Advancing the Mission

This year, MIND elevated its programs and positioned itself for a bright future. Hear our colleagues’ and partners’ thoughts on continuing to make breakthroughs in education to ultimately achieve our mission. 
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From Our Leadership

2019 was a year of great momentum for MIND Research Institute. We announced ST Math Chats, a new ST Math feature, launched our MathMINDs Games, and so much more. We also found new and creative ways to recognize the tremendous work of our colleagues, allies, and partners like you. Looking back, we are immensely proud of the foundation we’ve built and the partnerships we’ve forged. It’s the feedback, advice, and challenges our partners present to us that keep us moving toward a future where we can mathematically equip all students to solve the world’s most challenging problems. 

Thank you for your continued support, and cheers to what’s ahead!

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Brett Woudenberg
Chief Executive Officer 
MIND Research Institute

 

Matthew Peterson, Ph.D.
Co-founder and Chief Research & Development Officer
MIND Research Institute

 

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Advancing the Impact of ST Math

This year brought a new ST Math feature, ST Math Chats! ST Math Chats are 25-30 minute lessons that utilize 1:1 or 2:1 technology to create an interactive learning and sharing experience. Using a Play-Discuss-Apply model, these lessons designate time for students to play an ST Math game,  participate in whole class discussion, and apply what they’ve learned to a math problem that concludes the lesson.

READ WHAT TEACHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ST MATH CHATS
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With support from our partners, ST Math continues to expand across the nation—reaching more students than ever before.
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ST Math Awards

We’re proud to have won the following awards this year, and credit our success to the strong partnerships we have with our schools and donors.

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2019 Best Mathematics Instructional Solution for Grades PreK-8

2019 Best Overall Ed Tech Solution

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2019 Games for Learning/Simulation Solution

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2018
Top-Rated
Nonprofit

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2018 Best
Math Program
(Silver) 

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A Unique, Patented Approach

This June, the U.S. Patent Office issued to MIND a patent that covers the core of how ST Math games function. U.S. Patent No. 10,304,346 protects the system and method for training with virtual manipulatives. It includes the use of spatial-temporal (ST) reasoning to interact with on-screen objects following mathematical rules, informative feedback showing why solutions work or not, difficulty ramps, and error tolerance. This is the ninth and latest addition to MIND's portfolio of design and utility patents.

EXPLORE PATENT PAGE

Educator Resources

We added to our collection of tools for educators, administrators and parents.
We also created a place for everyone to tour and play ST Math games!

Empowering Educators

This year, we refined our resource offerings to comprehensively cover core topics in math education, adding new content on deep conceptual understanding and student engagement.

Play Page

Here you can play sample puzzles from ST Math after watching guided video tours.

ST Math Community

A place to learn and grow together! Members can share ideas, win prizes, and connect with other ST Math educators across the country.

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Spotlight on Our Speakers

The new Thought Leaders & Speakers page on mindresearch.org launched in April. Here, you can get to know MIND’s current featured speakers and what they have to say around mathematics, neuroscience, education, research, and learning. 

Explore New Speakers Page

Advancing MIND’s Voice

We continued highlighting the voices of our educators, partners, and colleagues. Dozens more podcasts, educator perspectives, and speaking engagements brought the work being done by MIND to audiences across the nation.

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We traveled to San Diego, Washington, D.C., and so many places in between to connect with education thought leaders from across the globe. We also had the privilege of sharing our own thoughts on the state of math education. 

 

Twelve new episodes of the “Inside Our MIND” podcast were published in 2019. Each episode looks at issues and challenges facing education that MIND is working to address through research, technology, and strategic initiatives.

Listen in on this episode featuring Karin Wu, MIND’s Executive Vice President/Executive Director of Social Impact. Karin shares the story of what brought her to MIND, the organization’s mission, and how our partners help us pursue that mission.

Hear More Episodes

 

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Three more educators’ stories were added to this series. Teachers and administrators across the country told us how they’re engaging, motivating, and challenging their students in unique ways.

