Math++ App

Vision

Promote safe, equitable, exciting, and challenging classrooms that allow students and teachers to reach their full potential and produce mathematical literate citizens.

Mission

Create math plus code apps that shrink educational inequality and empower every child with math and digital skills for the future.

Why algebra and STEM?

The gateway to STEM is algebra. Early mathematics skills are best predictors of future socioeconomic success.
Rapper Will.i.am – ‘STEM solves a lot of problems’; and asks why there are basketball gyms and football stadiums but no robotic classes in most schools?
Robert May (mathematical ecologist, Princeton, Oxford) – ‘mathematics (and science) is no more, but no less, than a way of thinking clearly.’

The Cost of Education

Gloria Romero, an advocate for school choice, fought her way up from Barstow to earn a PhD in psychology at UC Riverside. While teaching high school graduates who could barely function at a middle school level, she decided education was the civil rights issue of our time.

As chairman of the Education Committee in the California Senate (2008), she passed the “parent trigger” law which allows a majority of parents in a “failing school” to vote on a method to restructure the school. Seventy percent of California prison inmates (Black/Latino) lack high school diplomas.

If we don’t educate, we will incarcerate.

Gloria Romero

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Frederick Douglass

California cost per year – Student versus Inmate

$15,000 per year to eduate

$100,000 per year to incarcerate

Smoldering Problems, fanned by Covid are Out of Control

Many teachers ‘burnout’ and leave teaching at a higher/faster rate than other professions
Increased violence, bullying, and fighting in class
Limited backup from administration
Lack of basic supplies in the classroom
Limited support from parents
Schools are distracted with solving non-academic challenges that divert attention away from academic learning

Getting kids attention is becoming harder and harder . . .

. . . and teachers are getting more and more frustrated.

Kids Are Increasingly Disengaged from Everything

Overwhelmed by Covid problems, some states opted to replace teachers with technology. However, technology chosen at the state level failed to fit local needs and capabilities, leading to poor results. Lisa Graham Keegan (educational policy advisor to President George W Bush) noted that “technology should not be a substitute for direct instruction, even in emergencies.” “Technology cannot take the place of great teachers; IT is not magic; teachers are magic.”

The Goal of Math++ App

By the 8th grade all students will be sufficiently proficient in both algebra and coding to pursue STEM careers if they so choose.

Code Transfer Problem

How to apply coding skills that will reinforce algebra skills.

Code Transfer Solution Constraints

Start early to avoid the false assumptions that STEM is only for boys, and your zip code determines your mathematical ability.
The solution should be scalable and applicable in every school.
The solution should be compatible with Common Core and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards.
The code should be presentable by the algebra teacher and only require minimal preparation and mentors.
The code should aid the development of critical and computational thinking.

Uri’s Key Observation

While teaching calculus at UC Berkley, Uri Treisman wondered why Chinese students excelled while African American students (with similar backgrounds) often failed.
Uri observed that the Chinese students studied together while the African American students isolated themselves in their dorm rooms.
When all students were required to attend an alternate learning workshop where students worked together; all students performed equally well.
The take-home message is that explaining and teaching other students mathematical principles is the best way to master the material.

Seymour Papert Introduced Logo Turtles

Seymour Papert introduced Logo Turtles in 1967 as a possible means to solve the code transfer problem. However, several differences in code and algebra concepts hinder students who know code from transferring coding principles to algebra.

US student achievement on international math exams (PISA) is below average (30th); despite substantial federal investments.

The Math++ App Solution to the Code Transfer Problem

Solve the inverse problem by teaching (Uri’s observation) fellow students and the computer examples of algorithms and algebraic principles.
Each time a new algebraic principle is introduced, students should produce code with examples/algorithms illustrating the principle.
As the complexity of the algorithms increase, the complexity of the code increases.
The emphasis is on understanding algebra; students will learn basic coding skills in the process.
Introduce the Swift code game and playground on an iPad in the first grade. Begin use of the Math++ app in the fourth grade.
The rate of advancement and inclusion of additional challenging and real-life topics should be the purview of the team of teachers in each school.

Why Swift Code?

Apple’s Swift Code has numerous built-in features that aid kids (and teachers) to begin coding.
Starts with visual game; easy to read; type safe; has templates for variables; automatic completion to reduce typing; suggestions to correct errors; tablet and graphical output on each line; can use objective or functional programming.
Easy transition to Python in the 8th grade.

Replacing Euclid’s Geometry with Algebra

Teaching Framework / Principles for the App++