Why BrainQuake?
Our Story
Since the early 1990s, it’s been known that the abstract, symbolic language commonly used to present mathematics presents beginners with a barrier to learning. Based on many years of university research, we created BrainQuake to provide a revolutionary new way for math beginners (of any age) to break the Symbol Barrier—and bypass the need to master a wide range of basic skills—to focus on developing the all-important creative, problem-solving ability that underpins all work in mathematics.
Our launch app, Wuzzit Trouble, received critical acclaim, and peer-reviewed, scientific studies by major research universities showed that its use leads to significantly improved performance in written tests of problem-solving ability. Once a student knows how to think mathematically and solve problems, the basic skills and mastery of math’s symbolic language are acquired much more easily.
That strong start led to our receiving a $1.1M award from the US Department of Education. We built on Wuzzit Trouble™, our initial product, which focused on problems in whole-number arithmetic and algebra, to create a much more substantial learning platform that incorporates fractions and proportions, linear growth models, and spatial reasoning. We provide real-time progress feedback via our new BrainQuake Score™, which reports three crucial measures: Performance, Persistence, and Creativity. When taken together, these metrics provide a net new perspective on mathematics proficiency that is generally unavailable at scale. In short, BrainQuake continues to focus on developing new ways to help our community see and develop children’s true mathematics potential.
1000s of puzzles support learning & assessment on your LMS
We began designing our puzzles by picking an important mathematical concept: whole number arithmetic and linear algebraic equations for Gears, fractions and proportions for Tanks, and linear growth and equations for Tiles. Then we designed a game around that concept, so that playing the game (i.e., solving the game puzzles) actually involves solving complex performance tasks using the chosen mathematical concept.
With this approach, not only does the mathematics sit naturally in the resulting game, but the game is in fact a digital embodiment of the math. The game actually is the mathematics, only presented using a different representation, with game objects and actions standing in for mathematical symbols and symbolic manipulations. We call this approach Breaking the Symbol Barrier™.
All of our content is ready to be deployed on all major LMSes, including Schoology, Google Classroom, Canvas, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard, Brightspace, and Moodle.
BrainQuake is the simple, effective, & fun supplemental math solution you’re looking for!
Engage students
Third-party research that we neither funded nor directed has repeatedly demonstrated our capacity to engage students in mathematics, including mathematics that reaches beyond students’ current grade level.
Enhance your current instruction
We designed BrainQuake to fit into any pedagogy and curriculum. There’s virtually no limit to how you can incorporate BrainQuake into your classroom. From extra practice to station rotation to number talks, BrainQuake fits right in to what you’re already doing.
Increase problem-solving skill
A study directed by Stanford’s Dr. Jo Boaler found that students using BrainQuake for just 10 minutes per week for four weeks improved their problem-solving skills on novel, complex performance tasks by an average of 16.4%.
Facilitate transfer
So often education video games fail to achieve transfer, the application of the concepts learned in the game to more standardized practice and expression. That’s why we built our Digital Manipulatives to help students understand the symbolic representations implicit in the puzzles.
Develop agency and self-efficacy
Our exploratory puzzles allow students to make sense of mathematics in their own ways, using failure as the powerful learning tool it should be. Students routinely gain comfort and confidence in the math skill as a result of using BrainQuake.
Challenge yourself
One of the most surprising aspects of our work to teachers new to BrainQuake is that our puzzles are often fun and engaging for them, too! One of the most powerful ways to use BrainQuake is put yourself in your students’ shoes and solve puzzles with them.
