My Evaluation of Prodigy Math

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I get emails a lot from teachers asking me what I think of this program, or that app, etc.  Well, two times in one week I got asked about the math game Prodigy Math.  I hadn’t heard of it, so after the second question I decided to look in to it, especially because the second person was at a school that uses Dreambox (which I LOVE) and their district is looking into using Prodigy instead.

I went in and spent 20 minutes in there playing as a student because I have no experience with the program.  So here are my thoughts…but again only after 20 minutes of exposure…so I’m sure I’ll get heat on this, but I’m posting it anyway because what I saw in 20 minutes is so much like every program out there and I wanted to give you all some of the things I saw from the kid side.

That is my first recommendation….when looking at an online program, go in and play it as a KID!  Don’t trust the marketing the company puts out about how great their program is and how it meets the standards and uses models to help the kids solve problems.  Go play it and see what it feels like/what’s required from the child.

So, here is what I saw:

1) There is no teaching happening in the program.  Kids either know it or they don’t.  There is a hint, but the hints I took just tell me how to do it procedurally.  So I think this *could* be okay to use as a way to give kids more practice IF they already have the understanding.  On some tasks, there are “math tools” that I can use but I first have to know how to use them.
2) There is a lot of game play with a little math sprinkled in, but the math is all procedural (that I saw).  In the 20 minutes I spent in there, I probably only did math about 3 minutes of actual math.  The rest of the time I was playing and traveling in the wizard world (which may be an issue with some families as when kids answer a math problem they are actually casting a spell onto another person or monster).
Prodigy Math Game

Screen capture of the ‘battle’ inside Prodigy Math. Kids cast a spell upon their opponent each time they answer a math problem correctly.

3) The way they make kids type in their answers leads to procedural thinking.  For example, one problem I encountered was 20-10 and it was stacked vertically.  I typed in 10, but it showed up 01…the program “fills” the answer in from right to left as if a kids were doing the algorithm…i.e. the first number I typed (1) they put in the ones place because we are supposed to subtract our ones first then move to our tens, you know.  🙂
Prodigy Math Game makes kids fill in answers from right to left, which makes them think procedurally instead of conceptually.
These may seem like small things but I think it probably paints a picture of the program as a whole…I’m the first to admit I ONLY spent 20 minutes in the program.  I think the reason many districts want to use programs like Prodigy is that it’s free and good, in-depth programs that build kids understanding of mathematics, like Dreambox, are not…but you get what you pay for people. 🙂
I would also like to direct you to this wonderful blog post by Tracy Zager.  In this post, she analyzed math game sites and apps and gives her criteria for what makes a good program/game/app.  She also is a fan of Dreambox, but I think her blog post lays it out very nicely.