HITN, the leading Spanish-language network that offers educational and entertainment content to more than 44 million households across the United States, is partnering with Teachley and Sirius Thinking to co-produce innovative and game-changing bilingual narratives specifically designed to aid teachers in their educational journey with elementary students. Produced under a Small Business Innovation Research Grant from the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES)— https://ies.ed.gov/sbir/ the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education— Math Corps presents a quirky, fun and bold band of superheroes who use math powers to trick the mean-spirited (but relentlessly gullible) Professor Possum and save their golden planet. Through rich storytelling, the Math Corps gang battle Professor Possum and his never-ending evil inventions destined to destroy their planet and steal their magical power source. The weapon of choice for the Math Corps is always a smart math calculation that tricks the Professor and saves their beloved planet before the end of every adventure.
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During an initial prototyping grant, Teachley, HITN, and Sirius Thinking produced a bilingual Math Corps comic book as a test model to be used by elementary teachers. During the upcoming phase, the team will evolve the project to a variety of interactive digital and live platforms, which will include animated video episodes of the gang and their misadventures and card games to further illustrate and empower math as an important fun daily tool for children. Additionally, the program will expand to dashboards with lesson plans for teachers to swiftly navigate through the stories and find themselves at ease guiding their students.
Leading the educational direction of Math Corps is Teachley, an EdTech company founded by three PhD graduates from Teachers College, Columbia University who successfully produced eight interactive games with 1.5 million downloads and who won an Apple Design award in 2014 for outstanding innovative design; and HITN’s Senior Learning Scientist, Esther J. Yoon. Also playing a major role in the design and conception of the project is Sirius Thinking’s founder Christopher Cerf, renowned author and songwriter who composed music and lyrics for Sesame Street and Jim Henson Productions and produced award-winning educational shows for PBS.
“Teachley understands better than any other company we’ve encountered how to combine the latest education research on teaching math to elementary school children with wonderfully creative and amusing content,” noted Sirius’s Cerf. “We’ve loved all our opportunities to collaborate with them, and the new Math Corps project is the most ambitious and exciting one yet.”
“We’re really excited about the potential for our narratives to captivate students, engage them in big math ideas, and also help them share these fun experiences from school with their parents,” said Dana Pagar, Cofounder of Teachley. “We’re also confident that better understanding the math practice standards will help students become more proficient in mathematics and ultimately improve outcomes.”
“We feel incredibly honored at HITN to partner with Teachley and Sirius Thinking to produce a brand new, exciting series of Spanish-English bilingual math comic books and animations that will reach a nationwide audience of students,” said Esther Yoon from HITN. “In New York alone, there are 3.7 million Hispanics and Latinos, and many of them are families with children. We want to embrace this opportunity to provide parents, teachers, and caregivers new bilingual tools to share with their kids and engage in math learning together.”
HITN has a long-standing history supporting the Hispanic community in various capacities, including sponsoring, and producing educational events across different platforms. Its mission to encourage education and entertainment finds perfect alignment with Math Corps’ ideals and pursuit. Throughout the next phase of the project, HITN will work side-by-side with Teachley and Sirius Thinking to make Math Corps available to more schools and families in the United States.
To learn more visit: www.teachley.com/math-corps
About HITN-TV:
HITN is a leading Spanish-language media company that focuses on educational and entertainment content for the whole family. Celebrating its 40th year, HITN continues to create opportunities in education for ages K-12 along with activities and resources for children to share with their parents. HITN has produced virtual and live educational events across the country, and continues to produce campaigns and festivals for the whole family. To learn more, visit: www.hitn.org and follow @HITNtv on social platforms.
About Teachley:
Teachley is an edtech company founded by former teachers with PhDs in Cognition and Learning focused on creating K-5 math software that promotes deep thinking and learning. Teachley has received small business innovation research (SBIR) grants from the US Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and National Institutes of Health to develop innovative math software for classrooms and deliver actionable data for teachers. Teachley’s first game, Addimal Adventure, won an Apple Design Award (2014) for outstanding innovative design and they have over 1.5M downloads across 8 games. For more information, visit www.teachley.com.
About Sirius Thinking:
Sirius Thinking, Ltd., is a New York City-based production company specializing in the creation of mission-driven children's educational entertainment. Founded by veterans of Sesame Street, Jim Henson Productions, and Random House, Sirius is noted for its work across a variety of media, focusing on television, interactive software, animated and live-action video, music, spoken-word audio, and print. The company is perhaps best known for creating and co-producing PBS literacy education series, Between the Lions which won ten Emmy Awards during its decade-long run on public television, and has been consistently demonstrated – in scientific research studies conducted by the University of Kansas, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and others – to improve the reading skills of early readers. To learn more, visit www.siriusthinking.com.
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Contacts
Lina Sands / 646-731-3887 lsands@hitn.org
