Numerimurgy is a term built from Greek and Latin roots that can be translated as “numbercrafting” or “working with numbers.” It refers to an educational approach that draws on motivational techniques used to make video games engaging and applies them to learning pre-college level math. While there are some people who would never call math “fun,” Numerimurgy aims to add a feeling of progression while learning, and the excitement and satisfaction of “leveling up” to the learning process.
The Numerimurgy approach has some other useful features as well, especially for more diverse learners. The public school system in the United States works for many students. But some students, not so well. This mismatch can occur for many reasons. Whether students have fallen behind because of life circumstance or neurodiversity or just an unsuitable teacher one year or another, or they’re ready to rush ahead and feel held back by the pace of what’s typical, lots of students are not exactly where a standardized curriculum would say they should be.
One feature is that there are many more starting locations along the path from novice to expert. These starting points are called “levels” like the levels in a tabletop roleplaying game or video game, rather than grade levels. In fact, the typical public school grade is divided into 4 to 12 Numerimurgy levels.
Because a level is a much finer division than a grade-level, a sense of achievement comes more frequently, and doesn’t seem nearly as daunting or overwhelming to try to finish. For students who are behind where public school curriculum would suggest, it’s psychologically different to think, “I need to catch up with nearly two years worth of math” versus “I just need to level up about 10 more times.”
Finally, there is a structure, called the Numerimurgy Diagram (shown on the front page of the website), that also shows the relationships between different concepts. This allows students to explore mathematical concepts as they really exist in mathematics, rather than requiring a one-size-fits-all progression. Does measurement, data, and graphing come really easily, but algebraic concepts seem hard? Great! Race ahead in one branch and move more slowly in another. Or just take the default “next step” and progress in roughly the same way as would happen in a typical math class. The diagram can be a useful way to show what’s been tackled, and what still remains to investigate.
For those parents, teachers, and administrators who are concerned about such things, Numerimurgy touches on every section of the Common Core curriculum. While some states have different standards, Common Core is the basis for Numerimurgy’s skill-specific demonstration structure. If your state has additional skills that are required, additional nodes can be added and connected into the Numerimurgy diagram.