Online Mathematics Championship

During this school year, students spend extended periods at home, and their learning depends, largely, on their own motivation. In the absence of school routine, they must organize their schedule and self-regulate their studies. The learning of mathematics under these circumstances is especially challenging, as it requires ongoing effort, practice and perseverance. In a survey among middle school students we commissioned in October, even students in excellence classes reported that they study less mathematics and that their learning gaps are growing.

The students also said that they acknowledge the importance of learning mathematics, particularly towards the future that awaits them after the pandemic is over. They emphasized that when their learning is relevant and interesting, when they are engaged in an intellectual challenge, individually and with their friends, their motivation increases. Indeed, in recent months we noticed that many students have been seeking alternative frameworks for self-learning, mostly via online courses.

In order to address this timely need, we approached the Federation of Local Authorities. The Federation is a non-profit organization, which serves as the umbrella organization for the 257 local authorities in Israel. Last summer, we joined hands with the Federation, in collaboration with the Technion and leading high-tech companies, to run online summer preparatory camps for five-unit mathematics. Two-thousand students actively participated in these camps during their summer vacation, and the feedback was highly positive.

Now, the Federation proposes to hold the “Israel Mathematics Championship”, to take place online, during the current school year. Initially, they plan to recruit experts in applied mathematics, who are closely familiar with the PISA mathematics framework. The experts will prepare at least 25 assignments with incremental difficulty, ranging from levels 3 to 6 of PISA. Then, they will design a three stage competition that will be executed over three months using a special online platform. Ninth-grade students, nation-wide, will be invited to register to the competition through a marketing campaign.

In the first stage, 10,000 students will be asked to practice at least 8 mathematics assignments over a period of three weeks. Approximately 3,000 of those who fully and successfully solve the tasks, will be invited to join the second phase of the competition, where an online mathematics escape room with 10-15 assignments will be opened for limited timeslots. The 100 leading competitors will upgrade to a third stage, in which they will solve three additional tasks in an escape room. The assignments will stimulate students to train advanced thinking and solve mathematical content within the environment of a competition.

The top 10 high performing participants will join an online finals event in which they receive prizes. The finals will be broadcast live on social media. At the request of the foundation, discussions with the Ministry of Education are now taking place, aiming that the Ministry provides the competition with a digital platform.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 419