the
math market
education innovators: marissa wilson kayla tronick doug oyler
sara crouch Margaret Ann Minihan
how might we...
?
hmw improve teaching methods,, classroom structure,, and curriculum in order to improve engagement in an elementary math classroom
overall goal:
enhancing student engagement
what do students want? interview participants + Higher Education Professional Meeting + Mimi Odem, lower school curriculum Coordinator + Jessica Berry, a fourth grade Teacher + Four Parents of elementary school Children + Eva Slusher, mother of 7 year old Savannah Slusher + Owen and Evan, two third grade boys + Anthony, first grade boy + Tutor at the CATS den at UK
after intervieing and observing students, teach, ers, and education professionals, we came to the conclusion that... Classroom full of curious, excited third graders seeks a math teacher who can guide us rather than teach us, who can inspire us to learn more than we ever have before, and who is as creative and eager to try new things as we are. Willingness to put away the flashcards and worksheets and learn with Legos, Minecraft, and video games is a MUST.
design challenges... How might we assess learning? How might we make activities more like real world projects? How might we“disguise�the learning to make it seem more fun?
?
How might we encourage students to take more ownership of their learning
design solution...
the math market third grade math market
what is the math market? How Does It Work? Every assignment is worth x amount of dollars. If you miss a question you get less (example: worth $10, miss 1 question—they get $9). Bonus dollars for working well together or good behavior - debits for missing assignments or poor behavior.
what needs or opportunities does the concept address? Incentives to participate and work with others while also giving incentives for correct answers; real world math (makes it clear that math is used in the real world); teaching them to use money--save and spend.
one sentence concept description: The Math Market teaches real world money skills by giving students an opportunity to save and spend “money� they receive in the classroom.
who does it involve: both in building it and using it? Teachers would primarily create the model for students to earn money, but students could have input in the beginning about what constitutes a credit or debit.
what do you hope to learn more about through prototyping this idea? Whether or not it makes students more interested in math; does is create excitement in the classroom?/desire for learning and working well together
how the math market works
creating an engaging math class
do homework rewarded and check for correct answers
math money reward
look at market toys
third grade math market
decide on a toy or save money
think and calculate
purchase toy
play with toy
what we learned... what did participants value most? The students really valued having input in the process. Although the teachers had input as well, all the students made suggestions about what would earn them a credit or debit. Even more important, the students got to choose the prizes that they would get to “buy� in the end.
what got them excited? The things that got the students excited were that they could actually choose the things that they wanted to buy. It was their money, their decision. Another thing that got them excited were the prizes themselves, they had the choice of fun pens and pencils, fun easiers, bookmarks, stickers; glitter, holographic, scratch and sniff, etc.
what would convince them about the idea? The students didn’t really need convincing. They all saw the experiment as a big game! The teachers only needed convincing that this really would help them teach math skills to the students.
which parts would participants like to improve? Things that would need to be improved would be the changing of prizes so that there are not the same toys all of the time. If the prizes do not change up, then the students might not be as engaged. If the prizes stay the same the students will lose motivation to work hard to earn credit or money to purchase prizes. Another suggestion for improvement (from the teachers) was a slightly greater emphasis on financial literacy. Although this started out as a math “game,” the teachers wanted to expand the idea to teach the students about saving and spending money wisely.
what did not work? In our experiment, there was nothing that “didn’t work,” only things that could be even better. Really, the students and teacher all loved the idea and wanted to try it for a longer time period.
what needs further investigation? It would be great to move this prototype out of just the math classroom. If students knew they could earn credits (or debits) in other classes as well, it might give this project even more value in their minds. Also, we would like to investigate the financial literacy suggestion further.
thank you!
third grade math market
the end! Design thinking edl 571 sPring 2015