What a difference a year makes.

After solid performances from his MathCounts team in 2008, College of Education professor Xin Ma led the Winburn Middle School squad to even greater heights in 2009.

Winburn students Valerie Sarge and Vania Ma finished in first and second place, respectively, at the 2009 Kentucky State MathCounts Competition, held in Lexington, Ky. In addition, the Winburn team claimed second place at the state level. Ma attributes the success to a change in the training method and to the hard work by the students.

 

"With two coaches this year, we increased practice time from once a week to twice a week," said Ma, a professor of mathematics instruction in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. "We also improved the materials that we used to prepare the students. Instructionally, we purposefully increased interactions among the students, having them share different solutions and help one another before calling on coaches for help."

 

Leading up to the state level, Sarge and Ma also finished first and second, respectively, at the Chapter Competition level while the team finished first. At the National MathCounts Competition where they competed against 228 of the nation's most talented middle school students, Sarge finished 81st while Ma finished 97th.