Community reviews for Prodigy Math

I heard about Prodigy at a conference. They were kind enough to set up our school accounts for us once I provided a spreadsheet of student information. My students love to play this game. They feel like it is a video game. They continue to make adjustments and add features to the site. It is worth checking out.

I believe this app (and the online game) are an engaging way to submerge students into fact practice. It is very relevant to what I'm teaching during my Everyday Mathematics block of learning. My students are asking how to play at home and their math skills are improving. It allows students to try and fix errors during problem solving time, and then show students how to find the correct answer if they answered incorrectly. It is a very useful addition to my math block!

As I am using the free to use part of the site, there are some limits. It does not given an placement test nor does it instruct. You can give the students a grade level skill set or you can assign specific skill sets. It resembles AR math but is more fun and easier to use.

My overall opinion about Prodigy as a teaching tool, is that is useful in moderation. It has a great engagement factor and students love it. Prodigy's ability to provide the teacher with the opportunity to assign tasks directly related to the indicator and provide immediate data is tremendously valuable. However, Prodigy should be used in such a way that it is merely a supplement to the much deeper instruction happening with the teacher. The assignments Prodigy offers usually do not necessarily promote higher order thinking skills, rather they are a way to assess proficiency in certain areas. Although it does not always require critical thinking, the game supersedes a worksheet or paper pencil task and yet it is achieving the same purpose. Prodigy offers excellent in game support for students. When students are answering a question, there is a toolbar provided on the right hand side. Inside the toolbar there are resources included that help students work out their answers, so it doesn't only require mental math. These resources include items such as base ten blocks, a pen tool, fraction bars, read to and a few others. The read to is especially helpful for younger students, ELL students, or those who are at lower literacy levels. One component of the assignments that I also appreciate, is that the questions are immediately self-checking. When students answer a question, they are able to see if they are correct, and if not it provides them with the correct answer. Providing the self-checking piece gives the student the immediate feedback they need to continue to independently practice successfully. Prodigy could serve students better if it was a bit more user friendly. As noted before, students sometimes have a hard time navigating the game and getting to the challenges. This is especially true for other types of learners such as ELL and special needs students. If Prodigy had a way for students to clearly see how to navigate, I would improve my rating. The intention of the game is to do math and if they are unable to find the challenges it takes away the integrity of the game. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoy integrating Prodigy into my small group math rotations because I think it is a valuable tool for both students and teachers. I will continue to use Prodigy as a fun independent math practice and data collection tool, and I will continue to be hopeful for an update on user friendliness.

As an overall teaching tool, this product is awesome. It is everything that you want from an online tool: free, easy to use, decent reports, engaging, adaptive. I like that my students want to get on here. It is fairly new, so not every skill has a lesson. My main critique is that I wish assignments and lessons were more developed, but overall, it has everything we need for our classes.

Even after just a short while of playing I could see the adaptive nature kicking in. Stronger students were being challenged while struggling learners were also given appropriately work at the appropriate level. The game is deep and rich, and many of my students didn't really understand it all, but several were really engaged by the battle format and the idea of capturing creatures to improve your chances in the next battle. (Like Pokemon). Because of this gap in engagement I expect to see many of these learners continuing to use the game at home, while others may give up on it. This likely isn't going to be for everyone, but for the students that like it is a great way to tie good math practice to a really fun game.

I like this product and would use it as a tool to enhance the students skills.