While getting students interested in math can be a challenge for teachers, TenMarks has found a fun – and timely – way to get kids buzzing about numbers. Drawing on students’ interest in sports and the excitement of the annual March Madness basketball tournament, the Math Madness contest is a great way to get kids genuinely excited about math! Through a little friendly competition, students have fun, win prizes and gain mastery in math. However, it’s not just about the cool prizes. Participating in Math Madness will spur student motivation and engagement like never before, resulting in significantly improved math confidence. Best of all, there’s no reason to worry about students struggling while competing on their own during Math Madness. TenMarks assignments provide individualized practice through a variety of tools such as hints and videos, all of which are designed to help students persevere and ultimately master challenging math problems. The Math Madness contest, now in its fifth year, has helped thousands of students strengthen their math skills. In 2015, students answered millions of questions with over 84 percent accuracy! Math Madness has amazing prizes such as Amazon Gift Cards and Amazon Fire Tablets that’ll help motivate students in the beginning. However, a week into the madness and you’ll see an enthusiasm for math you never saw coming!

About TenMarks and “With Math I Can”

Developed under the leadership of Amazon Education and TenMarks, “With Math I Can” challenges the nation’s more than three million teachers and their students to take the pledge to replace the notion of “I’m not good at math” with “I am working to get better at math” by embracing a “growth mindset,” the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed, which leads to an increased focus on the process of learning rather than the outcome. Supporters of the “With Math I Can” movement include Stanford University Professor of Mathematics Education Jo Boaler, Character Lab, Common Sense Education, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Stanford University’s Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS), ClassDoJo, ASCD, and Teaching Channel. Teachers and students can learn more, watch a video, access resources, and take the pledge at www.withmathican.org.

Links of interest

• https://www.tenmarks.com/math-madness
•  http://blog.tenmarks.com/2016/03/its-not-just-about-winning-prizes-unexpected-benefits-of-math-madness.html
• Twitter (@WithMathICan) – https://twitter.com/WithMathICan
• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/WithMathICan

Teacher Resources

• https://www.tenmarks.com/prepare-instruct

About Our Guest

Meera Vaidyanathan is an education leader who is passionate about integrating technology into education to bring innovation to the student learning experience. At TenMarks, Meera oversees the development of curriculum products and leads the effort to ensure that TenMarks delivers solutions that place the teacher at the center of instruction and provide students with work that is personalized to their individual learning pathways. Throughout her career in the education industry, Meera has held several leadership roles in content and product management, business development, and marketing.

Prior to TenMarks, Meera served as the VP of Content and Product Management at HotChalk where she led HotChalk’s growth and development strategy for K-12. In her roles at CK-12, McGraw-Hill Education, Oxford University Press, and Princeton University Press, Meera spearheaded the acquisition and creation of content for a wide range of K-12 educational materials and encyclopedias (online and print). She has an MBA from Temple University and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut.

Recorded in 2016