The story of an experience: Holding the Kangaroo mathematics festival online in Iran
Kangaroo mathematics festival is an international event in the field of mathematics that pursues various goals, such as, familiarizing the students with mathematical problem-solving skills. This festival is held in more than 80 countries worldwide and about 6.5 million students participate in the event. In Iran, held by Fatemi Cultural Institute, more than 300 thousand students and 10 thousand schools have participated in the event throughout the years. The festival is held in Iran every year on the last Thursday of the month of Farvardin (April 16th).
These days with the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down many schools, we had a very difficult dilemma; two choices, with each having serious reasons of their own. The first one was to cancel the event and all the registrations, and the other one was to prepare the right infrastructure to hold the event in any way possible. We received many calls from the schools, parents, and the students who were interested in participating in the event, Also the prolonged absence of schools and quarantine had the students bored at home.
We made a difficult decision. In a short window of time, we had to prepare a technical infrastructure capable of hosting tens of thousands of students participating in the event simultaneously. Also, the Kangaroo festival is known as the “Happy Math Day” in Iran, and on this day, we offered various programs to schools so that the students can spend a day grappling with mathematics, learning new skills, and enjoy entertainments involving mathematics.
We didn’t want the event being held online ruin its quality. Due to the quarantine, we were faced with many challenges for the event and followed is an account of successful experience. An experience during the quarantine caused by the virus, in which the risk of participating in in-person meetings was high; an experience that was only possible due to the sacrifices made by my colleagues in Fatemi Cultural Institute, An experience we are truly proud of today.
After numerous meetings and consulting with the experts in this field, we prepared a plan for holding the 12th Kangaroo mathematical festival online. A plan that had to consider each and every aspect. Followed are the challenges we were faced with and the solutions we came up with:
1. Technical and administrative challenges
A. In order to prevent any question leaks and provide a fair chance for all students, we had to provide a situation in which all students could begin the competition at the same time. This meant that at the same time, there would be a tremendous amount of requests on our technical infrastructure.
B. Not all students had access to a computer. In Iran, there is a particular situation with people’s access to technology and while more than 90 per cent of people use smartphones, only 50 per cent have access to computers with internet access. But the challenge doesn’t end here, there were families that only had one phone at home and they were either android or iOS phones. So not only we had to provide an infrastructure for the web-based online exam, but we also had to develop two applications for the Android and iOS phones.
C. Since the students taking the exam weren’t present at school and most parents didn’t have the knowledge to help them, we had to support all the students simultaneously. Both scientific support and technical support and any other problem they might face while taking the exam. We were looking for a meticulous solution for a support system of this magnitude and it was yet another one of our challenges.
2. Scientific challenges
A. The time limit for the Kangaroo exam itself is only 90 minutes, while in previous years, the students who participated in the festival in Iran, spent a whole day with games and entertainments. Besides, staying at home for a prolonged amount of time had made the students bored and we saw it as our own duty to do something for the students.
B. All the questions had to be drawn up online while being kept secret and this left us with a tremendous amount of questions and pictures to be edited.
C. A significant number of the participators are first-graders who may have had problems with reading and comprehending the questions.
After numerous meetings with scientific experts, we devised various solutions for these challenges. In each solution, we had to consider different parameters such as students participating from underprivileged areas, students without access to technology, and so on.
1. Using the help of the institute’s technical teams, we quickly set to optimizing and updating the previous infrastructure we had for the exam and made extensive changes in order to scale up the infrastructure and load balance the servers.
2. We optimized the institute’s exams’ android and iOS applications for the Kangaroo festival and published a few versions for testing. After the testing stage, we pursued the process of releasing the application on app stores.
While technical teams had their hands busy with the activities we had made a decision on, the scientific committees were planning the scientific aspects of the festival. For two reasons we decided to hold the Kangaroo mathematical festival throughout one week with two grades participating in the festival each day. Thus we solved the challenge of the questions being leaked since every two grades’ questions are different. Here are the reasons why we chose to have the exam throughout one week:
1. We wanted to be able to support the students fully and due to the virus, it was difficult for all our colleagues to be present at the office and maintain social distancing. But by dividing the grades in 6 days, the number of our support staff would be proportionate with the number of students in each group and we could be certain of the quality of support.
2. The pressure on our technical infrastructure would be divided in six days.
Accordingly, we changed our slogan from “Happy math day” to “Happy math week”. With the help of our scientific committee, we prepared different content for the students to be entertained with after solving the problems. All the technical tests were passed successfully and everything seems ready for holding the International Kangaroo mathematical festival online.
One student from a village has said: “I am very thankful for what you have done, my parents are farmers and work in the field and I get bored in the house. Kangaroo entertained me so much. By the way, I’ve also sent you an origami.”
I should also point out the scheduling process. Since the 28th of Farvardin, when Kangaroo was supposed to be held at schools like previous years, we were waiting for an announcement from the officials regarding the re-opening of schools, so that we could have the exam with a delay but in the same fashion as the previous years. But during the first days of the month Ordibehesht, it was announced that the schools would not re-open until the end of the school year. We had yet another challenge time-wise; In Iran, the school year officially finishes on 15th of Khordad and after that, we would lose our connection to the students who had signed up for the exam through their school. So, we had to hold the festival before that date and it meant that we only had 30 days for all the planning, coordination, development, and holding the exam itself!
We provided 4 other content for the students to be entertained with at home for at least a day. 2 tutorial videos of making a Kangaroo origami (Easy and difficult) and two mathematical problems that were solvable using the throwaway stuff at home. We also designed a competition for making origamis to reward the funny origamis. I have brought some of the pictures that the students and their parents have sent us.
For holding the festival online, we established an online chat system to support, notify, and help the students during the exam. About 8 thousand people contacted us through online support and around 30 thousand people participated in the exam in the pre-specified time. But it doesn’t end here. We called all the absentees and asked about the reason behind their absence. In the three following days, we allowed the absentees to take the exam once again. We also sent the questions and a manual to those without access to technology, so that they could also participate in the Kangaroo festival while maintaining social distancing.
Holding an event online which previously had been held at schools with their help, brought along a lot of stress and pressure, but in the end, we were able to do a good job. These days, we are constantly receiving happy messages. One student from a village has said: “I am very thankful for what you have done, my parents are farmers and work in the field and I get bored in the house. Kangaroo entertained me so much. By the way, I’ve also sent you an origami.” We have received many texts of this sort and reading them makes us forget the troubles we went through.
