How do I set up a contest?

Contests are a way to keep your students engaged and working towards a common goal.

It doesn't have to be "each student for themself", but rather can also be class vs. class, grade vs. grade, school vs. school, and even district vs. district!

Whether it be student vs. student or another one of the groupings listed above, the idea is that the "group" with the most equations mastered in the contest's time period wins the prize or is recognized.

Here is how contests work.

Accessing the contests page

To access the contests page, you can go straight to www.web.bluestreakmath.com/contests, or you can click on the sidebar link that looks like a ribbon/medal.

Setting up a contest

Once on the form, click the big green "New Contest" button to create a contest.

1. First, give your contest a title.

2. If you want the contest to repeat every month, check the "repeat monthly" checkbox.

3. Set the start and end date of the contest. Only the equations that are mastered within these dates will be counted. NOTE: you CAN set a start date in the past, which will mean that the equations the students already mastered will count towards their contest. For example, if it is December 8th and you suddenly decide that a December contest would be a good idea, you can still make count all the equations that were mastered between December 1st and December 8th by setting the start date to December 1st.

4. Select the "winner type", i.e. who should win the contest. As stated above, it doesn't have to be "student" - you can compete class vs. class, school vs. school, or even district vs. district! Note though that you must have the correct privileges to be able to create a school vs. school or class vs. class contest - if you don't have the correct privileges but think such a contest is a good idea, reach out to your school or district admin about creating one.

5. Next, under "who should be included?", check the checkboxes to indicate which grades you want to include, and then select which type of group you want to include (classes, schools, or districts).

6. Once you complete step 5, another select box will appear where you can select the specific group(s) that you want to be included. Note that this select box uses the filters you indicated in step 5 to filter down the options.

7. Indicate how many winner places there should be. This will determine how the results are calculated and displayed. 

8. Finally, indicate the prizes you want to give to the winners. First, select how many "store credits" each student from each winning group gets, which they can use towards "buying" items for their BlueStreak avatar in the Agent Store. Next, IF you want, you can select a prize that you will give the winning group(s), which can be anything you want - a pizza party, a chocolate bar (if it's student vs. student), extra recess, or even an extra 5 minutes of BlueStreak multiplayer mode (yes, some students love it that much 😉 ).

Now, hit "save", and your contest is created!

How can I edit the contest?

To edit a contest, find it on the contests page and click the gear icon. All of the settings are editable at any time, until the contest is completed, at which point it will be locked into the record books.

Contest start and end

When a contest starts, an email will be sent out to the teachers and administrators who have access to that contest. The contests will be grouped and for each, you will see the title, the start and end date, and other useful details about it.

When the contest ends, another email will be sent out to those same teachers and administrators, this time with the results info! This will include the number of equations mastered for each winning group, along with the names of the winning groups, unless it is a student name, in which case the name will be hidden for privacy reasons. A link will be provided that will take you directly to that contest's page if you'd like to see all of the unhidden details.

How can you see the real-time status of a contest?

You can see contest results not only at the end of it, but also throughout the entire duration of the contest at any moment you'd like! Just go to the contests page, click the contest, and the results will be calculated and displayed right then and there. If the contest is already finished, you can also click the contest and see the results in the same way as an in-progress contest.

What do you see on the contests page?

On the contests page, there will be 3 groups of contests displayed: in-progress, upcoming, and completed contests. You will only see the contests that you have access to, given your role (teacher, school administrator, district administrator) and what specific group(s) you have access to. In other words, we try to only show you information that is relevant to you and your students.

You will also see a "nationwide contest" that we run each month. This contest determines which school has the most equations mastered ON AVERAGE per student throughout the entire nation. You can also click on this contest to see real-time results, but it may take 20-30 seconds to load the results given how much data needs to be calculated.

Ideas

There are many ways that you could leverage the contests feature to engage your students. Here are a few of them:

• District contests: you can recognize the students at a school board meeting.
• For school contests, have a wall of fame and take pictures with the principal and students that have won the contests.
• Announce the contest winners during morning announcements
• have lunch with the principal.
• For classroom contests - give the students extra time on BlueStreak.
• Let the students choose their reward such as 10 minutes free time, a chocolate bar, a pizza party, etc.