• Editor Rating

  • Rated 5 stars
  • Best of the Best

  • Quality
    Editor: 100%
  • Education
    Editor: 100%
  • Entertainment
    Editor: 90%
  • Value
    Editor: 100%
  • Child Friendly
    Editor: 90%

Review Summary:

BuzzMath for Middle School is a comprehensive and functional middle school math practice tool. It will provide hours of productive practice to build vital math skills.

Overview

BuzzMath Middle School is a comprehensive practice tool that offers thousands of exercises on Common Core topics in math for grades six through eight. Students and teachers can choose to use Common Core curriculum for each of the grade levels or a program suggested by the National Council of Teachers of Math covering all three grades.

Features include:

  • Over 2,800 exercises
  • Wide array of answer formats
  • Many manipulative formats, including drag and drop and measurement
  • Automated corrections
  • Unlimited retries of problems with new variables

Quality

BuzzMath for Middle School is an outstanding tool to support classroom teaching or homeschool curriculum for students in grades 6 through 8. The application offers organized practice that supports Common Core Curriculum, a wide array of response types, and a huge number of exercises. The interfaces (both student and teacher) are easy to use, the instructions are clear, and the examples and corrections are helpful. Furthermore, the company offers stellar customer support that is responsive, prompt and personal. Each exercise includes a link to report problems to the company with specific exercises.

Education

This app offers structured practice for all the math skills needed for a solid middle school foundation. Exercises are formatted in a variety of ways to add interest and to match the content. For example, a measurement exercise actually has a graphic object that can be moved against a ruler to measure it accurately using real-world skills. A volume exercise has cubic blocks that students drag and drop to fill a container. These sorts of visually sound exercises will prove very valuable to a variety of learners. Exercises are grouped into topical activities that include 10 different exercises with varied formats.

Each exercise can be retried with new variables an infinite number of times until a correct response is achieved, but teacher records will indicate when this has happened so the teacher can monitor actual accuracy as well as completion rates. Record-keeping also includes information about the time students spend on given activities, which will give clues about their speed of response.

BuzzMath for Middle School offers a thorough selection of activities for middle school students. It is easy to assign activities to match the curriculum being used at home or in the classroom, or students working on their own can choose which exercises are most interesting or needed the most practice. The system allows teachers or parents to set up individualized or group assignments, or to assign activities to entire classes.

It is important to keep in mind that the record-keeping features, the ability to assign specific activities, the audio reading of text, on-demand examples and detailed solutions are all premium features that are only available with paid subscriptions after July 1, 2013.

Entertainment

BuzzMath for Middle School has low-key but entertaining animations for correct responses. Incorrect responses are noted by a wild-haired professor with a text box prompting the student to check the explanation of what went wrong. After reading this correction, students can retry the problem with new variables but in the same format.

Students earn gold stars for successful completion of activities. The software also posts a recap of the number of hours spent working that could motivate some students to participate.

Value

The free version of BuzzMath for Middle School is an outstanding value. This app will provide solid practice to middle school students and give them a good foundation for entering high school level courses.

The premium version of BuzzMath for Middle School is intended primarily for classroom use, offering space for up to 60 students. The subscription rate, effective July 1, 2013, is $5 annually per student. If you need or want record-keeping abilities and the ability to assign specific exercises to specific students, it’s a great option, and a good value.

Child Friendliness

BuzzMath for Middle School includes no advertising and no links to social media. Students have the option of inputting their email and teachers/parents are required to provide their email addresses, physical addresses and their phone numbers to set up their accounts.

BuzzMath for Middle School is a comprehensive and functional middle school math practice tool. It will provide hours of productive practice to build vital math skills.

Editor rating
Rated 5 stars