JUMP Math is a charitable organization whose mission is to provide educational resource materials to both teachers and parents in an effort to make mathematics accessible to all students.

Although traditionally the focus of the initiative has been to provide educational materials to students in grades 1 through 8, recently JUMP Math has developed teaching materials for an adult foundations math course at the college level. In order to measure the effectiveness of the resources it was necessary for JUMP Math to utilize a third party to carry out a subjective evaluation.

In partnership with the MITACS Accelerate program, a mathematics intern studying for his PhD at Queen’s University was tasked with consulting teachers to select the appropriate curriculum for the course and then carried out an evaluation both pre- and post-course to determine its effectiveness.

This internship has helped to solidify a new market for JUMP Math’s college level materials as well as establish a relationship with a college. As a result of this project, JUMP Math is continuing to contribute to the adult foundations math program at a partner college and is collaborating with them on a multiyear proposal to obtain funding to expand the provision of mathematics resources to other adult learning centers.

“The internship program provides an important service to businesses while also providing a relevant learning experience for the intern,” said Dianne Bascombe of JUMP Math. “Without our involvement in the MITACS Accelerate program, it is difficult to say whether this project would have taken off in the way that it did.”