Multiplication and long division rarely get pep rallies. But Michaela Sicuranza, a 5th grade teacher at Sinking Springs Elementary, in York, Pa., thinks building an exciting, competitive identity around math can help motivate students to learn.
Sinking Springs’ 630 students won a $100,000 grant for their high-poverty school in a national math competition held this May by the education technology group Prodigy Education. The students correctly solved nearly 729,000 problems, more than 30,000 more than the next highest among the 70,000 schools that participated.
Principal Heather Dick credited Sicuranza, an eight-year teaching veteran, for driving the schoolwide math project this spring, which “brought us together across every grade level and made math feel like a team sport.”
Sicuranza teaches math, science, and social studies in a co-taught class of about 50-students. In January, she signed her students up for a state competition on the Prodigy game-learning platform, one of several she uses for math enrichment. Over the spring, she steadily recruited more of her math colleagues in the school to encourage their own students to join smaller monthly state contests.
Rather than having academic teams compete against each other, students in any grade or class banked correct answers to earn points for their schools. The problems are set based on an initial placement test and gradually increase in difficulty based on the platform’s algorithm. Teachers even coordinated their class schedules in May to allow students to practice math together in the cafeteria at the end of each day.
“Students feed off of your energy level, so the crazier you are about it, and the more excited you are about it, they definitely absorb whatever mood you’re bringing to the table,” Sicuranza said.
She spoke with Education Week about how teachers can build schoolwide motivation in math. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Where were your kids academically in math when your school entered the competition?
We have a wide range in all of our classrooms—we have kids that are really struggling in math, and then I have a kid in my class who goes up to [grade] 6 for math this year. So they’re all along the spectrum. When kids finish their work, we have a choice time; we provide options that are either giving them a little bit of support or taking them further.
How do you build school spirit around math?
Keep it exciting as best you can. On the daily, we try to recognize kids for different types of achievement. Whether you’re in 4th grade, 5th grade, or 6th grade, when you master your multiplication or your division facts, you go ring a bell. And that’s a big deal for the kids.
We also have schoolwide incentives; we call them spirit tickets. And these tickets can recognize kids for more than just academic success—we could dig into a kid who is working extra hard on a given day and persevering. It doesn’t mean they mastered something, but we see that they had growth. Every week, the school does drawings and they can come down with prizes. … The next one coming up is, who gets to play against the teachers in the end-of-the-year football game. We really use those to help rally kids and help build their confidence.
We’re not in [the Prodigy National Cup] competition forever, but going forward, the things that we were doing for this, we could work in a multitude of different ways within our classrooms. For any goal you set for the kids, you can do things to celebrate it. For example, kids are taking turns sitting at my desk now for the rest of the school year because one of my incentives was if they answered so many questions, they could sit at the teacher’s desk. It doesn’t have to cost a lot, but the kids can get excited about it.
How common is math anxiety among your kids, and how do you help them overcome that?
It’s something we definitely see every year. We try to recognize them for more than a test score, and when you recognize their growth, that helps to build their confidence. We also have time in our schedules where we can work in small groups with kids. I feel like when you work in those small groups with them, they become more comfortable, whether it’s asking you a clarifying question that will of course then help them be more successful with what they’re working on, or them just being more willing to participate in that small group than when they’re in the whole group.
A lot of these kids that have that math anxiety, they generally can perform better than they think, but sometimes just that small group interaction with a teacher is what they need to build their confidence to do it.
How can teachers use technology in math effectively, without it becoming a distraction?
I think it’s good to keep the variety going because otherwise the kids definitely get sick of certain things. We use different online tools in the math that we teach … like [one] that has great visual models that kids can manipulate on their devices while they’re learning different skills.
[As teachers] we have in-service [training] on technology every few months. How can we use AI to support our classroom and to help make improvements within the classroom to help with our jobs or maximize what we’re doing in the classroom?
How can administrators best support teachers in motivating their students for math?
I think the biggest help [during the competition] from our principals was making sure math teachers knew that they were supported—that, you know, we understand who might spend some extra time [on math]. … We had fabulous support from our assistant principal, who’s a very fun guy. He would come in our classrooms … and get them pumped up. It kept it fresh for students to know their principal and assistant principal were excited and on board with it.
In general with math instruction, I think most teachers would tell you we just want to be heard by our administrators. … We can share our thoughts on what is working in our programs, the way that it’s written, but then we can also share what we think could be better to help meet the needs of our kiddos, and our administrators are there to listen and hear us out.
Just having administrators value your opinion and trusting that you know what is best for kids, I think is what helps improve morale. And in turn, you’re doing your best teaching when you feel supported by your administration.
