One of those things that is actually FAR more interesting than it sounds is “standards for mathematical practice”. These are things that everyone at every grade should be learning.
My favorite (yes, I have a favorite, don’t judge me), is to persevere in solving problems. I am totally convinced that perseverance is the single greatest factor in success in life. From being world judo champion to founding a startup that has beaten the odds, I know that perseverance is crucial.
When creating the activity for factors – you drag factors of 21 into one box and factors of 40 into another – I considered the possibility of a screen where, after you made a mistake, you were given the option to give up and go back to the “learn_more” screen and choose a different option.
I decided against it.
Every time you drop in the correct number, there is a little “ping!” to tell you that you are right. It’s not a super hard problem. You should be able to guess that 21 is a factor of 21 and 40 is a factor of 40. That gives you 8 more numbers. Hopefully, you can see that 3 x 7 = 21 and drop the 7 and 3 into the right box. So, now you are left with 6.
It might take you a little effort to get them all correct, but if you try enough times, you should be able to get it. So, my decision was, I’m not even letting you have the option of giving up.