Practice Math to Aid Cancer Research with St. Jude's Math-a-Thon

  

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As a math lover, I rarely need a special reason to do math problems. However, some students might need a bit of extrinsic motivation to help them along. St. Jude’s Math-a-thon might just be the perfect activity to inspire kids to solve lots of math problems while fundraising towards a great cause. The Math-a-Thon is a free program that is appropriate for students in grades K–8 and benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This cancer research center treats hundreds of children each day, regardless of whether their parents are able to pay for their medical care. The daily operating cost of the facility is $1.5 million, most of which is covered by public contributions.

The program was first designed to supplement the curriculum while teaching children the importance of helping others. Students who chose to participate ask family and friends for pledges to solve math problems in the Math-a-Thon Funbook. The Funbook is created by Scholastic and includes grade-level problems designed to align with the curriculum and prepare students for standardized tests. Upon completion of their Funbook, students collect donations from their sponsors and the money is sent directly to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Beyond the benefit of increasing math comprehension and helping a good cause, students and schools can earn prizes depending on amount of money collected.

Children tend to be eager to help those around them and this activity seems like the perfect opportunity to persuade kids to compute while benefitting their peers. It may be too late to plan a Math-a-Thon for this school year, but it’s the perfect time to start thinking about an event for the next school year. The website has a plethora of information and provides tips and tools for teachers, students, and parents to get kids started on solving for a good cause!

Photo credit: www.mathathon.org/index.shtml

Scholastic Math Intervention: Behind the Scenes

  

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Our recent staff meeting reminded me that Scholastic is more than just about creating new, innovative products for the classroom. Our software engineering team, directed by Eric Hilfer (pictured), works around the clock to also make sure product implementation is smooth at our schools.

I'll start with the folks that have what may sound like a kid's dream job. Their role is to, as one described to me, "try to break things" and get paid for such mischief. It's our Quality Assurance group, and their job is to try out every possible action to see how our software deals with it. And if the program has a hiccup, they document the computer bug to make sure it's fixed. Most recently, 60 bugs got fixed for our newest program, Fraction Nation.

The rest of the engineering and software team includes those who design platforms, write code, and build new tools for hosted servers for schools. Recently, we excitedly welcomed the addition of some very old hardware. Old is exciting because the hardware is part of our virtualization lab that allows us to mimic the technological capacities of schools that don't have the newest equipment so that we can help them troubleshoot from our center. And of course, the team engineers the products that students use as well! It's kind of cool that the engineers are using their STEM knowledge to build things that help kids master STEM subjects to potentially go into STEM fields. :)

Fraction fluency with Fraction Nation!

  

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It’s official. Fraction Nation is now available and on its way to helping students and teachers tackle one of the biggest stumbling blocks on the way to algebra – fraction fluency. We’re so happy to share the latest math intervention program in the Scholastic family.  Read the press release for more information on this happy milestone. Or, hear Chief Math Officer and fellow Math Hub blogger, Dr. David Dockterman, explain how Fraction Nation addresses the challenges of teaching fractions.

Find out more about Fraction Nation on our website or, better yet,  email us to request a personal walk-through of the program. Discuss the ins and outs of this program with one of our math experts from the comfort and convenience of your own computer!

While we're happy to share this news, we sincerely regret that there's no cake left to share...

Tom Loveless Visit

  

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We were excited to have Tom Loveless from the Brookings Institution visit our Scholastic headquarters in New York this week to share some of his recent research and to join us in a conversation about current issues in math education. Our discussions focused heavily on Tom’s analysis of NAEP data and how it unraveled the profiles of what he has called “the misplaced math student” – low-performing, unprepared 8th graders who have been pushed into Algebra 1. Not surprisingly those students often are found in large urban districts with high-poverty and high African-American or Hispanic populations. The mothers of these students are less likely to have completed college, and their teachers are slightly less well-prepared than their high-performing peers. I have to admit, though, that the teacher data gathered from NAEP looked pretty dismal no matter how you split the student demographics.

We also spent some time talking about international comparisons, including the relative merits of TIMSS, PISA, and NAEP. Tom’s recent presentation about PISA sparked a lively editorial from Jay Mathews of the Washington Post. It was interesting to dig into individual test items to get a deeper understand of the differences among the measures. What do the tests really tell us? How bad are our students performing against international benchmarks?
 
Finally, we had a chance to share some of our new programs. In particular, Tom got a glimpse of Fraction Nation which tackles one of the most critical gaps in math education as identified by the National Math Advisory Panel. Tom was a part of that panel, and he seemed impressed with how well we followed the research. We’re looking forward to more conversations with Tom Loveless and other leading math thinkers and actors.

Photo Courtesy of R. Abrams; Pictured: (L to R) David Dockterman, Tom Loveless, Margery Mayer.