Ko’s Journey Is Discontinued
Please see an update about Ko’s Journey and other Midschool Math games
Desmos has game-like activities for similar content. They are puzzles rather than stories, delightful and well-designed: https://teacher.desmos.com/
History of Ko’s Journey
Based on world-wide research of curriculum, proportional relationships are the lynchpin to all of middle school mathematics. Ko’s Journey was built to concentrate almost entirely on ratio and proportion, providing a rich deep experience for students.
Teachers cite a lack of student retention as a top challenge in the profession. Something that is taught one day is forgotten the next. Good foundations are built to last. Ko’s Journey was designed to create a core foundation of proportional relationships in the mind of a student by forming a base layer of experiences that make the mathematical concepts transparent. Through repetition and unique “transfer of learning” lessons, student recall is improved for years to come.
Engagement is obviously a good thing. But the wrong kind of engagement, such as doing things for a quick reward, can build neural pathways to strategies that actually slow learning later on. The story mechanism in Ko’s Journey illustrates for students how math makes sense in the world, providing the opportunity for engagement that leads to long-term perseverance.
Reflections
In Ko’s Journey, your child is also assigned reflections for each major problem in each of the digital tools. So for example, when they solve the Arrow challenge in Ko’s Journey. They should stop and create a reflections paper. A reflections paper instructions will be similar to the example below.
From your experience with the ARROW, draw a full color picture. Be sure to include:
1) A creative title
2) A colorful scene representing the problem
3) An explanation of the math you learned in the problem
4) A standardized test question (multiple choice, same math, different problem)
These reflections are an important part of the learning process and help you and your child evaluate the depth and quality of their understanding of the math principles they are learning and applying in the games.
