Author Archives: Kevin Briley
2016 Gold Medal Honors 17 Exceptional Schools
This year, Ascend Math is honoring 17 Gold Medal schools whose math intervention efforts have brought about a turnaround at their schools. The Ascend Math Gold Medal Award was established in 2010 to honor the schools or districts that demonstrate … Continue reading
NY Times article discusses engagement and gamification
Last week, the New York Times ran an article on Kahoot, an online quiz system from Norway being played in some schools. The article is well worth reading for its smart discussion of “engagement” and “gamification.” These are two subjects … Continue reading
Celebrate Earth Day with these Fun Math Problems
Welcome to the Ascend Math Blog. This is the third year we’ve had the privilege of sharing the best Earth Day math problems sent to us by teachers and students. Please use these math problems to help your students better … Continue reading
Prepare for Earth Day with these math problems
This week we will devote the blog to math problems celebrating Earth Day, Friday April 22. For starters, here are a couple of our favorites: If each person uses an average of 700 pounds of paper products per year, how … Continue reading
Ascend Math Gold Medal Nominations Are In
In just a few weeks we will reveal the 2016 Ascend Math Gold Medalist Schools. So far, six schools have been added to these honorary ranks. Math Intervention students at all six have made amazing progress this year. The nominated … Continue reading
Intrinsic or Extrinsic motivation? Why not both!
In past articles I’ve written “Interactive engagement, not entertainment, is at the core of a computer game’s ability to motivate. Finding ways to make math more interactive and more engaging is the key to making math software better as well.” … Continue reading
Final Four Math
Don’t Call Them for Travelling This week, four teams will travel to Houston, TX to play in the Final Four of the NCAA National Championship. Oklahoma is the closest and will fly just 432 miles. Syracuse is the furthest away and will fly … Continue reading
March Mathness Continues
Here is are the latest fun basketball themed math problems that have been submitted. Enjoy them with your class: A basketball court measures 94 feet by 50 feet. What is the perimeter of the court? The jersey numbers for the 13 Duke players … Continue reading
Announcing March Mathness III
The past two years, we devoted the march blog posts to celebrating March Mathness, the math behind the sport of basketball. Many of you sent in your own math problems for posting. These included scores, records of teams, distance teams … Continue reading
Common Mistakes Made in Math Intervention 5: Not Expecting Better Results
Once an intervention program is in place, it can be tempting for schools to leave it in place if students are making at least some progress. But how much progress is enough? If an 8th-grade student began the year at the third-grade … Continue reading
