An Intriguing Idea

by rrusczyk, Aug 22, 2008, 1:34 AM

We had a Foundation board meeting tonight. One thing we'd like to accomplish with the Foundation is to encourage more problem solving activities and education in those areas that are not traditionally involved in programs like MATHCOUNTS & the AMC (inner cities, rural areas, etc). Sandor noted that there has been some research suggesting that prizes like the X Prize have been more successful at stimulating scientific research than grants have. So, here's the question -- let's suppose that this research is correct, and that the way to go is to set up a prize that stimulates people to create programs to address a problem. What sort of prize should we set up to encourage people to improve the problem solving education in areas that traditionally are not involved in these sorts of activities at all? I'm looking for very specific suggestions here!

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I think we should first decide what exactly falls under the category of "activities not covered by ...". On the other hand, I feel that it is just a restatement of your question

One such activity is reading math. books, so it would be nice to establish a prize for the best reader (the contestants must submit a review of the books read which should describe the content adequately, emphasize the most interesting and most difficult (from their viewpoint) parts, and so on. It may be advisable also to request a certification from some more experienced mathematician (school teacher/math. circle advisor/...) that confirms that the contestant has really read and understood the book.

I was also thinking of the "mathematical art" contest (which would cover freestyle art that makes use of mathematical constructions a la Escher, or otherwise) but I admit that this one may be hard to judge (though some kids may have a lot of fun with it).

The last idea is to give a prize to organizers of math clubs and other things like that (this prize doesn't need to be individual). Again, a report describing the activity plus teacher's certification should be required.

These three are the first ones that came into my head

by fedja, Aug 22, 2008, 10:43 PM

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I think I should have been a little more clear on what we're aiming for. We're shooting for the third area you mention -- we want to inspire people to build programs for students. We want to invest in finding a way to inspire someone to become Jeff Boyd or Josh Frost or Bob Fischer -- people who can go into a school that had nothing, and maybe had a population of students who are traditionally underperforming, and produce an outstanding program that will help students for years after the prize has been awarded.

Here's what makes it a bit trickier -- I think we want an objective prize, not a subjective one, and one that might take a few years to win. Kind of like the X Prize. I don't think we want a panel of judges, or a set timeframe. We want a clear discrete goal in the future, much like students have when they set "make Nationals" or "make the USAMO" as their goal -- there's no judging, and there's a pretty clear hurdle to clear. But what is that hurdle? Is it a specific contest? Is it immune to worries about cheating (we may be able to get significant funding at our disposal if we have a good enough idea)?

by rrusczyk, Aug 23, 2008, 3:40 AM

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I like this idea of having an "X Prize" for teaching, with objective measurements of results. I suppose the most obvious idea is for the winner to be the first teacher (or team of teachers) who takes a school that previously has had no significant success in math competitions, and somehow gets a certain percentage of its students to place at a certain level in certain math competitions. You could make those requirements more precise (and completely objective).

by Singularitarian, Sep 1, 2008, 1:10 PM