Students
World Math Day
In 2008, my middle school decided to participate in World Math Day. On this one day, students from around the world are challenged to compete against each other in online arithmetic games, while also working together to break the world record for the number of math questions correctly answered. That year, about 1 million students from 150 countries set the world record by correctly answering over 182 million math questions. In 2009, about 2 million students from 200 countries correctly answered over 452 million math questions.
Teachers can sign their students up to participate. Once the students log in, they can create an avatar. For each game, they have 60 seconds to correctly answer as many math questions as they can. For the middle school level, the questions were basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. The students compete in real time against up to three other students (chosen randomly) from around the world. Students can play over and over again. Practice starts about one month before the actual World Math Day.
Mathletics, the creators of this online game, have definitely employed Lepper & Malone’s strategies of interpersonal motivation as follows: Cooperation – students work together to set a new world record. Competition – students compete against each other to see who can answer the most questions correctly. Recognition – the top students and classrooms are recognized on the website’s “Hall of Fame.” There are also prizes (medals, trophies, and certificates) and according to Keller’s ARCS Model, these extrinsic rewards can contribute to a student’s satisfaction.
My students were pretty excited and engaged. I heard them talking about how they competed against a student from India or Australia. My top 7th grade student answered thousands of math questions. Even lower level students were motivated to play and beat their own personal best score.
Sound like something you can use with your students? Then don’t forget to check out their website starting in February for information on World Math Day 2010!
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Wow! Sounds like a great idea to apply to ESL classes. With English becoming a necessity in the business world today, more and more countries, even Francophone ones, have made English classes a requirement. Such a game will allow students from all over the world to participate, which adds to the challenge and throws in an even more competitive doze.
The internet undoubtedly provides chances for inter-personal motivation to be at play, especially with regards to cooperation and social recognition.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Fantastic opportunity and I will be signing up for February. Thanks for the tip. So many of these online “challenges” are geared toward very creative, top performing students and groups of students. It is exciting to find one that both my proficient/advanced and EL students can participate in.
I agree that motivation is one of the keys to learning and I’ve found that it is also critical for effective teaching. Everyone wins here.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I have never been a huge fan of math, but I must say if I had something like World Math Day when I was a kid I would have LOVED to be a part of it if only for the friendly competition with scores of other students around the world. I never thought anything could make math fun, but reading your description actually got me thinking well maybe it CAN be.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
What a great idea! I remember doing something similar in third grade math, but instead of completing against the world, it was just the other students in my class. We had 60 seconds to answer 100 addition, subtraction, multiplication and division questions. Each test had one type of question on it. Once you passed addition, you were able to move on to subtraction, etc… If I remember right, you got a gold star for each test you scored perfectly on. And an ice cream treat when you passed all four.
I loved the tests. While mine lacked cooperation for the most part, I do remember studying for the test by asking my dad to quiz me with flash cards. I loved the competition aspect, I always wanted to be the first person in the class to pass each test.
November 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
What a great idea. Spelling bees have long tapped into students desire for competition and recognition – are they still popular? I remember them as a real highlight when I was a kid. To be able to use technology to bring students together and create the same sort of environment is exciting.
I would think, like someone mentioned, that this might serve to draw in students who aren’t necessarily that interested in math, but like games and competition.
November 29th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I think spelling and geography bees are still popular (at least at my school). Some of the competitions are broadcast on TV and there are lots of prizes. I wasn’t aware (until now) that schools actually need to pay a fee to participate.
http://www.spellingbee.com/
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographybee/