How it works
Learn how ST Math can make a difference for your students.
Learn how ST Math can make a difference for your students.
ST Math Chats are classroom lessons that follow a Play - Discuss - Apply model. Each lesson has an introduction, designated time for students to play a specific game, whole class discussion, and a conclusion featuring an extension question designed to deepen conceptual understanding by having students apply what they have learned and discussed.
For an overview of ST Math Chats, watch this quick video.
The content within ST Math Chats is standards aligned, and can be flexibly inserted into any curriculum to introduce a new topic, deepen understanding, or review a topic. ST Math Chats are designed to fit within core instruction and provide opportunities for academic discourse in the classroom. These lessons should not be used as replacements for individual time on ST Math, but rather supplement what students are already working on individually and together as a class.
Each lesson is designed to take about 25-35 minutes.
Each ST Math Chats lesson has an overview page that includes a preview of each section. The preview allows you to simultaneously see teacher screens and student screens, and to try out the game that students will be playing. The arrow in the screenshot below indicates where to click to play the game:
In addition to reviewing the lesson content, make sure you have an active internet connection and the ability to project your screen for the whole class to see. Students need to have 1:1 or 2:1 devices.
If it’s your first time trying out ST Math Chats, watch this quick video.
Once you launch a lesson, students follow the directions on the first screen. Make sure to project your screen where the whole class can see. Students enter the URL into their browsers, and once they’re on the correct page they enter in the code, type their names, and join the class. You can see student names pop up on your screen as they join.
Lesson navigation is at the bottom right toolbar with forward and back arrows. When you’re ready to progress through the lesson, click the arrow in the bottom right corner to go to the next screen.
If you would like a quick way to jump to a specific section of the lesson, you can click on the section in between the arrows to bring up the lesson chapters and select the one you would like to jump to:
The bottom right hand corner of each student screen will show the URL and the class code needed to join for the duration of the lesson. If a student disconnected for any reason or if they are joining late, they can look at their neighbor’s screen for the code and URL and join the lesson as they would normally.
If you need to exit a lesson, you can select “Menu” in your bottom toolbar and click on the option to exit.
While students play ST Math puzzles individually at the start of the lesson, the teacher’s screen displays a JiJi timer. JiJi waits to cross as blocks fall down to create a path. The blocks are purely based on a timer and not related to student progress - but don’t give the secret away! Feeling like their efforts are contributing to JiJi’s progress helps students stay motivated. Once all the blocks fall down and JiJi crosses, use the forward arrow to move on to the next part of the lesson.
After students have had a chance to play puzzles individually, you move onto discussing specific puzzles as a class. Pressing “Start” pushes out a single puzzle to your students and you can see a running count of the number of responses submitted. After the whole class has had a chance to respond to the puzzle, select “Stop” to see the distribution of responses and lead the discussion.
If you’ve already reviewed the suggested guided questions, you can hide them from your screen by clicking the Notes button on the bottom left hand corner of your toolbar.
