A critical analysis of the use of ‘Sumaze!’ within a secondary school mathematics classroom

Abstract

This case study examines the usefulness of the Sumaze! game for teaching mathematics in secondary school. The game was recently released by Sigma jointly with MEI in December 2015. The study consisted of two lessons which were taught to a year 9 class as part of their usual mathematics lessons. The first was taught in exam conditions and students were given questions to answer on paper. For the second lesson students had the choice of working in small groups and had no questions to answer on paper. Selected students were then interviewed and their knowledge of the topics that they had explored was assessed via a set of questions. Findings suggest that students found the game engaging and were interested in playing the game again. However, there was little evidence to suggest that they learnt mathematics from it in either of the formats that it was presented to them.