The Four Fundamental Guidelines

Student-centered

Non-competitive

All inclusive

Problem based

1. The goal of this math fair is to have students work on their projects independently with no help from anyone such teachers and parents. They have to come up with their ideas and think critically about what they want to do and why. This will give each individual student a sense of ownership over their math fair entry.


2. By making math fairs non competitive, you will be encouraging a broader range of students to participate. This will give everyone a chance to gain a positive learning experience from their participation in the math fair. On the other hand, if this was a competition, students would be intimidated and would most likely feel as if they were up for failure.


3. As opposed to a science fair, where winners are selected from each class to compete against the entire school, an all inclusive math fair promotes one hundred percent participation from everyone.


4. SNAP math fairs give students the opportunity to become familiar with the math problems. With the problem-based guideline, students must take the problem they are given and find a process that they think is most suitable for them to help find the answer. The most important part is presenting and working through the puzzle with the math spectators with the solution to the problem being of lesser importance.

http://www.mathfair.com/guidelines.html