Advanced and Challenge Levels

When Mike Kenny first created MathFactLab, it only focused on the basic math facts. With his fifth graders, he noticed a problem: once some students finished the program, the ones still working on multiplication facts felt singled out. To them, MathFactLab started to seem like a “remedial” program.

To make the program something that would keep all students challenged, he created the advanced, super-advanced, and super-duper-advanced levels (now renamed the Challenge, Advanced, and Super Challenge levels). In addition/subtraction these help students practice solving double-digit addition and subtraction problems mentally. In multiplication/division these include all remaining 'facts' up to 20x20. Since the introduction of these enrichment levels, the taint of 'something only the kids who aren't smart do' has entirely vanished.

Do kids need to know 14x17? Absolutely not. Students are not expected to know by heart any super-advanced fact. Rather, they practice strategies that make it possible for them to solve such problems in their heads. These strategies help them to become very flexible, creative mathematicians. To solve 14x17 mentally (or any other super-advanced problem), students need to develop a toolbox of high-level math strategies and the brain power to hold so much in one's head at once.

To make it more reasonably possible to do this, as the levels get more challenging, the number of allowed seconds to be considered fluent automatically increases. So a student with a 4-second assigned fluency rate may actually be given up to 12 seconds on some problems. Last year, in my relatively small school, we had about half a dozen 5th graders who worked their way through the entire program. They were challenged throughout and were very proud of their success.

By default, Challenge-Stage Level Lifters are turned off. To level up, students just meet the specific requirements of the level. They do not take a Level Lifter. This makes it easier for students to work their way through the Challenge-Stage levels. If a student graduates, you can turn these Level Lifters on, reassess them, and have them work through the program again, this time facing a little more challenge.

To turn on Challenge-Stage Level Lifters for an Individual Student:

1. Begin on the Informative or Performance side of the Students tab.

2. Click on the Edit Student icon for the student you wish to change.

   

3. Look for the 'Challenge-Stage Level Lifters' setting and use the toggle to turn this feature on or off.
4. Make sure to hit 'Save'.

To turn on Challenge-Stage Level Lifters for Multiple Students:

1. Begin on the Informative or Performance side of the Students tab.
2. Select the students you wish to change.

3. Click on the Group Edit icon.

   

4. Look for the 'Challenge-Stage Level Lifters' setting and use the drop-down menu to turn this feature on or off.
5. Make sure to hit 'Save'.