The Mathletics Handbook Copyright © Contents Dear Colleague We are delighted to welcome you and your students to the Mathletics community. We believe in a passion for learning, everything we do is designed to instil students with the desire to learn and the confidence to succeed. Mathletics has a host of different ways to motivate learners. We feature an expansive bank of diagnostic reports, planning tools and multimedia resources, all giving you more time to teach in your own way. The Mathletics Handbook is the start of our commitment to you, going forward we will be available to provide you with all the support you need to successfully implement Mathletics in your school, and to introduce you to the areas of the program you may not have discovered yet! Peter Walters CEO, 3P Learning Ltd. This handbook is designed to help you start implementing Mathletics in your school. 2. Mathletics Implementation Plan - for Mathletics Coordinators 3. Mathletics Planning Framework - for Mathletics Coordinators 4. Introducing the Student Center - for Mathletics Teachers 5. Introducing the Teacher Center - for Mathletics Teachers 6. Introducing the Administration Center - for Mathletics Administrators 7. The Parent Letter - for Parents 8. Frequently Asked Questions- for Mathletics Teachers Contact Us Your Mathletics Account Manager is available to provide telephone support, advice and training on all aspects of your new resource and is available from 9.00am until 5.30pm EST, Monday to Friday. 1 Mathletics Implementation Plan Mathletics Coordinator: Mathletics Lead Teacher: Mathletics Administrator: The Coordinator will become the main point of contact with Mathletics, and coordinate the program within the school. The Administrator has managerial access to the account. STAGE ONE STAGE TWO STAGE THREE Introducing Mathletics to your school Achieve more with Mathletics Advanced implementation This handbook contains all the resources you’ll need to get started. Discover the tools available for achieving better results with Mathletics. Explore strategies for long term success with Mathletics in your school. o Introducing the Student Center o Teaching using the Teacher Toolkit o Holding your own Mathletics Challenge o Introducing the Teacher Center o Personalising learning with Course Creator o Preparing for student transition o Introducing the Parent Center o Improving results with Results Manager o Mathletics within your scheme of work Introducing the Administration Center Reviewing usage Preparing for the new academic year Welcome to Mathletics Your Implementation Review Your Health Check Identify objectives with your teachers. Contact your Mathletics Account Manager for support, guidance and to book your training. Gather feedback from teachers and students to evaluate if objectives have been met. You can discuss outcomes with your Mathletics Account Manager. Review your results to date, and plan future implementation of Mathletics within the school. Contact your Mathletics Account Manager for assistance. 2 Mathletics Planning Framework This framework can be used to help structure your Mathletics teacher training. We suggest you begin by identifying your school’s objectives; you can then use the grid below, and our quick start suggestions, to focus on the most relevant parts of the site. Student Center Face Maker Improving Engagement Live Curriculum Mathletics Activities Support Center Reward Schemes Teacher Center Problem Solving Concept Search Improving Results Weekly Summary Individual Reports Teacher Toolkit Instant Workbooks Organize a students versus teachers Live Mathletics competition, or a Mathletics blitz week where students collaborate to get their class onto the Hall of Fame. Award a prize to the first class or individual to appear on the Hall of Fame or to achieve a particular participation certificate. Create a Mathletics display using Mathletics Avatars, maps and participation For long term engagement, set work in Results Manager. Promoting Independent Ask students to explore the Problem Solving and My Games areas individually then come together as a class to discuss strategies and thought processes. Learning Integrating ICT into Math Teaching Results Manager Share individual reports with parents and inform them about the Parent Center to promote home usage. Encourage your students to use the Something Harder and Something Easier functions. Use Results Manager to design individual learning pathways. Map countries played against in Live Mathletics and investigate related cultures or languages as part of a cross-curricular activity. Familiarize your class with new topics and develop strategies together using the resources in your Teacher Toolkit. Introduce new terminology and explore ideas with your class using the Concept Search. Use Mathletics as part of a carousel learning activity. Raise the profile of the points system by setting target dates to achieve bronze, silver and Set work using Results Manager to encourage students to gold participation certificates. Ask students to repeat curriculum activities three times to consolidate learning. focus on areas of weakness and to get rid of their red bars. View Weekly Summary for a full breakdown of usage. 