Cooney Center Finalist Motion Math Gets Nod

: Image via CrunchBase

The Wall Street Journal picks up on a new math game that combines the physics of the iPhone with the importance of learning fractions. Sometimes, fractions can be a bit tedious. I know they were for me.

Nevertheless, the 99-cent app, which involves the phone’s motion sensors and a game of bouncing fractions, is about fun, and about learning. The game is based on Mr. Klein’s work with fellow developer Gabriel Adauto at the Stanford University School of Education. The pair studied something called embodied cognition, which they describe in their notes on the app as “research suggesting that connecting one’s body to abstract concepts can deepen understanding.”

Mr. Klein said they chose to make a game about fractions because it’s a subject that is particularly tough for elementary-school students, and kids do better with fractions if they can develop a visceral understanding of them — something that sounds perfectly attuned to their “embodied cognition” theory.