver and gold pie chart by the topic heading. The blank portion of the pie chart illustrates the questions in the topic that have not been answered, or have been answered with recourse to the show me how button. For the pie chart to cover the full 360 degrees, the pupil would need to have won 4 wedges (of any colour) for every question type in the topic.

Progress is associated with a year, so wedges will disappear when a pupil goes up a year.

Adaptive Learning

To allow pupils to build confidence, by default, questions do not get harder with correct answers, or easier with mistakes.

However pupils can click easier or harder to adapt the difficulty level to their confidence and ability. Additionally, they can view follow on topics to see how their new knowledge can be taken further. They can also choose to answer prerequisite (first know) topics to fill in any gaps in their learning.

If show me is clicked twice on a question type, the difficulty level will then be reduced. If they are already on the easiest difficulty level, they will be taken to the prerequisite topics.

However, if learners are doing a set assignment through a log on, the teacher has control over whether easier / harder and first know / follow on buttons are shown. There is also a skills assessment mode, in which worked solutions are not shown but questons are merely skipped if the pupil can't answer them.

Special needs

There are a couple of specific special needs adaptations, all of which are available by clicking the settings button at the bottom of the main page:

1. Dyslexia - a blue screen is available to tint the display. This option will be remembered for their next visit.
2. Listen / talk - have the question read to your student, and say the answer out loud. Additionally, the grey speech bubble in the questions or worked solutions can be clicked to have it read out loud. The red speech bubble can be clicked to use the microphone to say the answer into the microphone.
3. EAL - with a few exceptions, questions can be translated into one of 133 alternative languages by clicking 'English' in the settings.

0Maths was designed around specific educational needs which many pupils may suffer to a greater or lesser degree, even if temporarily:

• ADD
  • No speed bumps
  • Appropriate difficulty level
  • Varied questions
• Anxiety
• Low commitment to an answer
• No wrong answers - only not yet right
• No ticking clock
• Ambition
  • No irrelevant games
  • Follow on topics
  • Explanations
  • Difficulty level

I need your feedback

Any bugs, glitches, typos or anything at all, please contact me throught the @ link in the top corner of the main page. There is no need to enter an email address so children can use it to report any bugs they find and I will not be able to contact them.

0Maths has way over 400 question types, with an average of 3 difficulty levels each, and many of theose questions take additional parameters (ie, the limit for addition problems), and then they are randomly generated. All that adds up to a very large number of permutations, and although testing has been thorough, it can't be exhaustive.