Games That Make You Smarter

AnnMaria

This category is for posts written by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars.

Spirit Lake has multiplication word problems — In nearly 30 years teaching and consulting on American Indian reservations, I’ve seen a dismaying number of failures to provide a good education. In the movie, Mask, the mother of a boy with a noticeable physical disfigurement is trying to register him for middle school. The principal says, Perhaps a […]

Failing Native American students: Let me count the ways

May 11, 2020 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Resources tagged Native American heritage month by AnnMaria De Mars

This spotlight on AnnMaria was recently included in the April 2020 AARP Purpose Prize Alumni Newsletter. Alumni Spotlight: Meet AnnMaria De Mars 2019-2020 Fellow President/Co-founder, 7 Generation Games Education’s the door to a better future, but it’s one closed to most low-income children. Without crucial math and literacy skills […]

Meet AnnMaria De Mars – AARP Purpose Prize Alumni Spotlight

April 7, 2020 in 7GenGames / AnnMaria tagged 7 Generation Games / AARP Purpose Prize / AnnMaria De Mars by Diana Sanchez

Choice screen with option of números and sociedad — If you actually ARE a bilingual teacher, you may already know what I’m going to say. In that case, read on to nod in agreement and feel superior. For me, this was one of the many things about education that only seemed obvious after I learned it. Our software was […]

Why Bilingual Teachers Need Our Bilingual Software

January 30, 2020 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / Educational Games / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars

Eva feeding a giraffe — You may be a native speaker or your Spanish is limited to “margarita”. Either way, if you have Spanish-speaking students in your class, you have a bilingual classroom. I’m going to assume that you want all students in your classroom to be engaged and learning. If not, hopefully, you quit […]

Teaching statistics in your bilingual classroom

January 27, 2020 in AnnMaria / Education: Innovation and STEM / Educational Resources by AnnMaria De Mars

Flight 1 of 13 in NSF Innovation Corps Program — What exactly is the Innovation Corps? Why is AnnMaria not returning my calls/ emails / meeting requests? Will Maria, AnnMaria and Juliana ever sleep again? Which of them lives at LAX Terminal 7 and which in the Delta terminal at MSP? Read on to have all of these questions answered. […]

We’ll never sleep again. NSF I-Corps Begins

January 26, 2020 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

One thing I gained from judo was the importance of persistence. There are no doubt a lot of people who have better technique than me. They had better instructors who came from famous clubs, maybe even the Kodokan. I started at the Alton YMCA. There are probably lots of people […]

How judo taught me to avoid Startup Burnout

January 17, 2020 in AnnMaria / Bilingual Education / Start-up Diaries / Women in Tech tagged startup / startup advice by AnnMaria De Mars

Sunset on the Standing Rock reservation — I get stressed that I have not accomplished enough in a week. Then I look at what has happened this decade. Weeks add up. People are awesome.

Word of the Decade: Gratitude

December 31, 2019 in AnnMaria / Start-up Diaries by AnnMaria De Mars

buffalo in winter — All right, so what if your sister, Betty had all of her Christmas shopping done by November 15th. She also alphabetizes her spices and we don’t see you doing that. You’re busy. We get it. On the other hand, you don’t want to be the person who shows up at […]

We Won’t Judge You For Shopping on Christmas Eve

December 24, 2019 in 7GenGames / AnnMaria / Newsletter tagged AnnMaria De Mars / Christmas Eve / Donate / Holiday Shopping / newsletter by Erick Salomon

One of the hardest things to do in creating a math game is to come up with problems that relate at all to student interests. Textbook publishers try, and so do we. You see a lot of math problems that include baseball statistics or buying CDs. Of course, then no […]

I want math problems for Christmas

December 11, 2019 in AnnMaria / Educational Games tagged Christmas / Holidays by AnnMaria De Mars

Our consultants on Dakota culture and American history combed Library of Congress archives for these photos of Dakota and Ojibwe life.

When you want more than pictures of happy Indians and ...

November 27, 2019 in AnnMaria tagged Native American heritage month / Thanksgiving by AnnMaria De Mars

horse in a field — I have mixed feelings about this time of year. On the one hand, I love my family and I have SO much to be thankful for. On the other hand, I’ve spent most of my career working on American Indian reservations so my feelings about the whole “let’s celebrate the […]

Native American Culture for Thanksgiving

November 25, 2019 in AnnMaria / Cultural content tagged Native American heritage month by AnnMaria De Mars

Dr. Carol Davis — When I was a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, all three of my daughters attended the university preschool program. The Director of Native American programs had an office near mine, and each year, I’d stick my head in and say, “Hey, Alfreda, you spoke at the preschool […]

Three for Thursday: Native Americans TODAY

November 21, 2019 in AnnMaria / Cultural content / podcast tagged Native American heritage month by AnnMaria De Mars