"The students would say things to the principal on the playground like ‘I know JiJi is all about math, but JiJi wants us to never give up and figure out the problem.’ They were not only carrying that over to other content areas, but to behavioral and social areas, and that meant just as much as the quantitative results."
-Kim Anthony, How to Bring Edtech into a District Successfully

"I don’t ask that students be able to do every single kind of approach to solving different types of problems. But they do need to find a strategy that works for them, a way that is efficient as well as accurate."
-Meagan Erwin,
A Math Class Structure that Fosters Conceptual Learning

"Once a school successfully embeds ST Math into their culture they will start to see students develop deeper conceptual understanding and math fluency at the same time. Then it’s up to teachers to take their students' new abilities and help them apply them to real-world applications."
-Thomas Donahue,
Engagement Thrives When Students Own Their Math Learning

Research Is Our Middle Name

We advanced the research being done by and with MIND Research Institute,  and we took a more active role in shaping policy. This included multiple ST Math studies, data resources for educators, and insight from our own Chief Data Science Officer. 

MIND Submits Comment on IES Proposed Priorities - The U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences published a notice seeking public comment on IES’s proposed priorities. MIND’s comment encourages educators to expect more from edtech research.

Demanding More from Edtech Evaluations - Let's change the conversation around edtech evaluations! This ebook collected information from our podcasts, blogs, webinars, and more into one resource to help administrators get more out of edtech evaluations.

Why ESSA's Tier System is Only the First Step - An edtech program can be rated as having “strong” evidence based on a single randomized control trial, done many years ago, on a version of a product that no longer exists. We think there are better ways to evaluate programs.

Nationwide Impact

This year, third-party independent research firm WestEd conducted a nationwide study of ST Math that was the largest of its kind to evaluate an edtech program. Researchers used an innovative method to normalize school performance across state lines, evaluating how a school ranked on their standardized math test performance within their state before and after adopting ST Math. The study found schools that consistently used ST Math outgrew similar schools by 14 percentile points in statewide ranking. 

Listen to "WestEd and Repeatable Results in EdTech Evaluation" on Spreaker.

Explore WestEd Study

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Advancing Our Communities

Math is everywhere, in everything, and for everyone. Through our partnerships, we brought math to life for students, parents, and educators across the country.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF PROBLEM SOLVERS 

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Through public-private partnerships, we brought the excitement of math to youth, families and communities both in and out of the classroom. 

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Programs and Events
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Volunteers

Introducing MathMINDs Games

MIND created storybook board games that combine math, history, and literacy in a highly connected experience. Through each story, families learn and play a math game as they explore real events from the game's country of origin.

We had opportunities to showcase MathMINDs Games at events and festivals including the Global Math Week kick-off event in Santa Clara, California, and the National Math Festival in Washington, D.C.

Interested in bringing MathMINDs Games to more families?

PARTNER WITH US

MathMINDs Games’ first game suite, “South of the Sahara,” even earned a 2018 Academics’ Choice Award for Excellence!

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K-12 Game-a-thon

 

Students designed, built, and shared games that featured creative and unusual solution­­s to mathematical problems in our annual K-12 Game-a-thon. We had almost 100 entries from nine states across the U.S., and even a few entries from Canada!

View the 2020 Top Teams

 

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JiJi’s Road Trip Adventure

 

We held our first ever ST Math Sweepstakes! Three lucky winners received an all expenses paid school visit from JiJi, including a backpack filled with JiJi-themed swag for the students. JiJi made stops in Corona, California; Port Isabel, Texas; and Logan Township, New Jersey⁠—and had a whole lot of fun along the way!

COME SEE FOR YOURSELF

 

Introducing MathMINDs Games

MIND created storybook board games that combine math, history, and literacy in a highly connected experience. Through each story, families learn and play a math game as they explore real events from the game's country of origin.

Advancing Our Social Impact

At MIND, where our core values revolve around people, problem solving, and learning, we take the development of capacity building partnerships very seriously. In addition to the financial support that has helped us reach nearly 1.3 million students with our award-winning ST Math program, we are also extremely grateful for the guidance and support that have led us to achieve significant results at scale.

To continue to make breakthroughs in education and ultimately achieve our mission, we count on the feedback and advice of our partners. From my perspective, our partnerships work so well because we have people who truly believe in and are committed to the work we do. Thank you, partners! We are so grateful for your true capacity building support, and MIND continues to see measurable improvement because of you.

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Karin Wu
Executive Vice President/ Executive Director, Social Impact
MIND Research Institute

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Rockwell Automation is a powerful partner for MIND. Their support of students extends beyond the classroom to the larger math ecosystem. They wholly support MIND’s mission by advancing programs through their own key stakeholders and strategically investing in general operating support, ST Math, professional development, Family Nights, and research and development. In addition, this year, Rockwell Automation also funded the development of MathMINDs Games: South of the Sahara! 

Read More »

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Hyundai Motor America announced a $250,000 donation to Montgomery Public Schools for STEM education. The Hyundai ST Math Initiative will now benefit nearly 3,000 students from these schools. On May 21, 2019, HMA executives invited city dignitaries, school officials and other special guests to celebrate with them.

Read more »

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Our partnership with the One8 Foundation and Mass STEM Hub expanded ST Math to 60 additional schools, bringing the total number of participants in the ST Math Massachusetts Program to 114. At the end of the school year, Mass STEM Hub celebrated over 575 elementary school students’ ST Math achievements at the New England Aquarium. 

Read more »

 

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The Matthew and Roberta Jenkins Family Foundation has awarded scholarships to deserving students and institutions across the country, including MIND Research Institute. The foundation aims to continue elevating urban education by finding the positive possibilities all around and sharing them through education, work ethic, integrity, and good human values.

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John Deere believes the world needs innovators now more than ever. Why? The population is growing and is forecast to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050. The result? A rising need for more and better food, shelter, and infrastructure. That is why John Deere is proud to support ST Math and the next generations of innovators. Since 2014, funding from the John Deere Foundation has helped more than 19,000 youth in Iowa and Illinois and continues to expand the number of students and teachers able to benefit from ST Math programs.

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Cisco has partnered with MIND for over a decade to ensure that the ST Math user experience for both students and educators is continually improving. They invited us, once again, to be part of their Active Learning Space at the annual ISTE Conference & Expo. Attendees flocked to take selfies and shake a tailfeather with JiJi and Huti. 

Read more »

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Partnership Advisory Forum

In May, we brought together several of our partners for the 2019 Partner Advisory Forum. Representatives from Cisco Foundation, Rockwell Automation, John Deere, Phillips 66, One8 Foundation, Pitney Bowes, Tata Consultancy Services, and Hillsborough County School District challenged us to think both bigger and more deeply about the impact we can achieve together.

Read more »

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In the Media

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(20% growth from previous year)

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Coverage of MIND and ST Math appeared in:
  • District Administration
  • eSchool News
  • Education Week
  • Tech & Learning Magazine
  • EdSurge
  • My Tech Toolbelt Podcast

2018-2019 Financials

FY 2019 Funding By Donor

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FY 2019 Expenses

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Life at MIND

This year brought new board members, leadership, and plenty of opportunities to advance the mission. It also brought a lot of moments for MIND colleagues to give back, have fun, and celebrate. We invite you to take a peek into what life was like at MIND in 2019. 

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Jo Garrett
Chief Financial Officer, MIND Research Institute
Jo is a seasoned financial executive 

who joined our organization in April.

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Chuck Amos
Chief Executive Officer, GuideK12 
Chuck is a Minneapolis edtech leader 

who’s helping us to grow our mission.

Thank you, partners!

MIND’s had an incredible year of forwarding its mission. ST Math now reaches more students than ever before and we’re continuing to find ways to empower the next generation of problem solvers. Your support will help us to continue research and development, and to expand our reach to more students, teachers, schools, and communities.

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Taste of Math


Personalized learning and evidence-based programs are now more important than ever.

Our product site showcases ST Math’s ability to create a unique pathway of interconnected

content to provide differentiated instruction for individual students, regardless of skill level.

Explore the new stmath.com