Thornapple Kellogg — Dressed in a black-and-white striped shirt, seventh-grade math teacher Carmen Skiba blew her whistle as the Math Madness referee.
The shrill blast signaled a brief halftime of the math-inspired basketball board game during week two of the four-week tournament.
Liam Gibson, Connor Schrader and Simon Dornbush swapped odd- and even-numbered sides with their opponents to play the second half.
The activity simulates a game of basketball. One team plays offense by rolling two dice, and then faces off against their opponents to add, subtract, multiply and divide the two numbers. All teams needed to participate in solving the math problems, Skiba said.
If both teams get all four solutions correct, the team that rolled gets to “shoot for a basket” by choosing a number on their side of the board corresponding with one of their player cards.
“The hardest part is getting a good roll,” Molly Chuley said. “I always get an even number when I’m playing on the odd side of the board.”
Added Connor, “The math is pretty easy if you do the calculations right.”
If the team with the ball (the team who rolled the dice) gets any solution wrong, the dice turn over to the other team.
By the final buzzer, Liam, Connor and Simon were victorious and moved on to the Sweet 16, the next round of the tournament.
Algebra Readiness is the GOAT
Based on the annual NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments held throughout March, seventh-graders competed in a bracket-style competition, minus the seed rankings, until two teams were left to face off to be named the NBA Math Hoops champion.
A Learn Fresh program, NBA Math Hoops leverages the game of basketball and the NBA/WNBA brands to build fundamental math skills through a basketball-themed board game.
For the past five years, Skiba has hosted the tournament, designed for fourth- to eighth-grade students to strengthen their algebra skills prior to entering high school. Her fellow seventh-grade math teacher Shelly Siekman also plays the game with her students.
“It’s awesome because everything is free,” she said. “Teachers do a one-hour training, and then they mail you the boards and up-to-date player cards.”
Skiba and Siekman host a draft day at the beginning of the month, where students choose their fantasy team players. Each player card features a prominent WNBA or NBA athlete and their free throw, two-point and three-point shot average percentages.
“It forces them to understand the stats of each player to play on their team,” Skiba said. She added: “Some students still struggle with math facts, so they’re practicing multiplication, subtraction and division in a fun setting.”
Seventh-grader Bryson Gunning declared the draft itself the most fun.
“We get to choose the best players based on their shooting averages,” he said.
In addition to building algebra readiness, NBA Math Hoops aims to narrow the achievement gaps during critical middle-school years and improve academic success for students of color, girls and those living in low-income communities.
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