This is not what learning is about
My 10 year old son has been working on IXL and we would like to offer the following feedback: 1. the goals are not motivating - in order to master the multiplication skill my son had to answer 74 questions such as 3 x 2345 2. in order to master a skill, you need to attain a smart score of 100. For the first few questions, you are awarded 10 points per question. But, as you progress, the number of points awarded for each question seems to decrease exponentially. Until, when you reach 90 and above, you are awarded only 1 point per correct answer. 3. the system features negative marking. Very disheartening - when you're so near the goal of 100 points, you are given 1 point for a correct answer, but 5 points are subtracted for an incorrect answer. 4. the questions are not varied. When completing the alphabetical ordering task, in order to reach the smart score of 100 and master the skill, my son completed 58 questions and got 52 correct, 6 incorrect. All the same style, all with five words that needed to be put in alphabetical order. Very dull. 5. if you search for 'task S.1', you are presented with a staggering 25 options, all entitled S.1, with topics ranging from 'counting by 2, 3, 5 and 10' to trigonometric ratios. I will be passing this feedback onto IXL and have also passed it onto my son's school and teacher. Really sad that learning is presented in this way - I worry that sites like this are discouraging students from learning. This is not what learning is about. Thanks for reading - hope it helps. Sinead