Mosa Mack Science Detective
Mindprint Rating
Tags
Skills
Mindprint Expert Review
Pros
- The mystery cartoon videos encourage students to think about the problems as they are watching and draw conclusions before providing the answer.
- Mosa Mack's character can serve as a positive role model to encourage young girls in science.
- Many students might prefer being introduced to new topics through these videos over traditional textbooks or classroom explanations.
Considerations
- While the cartoons help engage students, the stories involve a lot of dialogue and some specific science vocabulary, which might be difficult for students with weaker attention, listening and comprehension skills.
- Students who are accustomed to a more action-packed cartoon experience might find the videos slow.
- The dialog does include some juvenile language and humor such as translating "canopy" into "can of pee".
Mindprint Expert Review
Mosa Mack Science is a unique website that offers engaging cartoons to teach science lessons to middle school students. All the videos revolve around a central character, Mosa Mack Science Detective. There are over 30 age-appropriate topics which include photosynthesis, Newton's Laws, and food webs. Each lesson begins with a 5-10 minute video introducing a dilemma for Mosa to solve. The cartoon videos are engaging and colorful with multiple characters and music. The topics are explained in basic, understandable ways with concepts repeated several times so most students will understand key takeaways by the end of the lesson even if they feel a bit confused in the beginning. However, the videos are heavy with dialogue that can be difficult to understand and assume knowledge of some science-specific vocabulary, so students with weaker attention, listening or comprehension might have difficulty with them. In addition to the videos, each topic includes hands-on activities, leveled reading passages, corresponding vocabulary and quizzes with immediate feedback for each topic for students to self-assess and teacher lesson plans. The mystery videos are offered free for every unit and access to all materials for all lessons requires a paid upgrade to Mosa Mack Pro. Overall, the videos alone can serve as a great introduction or supplement to corresponding science lessons in the classroom, or at home if a student wants to learn about a new topic or is struggling with a concept.
Academic Benefits
Improves academic skills
- Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
- Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
- Presents educational concepts accurately
- Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
- Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
- Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
- Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)
Fun
Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range
- Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
- Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
- Visually appealing to children in the target age range
- Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
- Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
- Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
- Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option
Easy to Use
Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range
- Has a free or trial version
- Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
- Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
- Student should be able to use independently after first use
- Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
- Multiple users can save a profile
- Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
- Can play without sound and not distract others
- Students can save work between sessions
- Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
- Requires registration before using the first time
- Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
- Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
- Overall - Easy to use
Cognitive Concerns
May not be advisable for students with the following cognitive needs
- Attention
- Promotes purchases or upgrades to students
- Has auditory distractions that cannot be silenced (background music, players shout answers, etc.)
- Auditory Memory
- Auditory Processing
- Has auditory distractions that cannot be silenced (background music, players shout answers, etc.)
- Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
- Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
- Listening Comprehension
- Has auditory distractions that cannot be silenced (background music, players shout answers, etc.)
- Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
- Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
- Processing Speed
- Verbal Memory
- Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
- Assumes specific knowledge or vocabulary without "look-up" options
- Audio is not clear or voice is robotic
- Verbal Reasoning
- Assumes specific knowledge or vocabulary without "look-up" options
- Working Memory
- Requires recall of spoken information without text or visual cues
- Audio is not clear or voice is robotic