The worst learning platform to date
As a student, I have found that this platform is one of the WORST learning sites for children possible. Let me elaborate.
In the past, our school used to use the likes of the activate course for all sciences. You could ask anyone in the school of their views on science, and it was clear that they loved it. The course was super interactive, well explained, and IMPORTANTLY, focused on understanding the concept rather than just knowing the answer, and I felt that my peers had a deeper understanding of the concepts and you could most likely expect them to answer a question we hadn't learnt the answer to, as they could use their intuition to figure out the answer INDEPENDENTLY, using their existing knowledge, and, lastly, people were curious and exited for upcoming lessons.
Then, we switched to carousel. New textbook, new platform, and our teacher completely glazing it. Most of us were curious, and pretty much just thought we were swapping the textbook for an equivalent, and changing our homework to be some sort of online equivalent. Oh we were WRONG...
Firstly, the teaching resources are TERRIBLE. All the students, even my best friend who was passionate at science are now fiddling, or whispering to their friends. The whole lesson is now the same mind-numbing routine of a quiz at the start, proceeded by the most repetitive and slides that are simply not engaging at all. They seem to repeat answers in a way that look like they are just preparing you for what to write in the homework, instead of understanding the ideas. And the textbook.
I do not know what actual psychopath invented this horrible textbook, though what I can tell you is that it accurately reflects the ideology of carousel. Pages upon pages of the same question just with different values, and I simply cannot fathom HOW or WHAT lunatic thought this was good for teaching science. They could at the very least put a simple diagram, not just 200 QUESTIONS on "how to calculate a moment if the weight is x and the distance is y". I completely understand that the thinking "or lack of it" behind the textbook might be that students will simply read through it, and while I completely agree that is an issue, EXPLANATIONS are the absolute MINIMUM BASIS for it to be a textbook, and its especially important when the lesson content was garbage and unhelpful.
Lastly, the homework. I would like to draw in on an interesting concept I've learned, called the path to least resistance. Put simply, the path which will take the least effort will be the one people choose. In our previous course, people WERE CURIOUS about science, so when it came to homework, everyone tried their best on it; it caused them the least resistance, and besides, cheating was hard because the tasks were usually open ended like drawing graphs on an experiment of our choice that we conducted at home. Now conversely, with carousel, the lack of interest combined with the questions being close ended + self marked, you can imagine that the homework was simply an annoying wednesday nuisance that was a few googles from being done.
Finally, I've also noticed that the main reason for adoption of these platforms seems to be for the teachers, and from what I've seen, its great for the them; however, that seems to be a pattern for these platforms like sparx maths (we also use and hate): great for teachers, and borderline torture for the students.
Overall, I find carousel learning as a whole to be a severe disappointment, especially since my school is lucky enough to have a practical area to perform experiments, which is now covered with a thick sheet of dust (like an actual sheet of dust), and finally, has left some of my classmates with the most deep hatred for science in the world.
PS: I'm not endorsed by activate, just simply drawing it as a comparison since I personally really enjoyed it, ot saying its perfect, but simply that carousel was a significant downgrade.
The date of experience is also simply when we switched, I just wrote this after a very horrible carousel homework, and after hearing a plethora of complaints from my friends.
I also want to note after some more research that the textbook was done in collaboration with springboard science, and we only use carousel for science so there are possibly some better courses, but with the main issues still prevalent.
