In the transition to Citizen Math, we made the hard decision to not update many of our old Mathalicious lessons which are now scheduled for retirement June 1, 2022. We know you have some questions.
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​Why We Cut Lessons
For years, our goal at Mathalicious was to provide teachers with at least authentic three real-world lessons for every major middle and high school unit, or roughly 18 lessons per course. Since a lesson can up 2-3 days to teach, this translated to nearly 60 instructional days, or roughly one-third of the academic year. Why one-third? In addition to mastering mathematical procedures and understanding mathematical concepts, students deserve consistent opportunities to apply those procedures and concepts to real issues in the world. Because applications are just as important as are procedural fluency and conceptual understanding, we reasoned they deserve an equal share of instructional time.

Over time, however, we discovered two things. First, successfully facilitating a mathematical discussion about a real-world issue involves teaching practices that haven't historically been part of the mainstream math experience; while textbooks and word problems have long used the world to look at math -- e.g. using trains to contextualize linear functions or jars of marbles to contextualize volume -- our lessons use math to look at the world. When we analyzed the schools and districts that were using Mathalicious most successfully, we found that most weren't using three lessons per instructional unit but rather two or even one. Since the lessons were so different, these schools explained, they preferred to start small and build up over time. This made sense.

The second thing we discovered was that, even though one or two lessons per unit may not sound like much, even a small number of lessons can have a huge impact. A large-scale research study by Northwestern University and the University of Chicago found that teachers who used as few as two Mathalicious lessons per year saw significant gains in student performance in and attitudes about math. Not only that, but teachers regularly report that discussing real-world issues with their students helps them enjoy their jobs more; this includes teachers who only use a handful of lessons per year.

Taken together, these discoveries convinced us that we'd made a mistake. Instead of the three-lessons-per-unit that we'd originally envisioned, we realized that a smaller number would be less overwhelming, more manageable, and thus more sustainable.

Of course, this by itself doesn't explain why we decided to retire certain lessons. After all, even if we had more lessons than were "strictly necessary," there was no reason to not keep them around. (Apologies to ELA teachers for the double-negative.) We wrote all of the lessons for teachers. Why take some of them away?

The reason has to do with our own evolution as an organization. In the time between when we started Mathalicious and finally reached our 18-lessons-per-course goal, we got better at every aspect of our work. We learned how to ask better questions that balanced scaffolding and inquiry. We learned how to write better lesson guides to be more actionable for teachers. We got better at building the online interactives that help bring the discussions to life. Even though Mathalicious was great, we knew we could make it better...and we believes that teachers deserved our absolute best.

So we decided to rewrite our library: to take the lessons we'd learned, take the house down to the studs, and rebuild it from scratch. (Around the same time, we also decided that we needed a new name. As catchy as "Mathalicious" is, let's be honest: it sounds a bit frivolous. Our lessons address big topics like the fallibility of memory and the ubiquity of advertising, yet they sound like they were written by Snooki.) Instead of rewriting every lesson, though, we opted to focus on the ones which we felt would have the biggest impact. So how did we decide which lessons to rewrite and which to bid farewell?
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​Which Lessons We Kept and Which We Cut

As we transitioned to Citizen Math, there were three* questions that we asked ourselves when deciding whether or not to rewrite a particular lesson:

Take the lesson "Flicks." In it, students use linear functions to determine which movie rental service is the best deal: Netflix, Redbox, or Apple. Since students can answer the question using tables, graphs, and equations, the lesson satisfied criteria #2. But since it had a definitive answer, and since finding the cheapest service does little to challenge students to think about the world more deeply, it failed criteria #1 and #3. Even though "Flicks" was one of the most popular lessons on Mathalicious, we opted not to rewrite it.

We did, however, rewrite the lesson "Wage War" in which students use linear functions to debate whether the federal government should increase the minimum wage. This easily satisfied criteria #1 and #2. And since the question does not have a definitive answer, it also satisfied criteria #3. So did "Big Foot Conspiracy" in which students discuss whether people with small feet should pay less for shoes. Even though shoe pricing seems like a less urgent issue than the minimum wage, both explorations are equally rich mathematically and have the critical characteristic of helping students think flexibly about the world around them and emerging from math class with a deeper appreciation of the fact that most questions in real life defy a single solution.

Of course, these may seem like strange criteria to use when writing math lessons; they're almost certainly not the criteria that textbook authors use (nor should they be). But that's what makes Citizen Math different. Our lessons don't exist just to help students get better at mastering mathematical procedures or discovering mathematical concepts. They exist to help students use those procedures and concepts to think critically about the world. Gone, then, is the Mathalicious activity in which students use cylinder volume and surface area to compare Crunchy vs. Puffy Cheetos. And back (and better) is the activity in which they analyze the pros and cons of different-sized disposable water bottles and discuss the best strategies for reducing plastic in the ocean. Because Citizen Math serves a different function than other resources do, we feel obliged to honor different rules.

(*In addition to the three criteria described above, there was a fourth question that we considered when deciding whether or not to rewrite a lesson: Can the lesson serve as a jumping-off point for larger experiences? For instance, in the lesson "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow," students graph and solve equations to determine how long it takes to donate hair to Locks of Love. When they do, they discover that it would take a single person nearly twenty years to donate an entire wig. After students do this lesson, we thought, what if they organized a community hair drive to help kids with alopecia or leukemia? We've seen teachers do incredible things on top of our lessons -- community service projects, for instance -- and supporting that was something we also had in mind when deciding which lessons to prioritize.)

Still, we know how frustrating it is to no longer see your favorite Mathalicious lesson on the new Citizen Math site. We're teachers, too, and we recognize the relationship that teachers develop with the lessons they teach. To minimize the disruption, we created a way for existing Mathalicious teachers to continue to have access to all of their favorite lessons.

​Access to the Old Lessons
As a legacy Mathalicious user, you will continue to have access to those old Mathalicious lessons until the end of your current billing period as of the date we launched Citizen Math. All retired lessons will come down by June 1, 2022 at the latest; but your access only goes until the end of your Mathalicious license.
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Examples of when your access to old Mathalicious lessons will end depending on the expiration date of your Mathalicious account when we launched Citizen Math:

As always, we want to support teachers in having a great classroom experience. Please email us at holler@citizenmath.com if you'd like help finding a replacement lesson. Alternatively, if there's an old Mathalicious lesson that we decided not to rewrite but which you think we should, please let us know. We can't promise anything, but we're happy to reconsider. We created this resource for you. We're eager for your feedback.