In early 2013, I joined a professor and small team of computer science students at the University of Iowa to compete in the NYC Schools Gap App Challenge competition. The competition was designed to address a growing problem in NYC middle school classrooms. Teachers have found that their middle school students are arriving from a variety of elementary schools at varied skill levels in math. To solve this problem, a competition was made; the objective was to develop an iPad app that can help middle school students bridge the gap from elementary to middle school math and for teachers to assess their students' math levels.
As a top-12 finalist in the competition, our developer team was assigned a middle school in NYC. We met with faculty and administrators to discuss the changes necessary to begin using the app in the classroom! Check out Gap App Fractions for yourself in the iTunes app store!