ARC Maths

Once the student/user has registered with an email they are shown the login screen where the user can remain logged in, for future use, by selecting the ‘Stay logged on’ option.

The ‘Home’ dashboard starts by asking you two questions to gauge your particular learning journey. Answer the following questions: “About you’.

“Other people would say you are good at maths’.

“You will be taking your maths GCSE within the 2 years”.

Starting at Level 1 the ‘Home’ dashboard displays a level progress bar, XP (Experience Points), Daily Streaks and the ‘Start’ Button. You will gain an XP for every correct question and completing a session every weekday will build your Daily streak. There are 10 levels within the application each with their avatar.

The ‘Home’ dashboard also features several more options in the left-hand menu. These include:

Levels – This feature displays the levels within the application along with the avatar for each level. Each avatar is supported by a description and can only be unlocked once the previous level has been completed. Level 1 starts with the avatar of a shark ‘Mia’. We liked this visual indication of the levels that were available to the student.

Edit Profile – This enables the user to change passwords and manage accounts.

Settings – This enables the user to opt-in and out of data collection for crash reports and Google analytics.

Terms of Use – Access to the Terms and Conditions of ARC Maths.

Tutorial – This tutorial appears at the beginning of the application for the initial set up. ARC maths fantastic technology enables the student to write on the screen for number recognition. This guides the user through writing on the screen, scribbling out, recognising handwriting and dragging answers into question boxes. We recommend that this tutorial is completed before starting the levels to enable the user to get a feel for how a question may be answered as well as practising writing numbers on the screen’s device.

The student enters the level by pressing the ‘Start’ button on a clear and intuitive dashboard. 

The student answers 12 questions unsupported. The first 2 questions are warm-up times table questions. The other 10 questions are on topics that you may have recently practised, ones that you have forgotten, ones that you might be about to forget, some that are just revision and possibly a couple of new topics to see how you get on. The developer suggests that “The more time you spend on the app, the better Arc will get to know you, and what you need”.

Students can practise questions that they get incorrect at the end of the topic.

Many of the questions will ask you to write an answer in the space provided which is then identified by the application (script recognition technology) and converts it into a number, fraction etc. This works seamlessly. Other questions may ask you to match, select or order items on the screen. The developers have included a drop-down screen for working out and calculator icon lets you know whether you can use a calculator or not. You can rub out your answer by using the reset button or just by crossing out. We noted that there is also a help feature that is unavailable at this point.

We were very impressed by the variety of the questions, examples include; multiplication, division, multiples, graphs, angles, shapes and so much more. This kept of users engaged and wanting to practice more and more.

Question examples include:

• Multiplication: 30 x 10
• Division: 14 divided by 2
• Rounding numbers: Round 176 to the nearest 10
• Match the description to the correct angles: Acute, Obtuse, Reflex, Right Angle
• Match the words to the description: Perimeter, Area, Capacity, Volume
• Find the number of people who order coffee form the graph shown
• Write down the reading from the scale
• Double 26
• Find the number from the Tally chart

The developers might consider improving accessibility for those with special needs by introducing an audio narration of the question and changing the white writing space to a pastel colour for those with dyslexia.

Once the questions have been completed students are provided with feedback at the end of the topic. If the student gets a question wrong, then they can see the correct answer and have a go at practising some similar questions. The feedback displays your answer as well as the correct answer. The student can practise further examples by opting for ‘Another question’ or by returning to the results if the concept has been grasped. It is noted that the ‘help’ icon can be used if the student needs it. However, we did feel that this should link to some background knowledge of the topic at hand rather than simply asking for help from others around you.

The application contains a vast amount of content and the navigation and software is intuitive and a pleasure to use. You may feel that the application provides a lack of choice, however, the app has been designed to target weaknesses rather than offering choice. It also means that the questions are ‘interleaved’ so the pupils need to find the correct maths for each question rather than knowing that the next question is going to be the same topic. The application is excellent for retrieval practice and its educational value is priceless in terms of feedback and monitoring progress. The application may also benefit from some further tracking that could include the number of incorrect answers and the time taken for a correct response.

Arc Maths is a wonderful application that supports ages 11-16 for those who are studying mathematics and for those who are embarking on a GCSE level. The application makes maths fun and engaging as well as embedding those key skills for knowledge retrieval. Our users found the app intuitive and easy to navigate and with only 10 minutes per session they found their maths knowledge progressing rapidly.

No time wasting just high-quality questions and answers! The application ARC Maths comes highly recommended by The EducationalAppStore.com.

You can download ARC Maths on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the ARC Maths app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.