Parent Support
CPM has a section of their website devoted to supporting parents. Here's a link to their tips for parents.
Acquire a Khan Academy account and you can track your students practice on this powerful site. Unfortunately an external timer won't work! Khan tracks students active math work - not how much time they spend choosing a cool avatar. Here's a link to Khan's Parent support.
Encourage your student to always check and make sure they're signed into their own account!
Here's a correlations between Khan and our book's checkpoints. I highly suggest students complete these skills as we go through the year.
Math 6 Khan Meets CPM Math 7 Khan Meets CPM Math 8 Grade Khan Meets CPM
Quizzes
These will occur the most frequently and be worth less than the tests. Quizzes will cover need to know skills and can be REDONE.
To redo a quiz students should either practice on khan or get help from someone in the know - might I suggest myself (after school or in advise).
If students demonstrate a new understanding and mastery of the skill they will receive their new score.
Team Tests
Team test are the BEST review for exams that I've found. Students work through their understanding of the content with their teams, actively discussing their understanding of the content. It's a joy to listen to their discussions!
If the team stumbles (this happens) and grades are lower than a student feels they deserver or are able to attain, they can raise their grade by studying the concepts on which they scored poorly, then doing better on their individual exam. The Individual Test is the Retake for the Team Test.
I only grade one test per team so that I can return them quickly - usually the next day. Students will usually have time to study for their exam before their individual test.
Individual Exams
If students study their team tests, the individual test should be strong.
Students will do test corrections to make-up points on individual test. They have one opportunity to do this - correcting corrections borders insanity.
To complete test corrections students must use our test correction form and follow the directions at the top of the form. Students may earn up to half their missed credit back.
I highly recommend that students come see a math teacher before they turn in corrections!