Written Testimony of Matthew Peterson, Ph.D.

Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, MIND Institute

Before the U.S. Department of Education's National Math Panel

November 6, 2006; Palo Alto, California

It's exciting to see the formation of such a prestigious National Math
Panel to address the central issues affecting this country in the area
of math education. It is also wonderful to see, at the same time, the
new Curriculum Focal Points recently released by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics. It really feels like we are at a turning point
in the history of mathematics education. Thank you for inviting me here
to play a small role in this promising development.

My name is Matthew Peterson, and I'm the cofounder and chief technology
officer of the MIND Institute. The MIND Institute is a nonprofit
corporation committed to research and development in the area of math
education. When I was at UC Berkeley, my doctoral and postdoctoral
research focused on neurophysiology in the visual cortex. While knowing
how the brain processes visual information doesn't help much in
understanding mathematics, it does help in designing efficient and
effective visual learning environments. In this presentation I hope to
convey our research findings at the MIND Institute and to demonstrate
how we have put these findings into practice with great success as a
supplement to classroom math instruction.

Our core program at the MIND Institute is our ST Math™ software. "ST"
stands for Spatial Temporal and refers to the use of animation to convey
information. We offer ST Math curricula for grades K-5 and also as an
intervention program at the middle school level. The software consists
of interactive, animated activities on the computer that are
comprehensive and aligned to state math standards. Some activities are
designed to deepen conceptual understanding, some target procedural and
computational skills, while others are mainly focused on improving
problem solving abilities. Each ST Math curriculum attempts to provide a
balance of these three components.

I will demonstrate some of the activities in the ST Math software. For
this written testimony, a brief description of the basic design is
appropriate. In a typical activity, a mathematics problem is presented
along with an interface for submitting a solution. After the student
supplies a solution to a problem the software demonstrates the
mathematical consequences of that solution using animation. If the
solution doesn't work, it is visually clear why it doesn't work. And, of
course, if the solution is correct, then the software uses animation to
show why it is correct. Students progress through the activities at
their own pace and are continuously provided feedback as to their
achievements and progress.

It is important to emphasize that this software is intended to be used
as a supplement to classroom instruction. We align the software content
to accompany a school's textbook curriculum and we train teachers to
make connections between the students' experience with the software and
what goes on in the classroom. I'll discuss more about how this works
during the demonstration. Next I'd like to present some of our research
findings.

In 2003, we completed a relatively large study involving 27 California
elementary schools to measure the effectiveness of the ST Math
supplemental program on performance levels as measured by the California
Standards Test (CST). The treatment group consisted of 4,173 students
from classrooms where the teacher volunteered to participate. The
control group was composed of 1,546 students from non-participating
classrooms in the same grades and schools. All classes consisted of
heterogeneous groupings of students related to mathematics abilities.

The results demonstrated a robust positive effect on math proficiency.
Compared to the control group, the treatment group exhibited an average
of over 17 percent more students scoring at the Proficient or Advanced
levels on the CST. We also correlated performance on the CST with how
much of the program students completed by the testing period. Students
who were exposed to at least 50% of the ST Math software exhibited a
more pronounced improvement; this group averaged more than 20
percentiles above the control group at each grade level. These results
were all highly significant.

The MIND Institute continuously conducts focused controlled studies on
the effectiveness of individual aspects of the ST Math software. As a
result, we are constantly improving the program. I'd next like to
highlight some of our findings and demonstrate how we incorporated those
findings into the software. I believe these findings will have general
applicability to other software programs aimed at improving math
proficiency.

The first finding I'd like to present highlights the important role of
the teacher. We consistently find that we cannot rely on students to
walk away from a computerized learning environment with a deep
understanding of the mathematics with which they just interacted. Due to
this limitation, the teacher is irreplaceable. We find that the software
is most effective with teachers that make connections to the software
when teaching mathematics in the classroom. Teachers report that when
they make these connections, classroom instruction becomes much more
efficient because they can draw on the collective experiences that the
students have gained from working with the software. Along these lines,
I'd like to note that the ST Math software also provides real-time
reports of student progress via the internet to aid the teacher in
individualizing and differentiating instruction.

The next set of findings involves the use of "video game" aspects in
computerized learning environments. We find that some features typical
of video games are helpful, however, we also find that many of the more
prominent features of video games actually hinder the learning process.
Since the ST Math software captures and transmits over the Internet
every user action, we have an extensive database of how students
interact with the software. One type of analysis that we perform is to
find where in the curriculum students get "stuck" and are not able to
successfully complete an activity in a timely manner. We correlate where
students get stuck with various aspects of the software. Before the
initial analysis, we conjectured that students would get stuck mainly at
places where difficulty increases abruptly. While these are indeed
places students get stuck, we eventually found that most of the "sticky"
points corresponded to places in the software that incorporated a subset
of video game features that I will call "flare". These problematic
aspects include:

1)  Unnecessary visual or auditory detail and perceptually distracting
    elements.

2)  Low contrast or fast moving visual elements.

3)  Unnecessary time constraints or penalties for not reacting quickly.

4)  Extraneous gameplay. By this I mean extra "fun" goals of an activity
    that are not directly related to or supportive of the mathematical
    learning objectives.

5)  Unnecessary reliance on memory.

6)  Exciting or "fun" events triggered when an unsuccessful solution is
    submitted.

I do not have time to discuss in detail each of these problematic "video
game" features, but I will give examples of some of them during the
demonstration portion of the testimony. In short, we have found that by
eliminating these problematic aspects we can improve the educational
effectiveness of the software without making the experience less
enjoyable for the student.

On the other hand, there are certain "video game" aspects that are very
beneficial. These include:

1)  Scoring and feedback that reinforces accomplishment and progress.

2)  Levels that steadily increase in difficulty and sophistication. It
    is important that students need to pass one level before they can
    move on to the next level.

3)  Goals with functional meanings of what constitutes success and what
    constitutes failure. A simple "yes you were correct" or "no you were
    wrong" is not as effective as making it visually and "situationally"
    obvious WHY something works or WHY something doesn't work. Video
    games tend to do this very well, whereas most educational software
    programs tend to ignore this beneficial feature.

4)  Minimal reliance on the language processing abilities of the
    student. Although language plays an important role in math
    education, it is possible and feasible to provide clear visual
    representations to allow students with low levels of language
    proficiency to excel and succeed in a computerized learning
    environment.

I will illustrate these aspects of the software during the demonstration
portion of the testimony. Afterwards, I intend to present the results of
a longitudinal study that shows the cumulative effects of using the
program over multiple years. I also intend to present data up to the
latest 2006 CST scores supporting the consistent and robust
effectiveness of the ST Math program which is now being used by over
35,000 students.

In summary, the MIND Institute has developed and continues to develop
highly efficient and effective computer learning environments to
supplement classroom instruction in mathematics. I hope that the
research findings presented in this testimony can provide guidance on
how technology can play a role in improving math education in this
country. Thank you for inviting me here today.