MathSprinG

Project Description

The project involves helping to further develop MathSpring.org, which is an online math practice tutoring system for grades 5-8. Its rich multimedia supports help students become better prepared for standardized testing mathematics by better understanding the material. The system adapts to students, giving them problems which are a bit challenging, but not out of reach, and includes various ways of guiding students through the problem to find the correct answer. Students can ask for hints on the specific problem, videos that explain the core concepts needed to solve the problem, or worked examples that show how to solve a similar problem. Learning companions are cartoon characters that encourage students’ effort and remind them that it is okay to ask for help when they are stuck. Additionally, there is a progress page, which shows how well students are performing on each topic and how much effort they are putting into the topic. By putting in effort, they can grow plants in their gardens, that are visualizations of their progress in their mathematics topics.

Learning Outcomes

The team would be able to work in one of different areas of the software:

1. On MathSpring itself, altering what students see to further its effectiveness, such as the game-like nature of the software to include other motifs and avatars (Javascript, Java, animations & digital art);

2. On the Teacher Tools component of MathSpring, which allow teachers to configure MathSpring and see a variety of data visualizations of their students progress, both in math and their engagement and emotions (Java, Bootstrap, Spring);

3. On the MathSpring Authoring Tool System (MSAdmin) that allows other MathSpring team members to create mathematics content to be fed to the MathSpring system (Python, Django, HTML)

4. On the creation of Mathematics problem solving material for students, which involves using the MSAdmin tool, and creating mathematics explanations that would hold a young students' hand while learning.