3 Introducing the Student Center Collaborate Improve Move students from concept mastery to higher order reasoning Celebrate individual and class progress Promote mathematical thinking by working on Problem Solving activities in pairs or groups. Students are driven to improve by collecting gold bars for achieving over 85% in an activity; make this a focus for the class. Invite students to design their own problem for their peers to solve based around a mathematical concept they are currently practicing in Mathletics. Introducing a class gold bar progress chart and presentations or displays of Weekly Awards can be useful tools to inspire improvement. Practice Explore Engage students in tackling math at an appropriate level Inspire independence in learning Develop approaches for working on more difficult calculations through the Support function. Suggest that students try to introduce new mathematical terms to their vocabulary in class. By investigating and interacting with related terms in the Concept Search, students will be able to make and explain connections. Use the Something Easier and Something Harder activities to consolidate and extend the knowledge of each student. Reward students who use their initiative to introduce brand new concepts. Personalize Compete Give students ownership of their learning environment Help students to improve mental math skills at their own pace Set the challenge of saving credits for a particular Facemaker item to promote improvement. Use the My Color and My Theme changes to find out more about your creative learners. Prompt students to review their Live Mathletics results to identify operations they need to improve. Students sign into www.mathletics.com Introduce cross-curricular learning by investigating countries played in Live Mathletics. 4 Introducing the Teacher Center Results Manager Teacher Toolkit Group students for learning and deliver personalized pathways Engage and motivate a variety of learners Use the color coded indicators in Results Manager to determine strengths and weaknesses for individuals and the whole class. Use the data to take smaller groups aside for extra support. Focus on application skills and use Videos, Walkthroughs or Widgets to demonstrate that there may be more than one way to approach a problem. Use this as a platform for debate. A combination of different media will help engagement and support students in looking at math from a new perspective. Click in a cell or use the Action Bar to set Focus Activities according to results. Students will see the tasks you have set once you have used the Results Manager Settings to turn Focus Activities On. Instant Workbooks RESULTS MANAGER KEY Integrate paper-based activities with ICT curriculum content Yellow cell = activity has been set Where access to ICT facilities is limited, Mathletics online functions can be complemented by the Instant Workbooks. Use them as part of a carousel activity, where in-class computers can be used to practice concepts on Mathletics. Other stations might include a real world activity or case study as an opportunity for collaborative problem solving. Result in blue = satisfactory result Result in red = a student who would benefit from repeating an activity Red speech bubble = cause for concern Class Roll View and edit your class list and obtain sign in details. Weekly Summary Print student certificates and view activity summaries. Course Manage course settings, view activities and guides. Live Mathletics Report View Live Mathletics results and Set Minimum Levels. Report Generator Teachers sign into View and print summaries of students’ progress. www.mathletics.com 5 Introducing the Administration Center School Roll Mathletics Administration Center Creating a New Class or Set Adding a New Student Click on Mathletics Administration Center Click on School Roll Click on Mathletics Class Administration Click on Add to Student Roll In the Add New Class box Add the new student details and click Add Enter the details for your new class or sub-set, selecting the course you want them to follow Navigate back to Administration Center (top left) Click on Mathletics Administration Center Click Add Click on Mathletics Class Administration Click on Update Class next to your new class or set Click on Update Class next to the class where you want to assign the student Select the student you want to move into the new class or set from the drop down box Select the new student from the drop down box and click Add Student Click Add Student Repeat the last step for any other students you would like to follow the same course Mathletics Administration Center Individual Student Results Course Creator Access individual activity results through each Student Center. Create custom courses for your classes. Add and remove activities from an existing curriculum course to better suit your students’ needs. Live Mathletics Results Create a brand new course of work to target specific students needs or school requirements. Access the Live Mathletics