Challenge Mode update boosts number fluency

We’re pleased to announce that Challenge Mode has had an exciting new update…

Like everything we do at Maths Circle, this upgrade is not just about aesthetic improvements. We went back to the beginning and asked ourselves:

1. What do our users need from Challenge Mode?

2. How does it support sound pedagogical practice?

Have a look at Challenge Mode’s improvements:

Challenge Mode now unlocks when children pass Iron (Stage 2) level 26 in Story Mode.

There are 30 Challenges in total which each belong to one of these four topics:

• Subitising (new)

• Number Bonds

• Adding

• Subtracting

Each Challenge focusses on one set of facts at a time – aligning with the work of Number Sense Maths.

During Challenge games, children attempt to answer as many questions as they can correctly in one minute. Unlike in Story Mode, which is highly visual to support learning, the questions in Challenge Mode are normally abstract (i.e. they don’t involve pictorial representations or mathematical models), in order to consolidate learning and improve efficiency of recall. Therefore children shouldn’t be encouraged to play a Challenge game until they’ve passed the levels teaching that topic in Story Mode.

Children replay Challenge games in order to beat their high scores, climb the leaderboards* and earn trophies and certificates.

The best bits:

• Quick and easy to practise the topic you want to improve.

• Children can self-identify where their weaknesses are in a positive way, by seeing which Challenges they are yet to earn a trophy for.

• Excellent for playing in class or against other players in your organisation – children are excited to appear on the leaderboards*.

• Grown-ups can track children’s performance and see how much they’ve improved at each calculation strategy.

• Personalised certificates build self-confidence and enthusiasm for mathematics.

They’re our top five favourite things about Challenge Mode. What are yours?? Go try it out and let us know!

* The leaderboards are only visible to children and grown-ups in your organisation (they’re not public) and they display players’ robot names, not their real names. While NumBots leaderboards normally encourage healthy, motivational competition, some teachers prefer not to allow children to see each other’s high scores. In this case they can hide the leaderboards from pupils by logging into their teacher account here, then going to “Settings & Admin” (in the left hand menu).