SNAP Math Fair at West Point Grey Academy

Throughout this semester, many of us in the math cohort put together several math fairs. I found the math fair at West Point Grey to be much more interesting than the math fairs we created because it placed the emphasis on the students. When the students are actually responsible for constructing the game themselves, it is much easier to see whether or not they really grasped the concepts they were being taught. I felt that a student run math fair was a much better way to assess for a deeper understanding because the students actually had to create something original, not just reproduce something they had already seen.

It was also great because while the adults could go around and ask the students questions to check their understanding, the students themselves were actually playing each others' games as well. I think that sometimes peer discussion is more effective in enhancing understanding of a topic. Often when an adult talks to students, the students look to the adult to give them the right answers because the adult is seen as having all of the answers. When students talk to each other, they are on more equal footing and neither is seen as having all of the answers. As a result, the students must work together to co-construsct their understanding of the topic.

Overall, I think that anything that encourages students to have mathematical conversations and to engage more actively with mathematical concepts is a win. I would love to see the presence of more student-run math fairs in the future.