How I ran March Math Madness
[Note: PDFs of the problems I used are linked closer to the end]
For the first time this year, I used a March Madness bracket in each class to bring some friendly competition and fast-paced math review in the classroom. I had never made a bracket or participated in a bracket before, but I loved how it went! I searched around online for a while for a site to help created brackets, but I wasn’t happy with anything I found until I finally landed on Office Pool Stop, which is free but you need to create an account with them. This website was nice because I could enter a league name, which was the period of the class, and enter how many students there were. The site automatically created a bracket like this:
My knowledge of bracket types is relatively weak, and the website had the capability to do much much more with different types of leagues as seen below. I just did the March Madness Bracket Pool and didn’t enter much since I just wanted a basic bracket setup that would give me Bye Weeks so I would end up with 16 teams in the second round and go down from there.
In order to fill out student names randomly in the bracket, I took popsicle sticks and numbered them up to 27 (my largest class size).
As each class walked in, I had them choose a popsicle stick and I used the number they chose to place them in the bracket. If you do it this way, you need to adjust the number of popsicle sticks in the bin before the students walk in - so for my small class of 10, I had to quickly take out the popsicle sticks numbered 11 - 27. I highly recommend NOT LETTING STUDENTS SEE WHERE THEY END UP on the bracket! I kept this hidden until AFTER the FIRST ROUND.
I didn’t want anyone knowing if they had a free pass to the second round, and I also didn’t want anyone knowing who they were facing off against at first. I wanted to avoid any pre-conceived notions of, “Oh, I don’t need to try since I will definitely beat this person,” or “There’s no point in trying since this person will beat me.”
Once students pulled popsicle sticks and my brackets were set, I explained how March Math Madness (or Math Madness, or March Mathness) was going to run:
Each morning, there would be a “mad minute” style list of problems for them to complete. The problems would be quick and review of basic but essential math skills
Depending on the topic, they would have anywhere from 90-120 seconds.
Once time was up, I would call, “Pencils down!” and they would swap papers with someone in the class.
I would read aloud the answers in order, and they would put a check next to any correct answers. They would add up the checks and write how many were correct at the top of the paper
Students would get their papers back and I would project the bracket on the board.
Students would find the person they were up against and decide who moved on. The person moving on would come up and circle their name.
I would tell them the next day’s skill and then we would continue with class.
Each morning, as I walked around and handed out the problem sets (students had to keep them upside down until I was done handing them out) I played a different pump-up song to get them ready to work!
Here is what my final brackets looked like after the week:
One thing I learned the hard way right away was that students should be asked to complete problems IN ORDER. I didn’t mention this at first because I assumed they would go in order, but after the first round, we realized some students had gone in order and spent precious time doing trickier problems, which some randomly did them to avoid any that were more involved.
For Algebra II, the skills I assessed each day were:
Adding and subtracting integers, adding and subtracting decimals, adding and subtracting fractions, dividing fractions, basic factoring when a=1, and multiplying decimals
For AP Calculus, the skills I assessed each day were:
Basic derivatives, basic antiderivatives, adding and subtracting integers, adding and subtracting fractions, unit circle evaluating, and evaluating rational exponents
I created the Basic Derivatives, Basic Antiderivatives, and Unit Circle Skills problem sets on my own, but I used KUTA software to create the others. My school used to have a license to this site, but once Covid happened, we switched to Deltamath and ended our Kuta subscription. Thankfully, Kuta allows teachers to create a free 14-day trial, which I did at the beginning of March Madness, so I was able to create all the problem sets and answer keys. The only thing I don’t like is how Kuta numbers their problems: most of my students go down when completing problems in order, not across. So once I emphasized before Round 2 that they needed to go in order, some of them still had didn’t problems done since some went down and some went across. We decided as long as no problems were skipped it didn’t matter.
HERE is a PDF of the problems I used in Algebra II and HERE is a PDF of the problems I used in AP Calculus.
As a prize for the grand winner, I created baggies to give them as soon as the final round ended. I wanted to make sure I had these ready to give the winner as soon as they won, not a day or two later. The bag had an “I love math pin,” a math themed pencil, a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card, and a slip of paper giving them bonus in the class.
