Contribute New Tasks

Share a Polypad Canvas

If you've created a Polypad canvas you would like to share publicly, please submit it using this form. Alternatively, continue reading if you're interested in creating a more customised and in-depth student task or teaching idea.

Create a Custom Task

Our new Tasks Page contains resources, activities and teaching ideas for Polypad, our library of virtual manipulatives. They can help us make learning mathematics more interactive and engaging than ever before. All our content is freely available to students and teachers all around the world.

We are looking for other teachers and writers to help us create even more activities. Do you have any great ideas, cool games, or curious puzzles you want to share?

Activity Types

Our task library contains four different types of resources:

• Student Explorations Activities for Students to Complete Sample Page and Notion Template
• Lesson Plans Fully Developed Lesson Plans Sample Page and Notion Template
• Puzzles and Games Ready to Play Puzzles and Games Sample Page and Notion Template
• Teaching Ideas Use Polypad to Explore New Topics Sample Page and Notion Template

Getting Started

Our task pages are written using Notion – start by creating a free account. Next, you can either open one of the existing Notion pages listed above or start with a blank page in your account. If you want to use a Notion page above as a starting point, select "Duplicate" at the top of the page to create a copy of the page in your Notion account:

Depending on what sort of task you are writing, you may want to directly embed a Polypad canvas. This video shows how that works:

Writing Suggestions

• To make tasks accessible for a wide range of students, ensure they have a low threshold and high ceiling. You can also provide extension ideas or further reading at the end.
• Keep your audience in mind. Is the page you are writing going to be used by students directly or are you writing a page to provide ideas for teachers?
• Provide a short introduction or overiew to videos that share teaching suggestions or ideas for using Polypad in the classroom.
• For tasks with embedded canvasses, use the Notion page for explanatory text so the embedded canvas contains as little text as possible.
• You can review Mathigon's nine principles for great mathematics content to understand what we think make great learning resources.
• Provide any needed links for credits, acknowledgments, further reading, etc. Please be mindful of any copyrighted material you may be thinking of using.

Submit and Publish

When you are finished, share the page with david@mathigon.org with full access to the page. Additionally, send an email directly to David, to let him know you've shared your work with him.

Before we can publish your task, you will have to sign our Individual Contributor License Agreement, to ensure that we have the right to use your work. Of course, we will include your name on the task page, and you will keep the rights to our content if you want to publish it elsewhere in the future.

Thanks!

If your activity is published, we will also promote it on our social media pages. To thank you for your work, we'll also send you a free Mathigon T-shirt or a Timeline of Mathematics poster from our store.

Thanks for helping us make free learning resources for students and teachers all around the world!