Teacher's Guide

Welcome! XtraMath is a web-based supplemental math fact fluency program for K-12. It provides individualized, targeted math fact practice for students and detailed tracking and reporting for teachers. It can be used in the classroom, in a computer lab or library or at home. Best of all, XtraMath is completely free and does not contain any advertising.

Student sessions are under ten minutes. For classroom use XtraMath organizes student turns on shared computers so all you have to do is ask the first few students to get started. On days when it isn't practical to do XtraMath during class time you can ask students to do the program at home.

Getting Started

First, create a teacher account you can use to check on students' progress. Go to the Teacher Sign Up page to create your account. After your account is created you can sign in using the Parents and Teachers sign-in card on the XtraMath home page.

Once you are signed in you can add students to your class using the Add students link in the left column. Only use students' first names, however if you have two or more students with the same first name you can add a last initial to distinguish them. The students will need to use the initial when they sign in. You must specify a grade for the students you are adding so if you have a split class then add the students from each grade separately.

Your students are assigned a random four-digit PIN for signing in. Print a list of the student PINs using the List of PINs link in the left column. Post it near the classroom computers or keep it in a handy place. Ask students to copy down their PIN on the inside cover of a notebook or other reliable location for easy reference.

If any of your students already have an XtraMath account because they transferred in from another class or are using XtraMath at home you can select the option to "Add a student who already has an XtraMath account." You will need the email address of their former teacher or parent and the student's PIN number. By adding them in this manner the student will resume where they left off rather that starting over from the beginning.

In the Classroom

If your students log in to their own Windows or Mac accounts on school computers do not use the Classroom login procedure described here. Instead, have your students log in as if they were at home as described in a later section.

Most classrooms have several computers that are shared by all students. The Classroom sign-in card on the XtraMath home page is designed to make it easy to get all your students through XtraMath each day on the shared computers. It picks students for turns on the shared computers and keeps track so that all students get a turn.

The first time you click on the Classroom sign-in card it will ask for your teacher account email and password to authorize the computer to display the names of students in your class. You only need to do this once on each computer and it will be remembered for the rest of the school year. After that, clicking on the Classroom sign-in card on the XtraMath home page will take you directly to the classroom sign-in page.

The classroom sign-in page displays the name of a student in your class, selected randomly, for a turn on XtraMath. The student signs in using their PIN and does XtraMath. After they finish their session it will return to the classroom login page and another student's name will be selected. Instruct your students to notify the next student when it is their turn so all you have to do is ask the first few students to get started at the appropriate time.

There are two additional buttons on the classroom login page that you need to explain to your students. There is a button marked Busy. Tell your students to click that button if the next student is unavailable. When they click that button a new student will be selected and the unavailable student will be selected later. The Absent button works the same except the absent student will not be called later. If a student is accidentally marked absent they can be manually selected using the list of student names on the right side of the classroom login page.

In a Computer Lab

If you are a computer lab teacher, middle-school math teacher, librarian or math specialist that works with students from several different classes you can add multiple classes to your XtraMath account. Use the "Add another class" link on the class page to add as many classes as you need. Each class will have its own tab in your teacher account.

You can use the classroom sign-in in the lab as described in the previous section. You will have to sign in once on each computer in the lab using the Classroom sign-in card. (It's a pain, I know, but you only have to do it once!) After that the clicking Classroom sign in card will go directly to the classroom login page.

The classroom login page will have a tab for each class you have set up in your account. Students will need to pick the appropriate class before they can select their name and sign in. The classroom login page for each class has its own URL so you can create links or bookmarks to specific classes for convenience.

DO NOT use the classroom login procedure if each student signs in to their own Windows or Mac accounts. In that case have students log in as if they were at home as described in the next section.

If the students' classroom teacher wants to check on students' progress in XtraMath then select the appropriate class tab in your teacher account and use the Share this class link and add the other teacher by email address. The other teacher must have created their own XtraMath account first.

At Home

XtraMath is a purely web-based program which has the advantage that students can do XtraMath at home or anywhere they can get on the Internet. To sign-in from home students use the Students login card on the home page. They use your email address, their first name, and their PIN to sign in. Let them know if you added a last initial to their name or if there is any possible confusion on name or spelling.

Use the Homework slips link in the left column of your teacher account to create a flyer you can send home with the kids. The flyer includes instructions for the parents and all required sign-in information.

When students sign in for the first time at home they should check the 'Remember Me' checkbox so that on subsequent logins they can simply click on their own name to log in.

