TEACHx 2018

On PISA Math scores, the U.S. ranks 27th out of 34 OECD countries, the same as Slovakia, despite spending twice as much on a purchasing power parity basis. Companies such as Motorola, GM, and GE are screaming for students well-versed in STEM, but the way students are taught today does not enable them to grasp these concepts easily. Math is an abstract subject, and unless it is taught with the appropriate context, anything above basic operations can be very difficult. Sidekick is a new app that provides math-in-context projects for high school classrooms. Our projects are all based in the real world and are extracted from real problems of existing organizations (governments, companies, and nonprofits). As a bonus, students working on our projects get to interact with people from these organizations and present their findings to a panel of staff. This boosts engagement and hence learning.