I-Corps: Phygital Math Play

Virginia State University, Petersburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to teach math in after-school or summer enrichment settings located in under-resourced communities. This project will result in cohorts of trained college student math mentors engaging younger students in the full set of digital learning and mentoring services aimed at mathematics. This program can be integrated into the activities of existing academic enrichment program, such as those associated with the YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs and other private entities. Because the trained mentors are college students employed by the company and often already volunteering for the afterschool programs, there is incentive for such private providers to partner with the PI's team and utilize their services. Increasing standardized test scores by reinforcing classroom learning in out-of-school settings is a value proposition for school districts and schools. Parents also see the importance of their children receiving a full high school diploma, which is predicated on standardized test scores. This I-Corps project utilizes a game-based learning platform which uses the format of popular action games to implement math lessons. The user interface is a three-dimensional first-person environment which can be displayed on a personal computer, mobile device or adapted to a virtual reality system. Once in play, the scenarios given to the student teach the underlying principles behind math techniques. Gaming scenarios can compile to span full curriculums aligned with standardized tests. The digital experience is then reinforced in physical space by trained math mentors in after-school settings, Phygital Math Play rests on the premise that Physical and Digital gaming experiences can be used as motivational tools to learn mathematics in grades K-12. Just as the relational bonds between gamers is a crucial component of digital games, the mentor-mentee relationship will be developed and cultivated for physical play. An important element for this venture is building a mentoring infrastructure between institutions of higher learning and their surrounding school districts. The project team asserts that there should be no distressed school district within 20 miles of a minority-serving institution. To that end, undergraduate mentors will be trained to help reinforce the math concepts linking physical play and digital application experience to pencil-paper computation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.