The Student Activities

The student activities are, quite literally, self-explanatory. There is a teacher figure, "Mr. C", that explains each new activity to the student. So you do not need to spend a lot of time previewing the activities for the students.

Typically, students will start out with a quiz on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division followed by one or two practice activities on the same operation. Each is about two minutes so the entire session takes less than ten minutes. Mr. C will tell them when they are done and they should continue until they are back at the classroom login or home page.

Students work on the following operations starting with the easiest problems:

Kindergarten & First Grade	Addition
Second Grade	Addition & Subtraction
Third Grade	Addition, Subtraction & Multiplication
Fourth Grade & above	Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication & Divison

If a student is ready for operations beyond their grade level you can go to their student page in the teacher reports and change their grade. However, it is strongly recommended that students only practice operations for which they have a good conceptual understanding.

Students should be encouraged, but not required, to use the numeric keypad on the keyboard if there is one. If the numeric keypad doesn't appear to work on a Windows PC check that the NumLock light is on by pressing the NumLock key.

If a student appears stuck it is usually because they aren't pressing the green button to go on to the next page, or it is waiting for them to enter the correct answer that is displayed. Sometimes the answer text box has lost keyboard focus because the student clicked somewhere else on the screen. In that case you need to click inside the answer box so it will receive the numbers typed.

Students may log in to XtraMath more than once per day if they wish. In additional sessions they will not do quiz activities, only practice activities. For best results have students do XtraMath once per day every day.

Teacher Reports

When you sign in to your teacher account using the Parents & Teachers login card on the home page you see the class report page. It lists all of the students in the class with their scores. Scores are a weighted percentage of the number of facts the student can answer reliably in under three seconds. The weighting reduces the value of easy problems and increases the value of difficult problems. As a result a score of 50, for example, should be interpreted as the student is about halfway through mastering the operation.

To get more detailed information about a specific student click on the student's name in the class report page. That will take you to a student report page that has more detailed information on the student's performance. The student report page also contains links to edit the student's information if you need to fix a typo in the student's name or change their grade level. There is also a link to remove a student from the class.

Changes From Last Year

XtraMath changed significantly from last year. Here are some of the most significant changes.

• Audio. Last year the student activities had sound effects but the program worked fine with the sound turned off. This year a teacher figure -- "Mr. C" -- explains the program to the students within the program itself. This requires sound to be turned on and in a classroom environment the students may need to wear earphones or a headset, or else the volume needs to be adjusted to a level that does not bother the other students in the room.
• Students are shown their matrices. In order to intrinsically motivate students they are shown a color-coded matrix of their fact mastery. This gives them a goal and a sense of progress toward that goal.
• Maintenance practice. Students continue to quiz and occasionally practice operations after they reach 100% in order to maintain their fact mastery.
• The quizzes are more adaptive. Based on statistics gathered from last year about question difficulty the quizzes now start with the easier problems and increase in difficulty as appropriate. The prevents student frustration from getting problems they are not ready for.
• Practice is based on strategy groups. The facts that are practiced together are usually related by a strategy. One addition practice group, for example, is the "doubles plus one" facts which can be linked to the doubles facts.
• PINs are randomly assigned. A higher profile requires more attention to security. As a result student PINs are randomly assigned. You can print the student PINs from the class page for posting or easy reference.
• No more "assignments". This year we use the student's grade to determine which operations the student works on. That prevents students from advancing on to operations that they might not be conceptually ready to practice. Teacher's can change the student's "grade" on the student report page if they feel the student is ready for an operation not practiced at their grade level.
• No more "easy" subsets. Because the quizzes are adaptive and practice works from easier groups to more difficult groups it became unnecessary to have the simpler versions of each operation known as "Easy Addition", etc. Student's will work from the easier problems to the more difficult problems at their own pace.
• No more flash cards. Flash cards were a popular feature and we know teachers are going to be disappointed that flash cards aren't back this year. However, the strength of this program is its ability to track student progress and make practicing efficient. Therefore we encourage students to practice their math facts within the program as much as possible.

Known Issues

• In IE6 if the browser window is smaller than the size of the student activity page then it is impossible to scroll the page which is necessary to access the buttons that the students need to click at the bottom of the page. If your screen resolution is 1024x768 or above you should be able to increase the size of the browser window sufficiently. However with 800x600 resolution it is impossible to enlarge the window enough.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

We are eager to hear from teachers using XtraMath about what is working well and what needs to be improved. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about XtraMath please email david@xtramath.org. Thank you!