results for the whole school Check which students are the top scorers at each level and in each year group Full Curriculum Class Results Access all curriculum results via every Teacher Center. Participation Awards Monitor progress and achievements of every mathletics class in the school. Access all participation details via each Teacher Center. Administrators sign into www.mathletics.com 6 Dear Parent or Guardian Your child’s school is now using Mathletics as an important part of its math learning program. Your child will have 24 hour access to Mathletics through a unique username and password*. This means that students can work at their own pace, anywhere, anytime. To register for your Mathletics Parent Center: About Mathletics 9LVLWwww.mathletics.com/parents Mathletics is a web-based learning program that integrates home and school learning via the internet; it is one of the world’s most used educational websites. As an online learning resource it is the next generation in learning, helping students enjoy math and achieve outstanding results. &RPSOHWHWKHILHOGVDQGFOLFN6XEPLW 5HFRUG\RXUQHZXVHUQDPHDQGSDVVZRUG To access the Parent Center: 9LVLWwww.mathletics.com 6LJQLQXVLQJ\RXURZQXVHUGHWDLOV Mathletics at Home We recommend that you spend time looking at the program with your child so that you can gain the greatest understanding of how Mathletics will benefit his or her learning. As a parent or guardian, you can register for a Parent Center and sign up to receive Weekly Reports. These reports will provide you with details on your child’s progress and achievement. Further information and guides on Mathletics can be found under the Help tab. If you experience difficulty in loading the Mathletics website at home, please contact us on +1.866.387.9139 or usa@3plearning.com Each student’s Mathletics account holds information relating to individual results and progress. Unfortunately, it is not possible to correct results or retrieve credits if the account has been accessed by someone else. Welcome to the Mathletics Community! *At 3P Learning we are committed to protecting the safety and security of our registered users Student Details Username: Password: www.mathletics.com 7 Frequently Asked Questions How do the certificates work? How does the Hall of Fame work? Students are awarded a certificate for acquiring 1000 points in a week. They can only earn one certificate each week, even if they earn over 2000 points. Once they have collected five bronze certificates, they receive a silver award. A gold certificate is earned when they have collected four silver certificates. The Top 100 Students Hall of Fame is reset daily, and only points earned in this period will be counted. There is a countdown clock to check how much time is remaining at the top of the Hall of Fame. The points that the students see on their homepage is a weekly score, which is used for the What are the gold bars? Where can I find my class usernames and passwords? These are achieved by students when they score over 85% in curriculum activities, and are an excellent indicator of a solid understanding of a concept. The Gold Bar Status in the bottom right of the screen shows a student how many activities are available on their course and how many more gold bars they will need to earn to complete the curriculum. You can access students’ usernames and passwords by signing in with your teacher user details and clicking on Class Admin then Class Roll. How and why do students earn credits? Credits are one of the Mathletics reward systems and are earned every time a student beats their own personal best score in a curriculum activity or in Live Mathletics. They can be spent in the virtual shop, which is accessible through the Face Maker by clicking on the money bag. Once a student has purchased an item, it will appear in the Face Maker under the relevant category. How do we purchase more licences? You can extend your subscription to include more students or year groups at any time during the year by contacting your Account Manager. We will contact you towards the end of your subscription to help you complete the renewal process. Top 50 Classes Hall of Fame and the weekly participation certificates. What should we do if we’re having technical problems? Most issues are quick and easy to resolve. The best course of action is to download a copy of the Mathletics Technical Guide, which is available on the homepage. If this doesn’t resolve your issue, report the problem to your Account Manager. Please send us a screenshot by pressing the Print Screen button on your keyboard while the problem is occurring, and paste this into an email so that the Technical Team can analyze the issue. Can I purchase Mathletics for my own children? Teachers can purchase a Mathletics home licence for their children at a significantly reduced price. This will be independent of your school licences. To set up an account for your child, sign into your Teacher Center and scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Click on the link in the box entitled Mathletics and Spellodrome Licenses for the Children of Teachers. 8