Learn Math the Hard Way

=My Project Idea=

I'm inviting anyone interested in learning math by solving problems to participate in a novel experiment this summer. I have been working on turning PlanetMath.org -- a free online mathematics encyclopedia built "for the people, by the people" -- into a comprehensive learning resource that can be used "instead of" a text book and homeworks/worksheets.

Over the last 10 years, the user community has built a mathematics encyclopedia.

What I'm interested in testing this summer is how people can learn on this site by sharing, discussing, and solving mathematics problems. Because this hasn't been tried before, I need to recruit not only "active" learners but adventurous learners.

(Back to proposals.)

Name
Learn Math the Hard(er) Way

Group
PlanetMath.org (http://planetmath.org)

One Line Summary
In this summer project, we will learn math "the hard(er) way", by solving problems online, and creating problem sets for others.

What is the proposed solution?
I've learned from experience that saying "Go forth and learn math" doesn't really work. We need some structure! We've started by uploading contents from the public domain Calculus book "The Calculus" by Davis and Brenke. So anyone who specifically wants to study Calculus can dive right in. Other topics, and problems at any level, are welcome too -- if you're ready to take the initiative!

In particular, contributions from teachers and mentors are a big part of what I hope will go on in the site! The thought is that students who run into trouble can get help from peers, teachers, or any PlanetMath user. Every question will help us improve the material.

How will you make the change?
We've implemented a simple framework for adding problems (AKA exercises), solutions, and reviews (to indicate whether a solution looks right, wrong, or needs more work). Mathematical terminology will be automatically linked to terms in the encyclopedia -- so if you don't know what a problem is talking about, it will be easier to look things up.

But that's just technology. What we need now is people. I'm intending to recruit a wide range of participants. I will circulate this call for proposals to teachers working with Math for America, to mathematicians at NSF Research Experiences sites, to PlanetMath's advisory board, to the Math Future community -- and to anyone else who might be interested. Together, we can start building the next generation mathematics learning platform.

What is your value proposition?
Studying mathematics here, you can share your mathematical joys and sorrows with other learners from around the world. We hope that if you get stuck, you can get help from other people in the community quickly. And, as I mentioned, every question will help us improve the expository material, making it so that the next person who comes along won't hit the same stumbling block.

Why is this different from other offerings?
We build on 10 years of work on the PlanetMath encyclopedia -- so, we are studying math in a knowledge rich environment. PlanetMath isn't just a giant "chat room", but an organized and structured resource. Every object is discussable, so if you have a question or you find a mistake, your comments will go out to the entire community and you can get help quickly.

This particular summer experience will also build on 2.5 years of work from me in my Ph. D. project, designing and a platform and a learning paradigm that I quite sincerely think will work better than anything else out there. But the experience is also an experiment -- so we shall see! -- and by participating here, you can help advance the "science" of learning.

=Team: bio, expertise, and role(s) in the group=

Member 1
Joe Corneli, co-Director of PlanetMath.org and Ph. D. candidate at the Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK (Ph. D. topic: "Peer Supported Problem Solving and Mathematical Knowledge"). I earned my BA in 2002 from New College of Florida, with a focus on mathematics. I participated in 2 summer NSF REU projects, and have had a range of experience as a mentor, TA, tutor, teacher, and online facilitator.

My job here is to make sure the software works, and to try and build a good group. I will also help with the content and hope to learn some math myself! (I will be using techniques from graph theory to analyse the data we gather from user participation.) In the end, I'm a participating researcher, and will write this work up in my thesis.

Member 2
It could be you?

=Stage of the venture=

Planning stage.

Date of founding
Learn Math the Hard(er) way will launch on the new PlanetMath platform in mid-July. A "beta" version of this platform was announced on June 6th, and you can kick the tires at http://metameso.org/q/

Milestones achieved

 * PlanetMath's encyclopedia has pretty thorough coverage of university level mathematics, some high school and research topics
 * We have new software more or less ready to be used in this experiment (just putting on some finishing details this month)
 * This call for contributors is now drafted!

Milestones yet to be achieved

 * Recruiting people
 * Running the experiment
 * Writing it up

=Support required=

Who else do you need on your team to make the project a success?
I would love any interested teachers, students, hobbyists, or math researchers would like to join a novel experiment to sign up and contribute problems, solutions, reviews and comments. There are other ways to contribute as well: improving the PlanetMath encyclopedia, proofreading scanned and OCRed math textbooks, making pictures and diagrams...

in short, if you have a mathematical talent or interest in the subject, we can find a place for you.

Are any of these people in the Academy/Guild?
If you need to learn some math for your technology project, consider giving this project a shot?

What in general would you do with funding or volunteer support?
If there is any funding available for this project, I'd like to distribute it to people who couldn't participate otherwise. In addition to mathematical tasks, volunteers who are more interested in programming can contribute on the software side. But the main thing here is learning math, and putting time in on that.

=Market and Competitors=

Quantify the market (if possible).
There are a lot of other online learning environments for math -- Khan Academy especially comes to mind, but so do things like the Math Forum, and OpenStudy.com. Our coverage is very different, and our approach is very different. In some sense, we will be building a 21st Century version of "Schuams Outlines" (which you might be familiar with: books full of example problems, worked solutions, and exposition).

Specify your target niche (my target is "any Internet user" is not an answer)
The project takes inspiration from the recent (and popular) programming book, Learn Python the Hard Way, by Zed Shaw. Zed's book is quite cool in that it doesn't assume any particular background with programming, but just gets the reader working through problems, starting with easier ones and getting harder. I realized that a similar model could apply to any topic: start with simple problems, and work through to the harder ones.

Over time, we should be able to build a whole library of books like this. I hope to capture the interest of people who not only want to learn some math themselves, but who wouldn't mind sharing what they learn with others, and helping out the rest of the world in this way!

=A few numbers=

I hope to recruit at least 30 active participants.