Academic competitions have progressed a lot in the modern era. The rise of cutting-edge technology integrated in competitions is enabling participants to showcase their skills in virtual environments, without geographical barriers. In this blog, we will explore one of the great examples of it in the partnership between HeyHi and ISMC & Mathlympics by Learners’ Connections and Marshall Cavendish Education.
ISMC or International Singapore Maths Competition is an annual maths competition held to encourage critical thinking and creative problem-solving and to provide a platform for students from around the world to showcase their mathematical abilities. Its sister competition, The Annual Mathlympics, is also a prestigious school-based Singapore mathematical olympiad participated by thousands of brilliant pupils from some of the best Primary schools in Singapore for the past 13 years and internationally in recent years.
Founded by Learners’ Connection and co-organised with Marshall Cavendish Education, the root of their establishment comes from the long known great enthusiasm among Primary students to compete in mathematics competitions. However, most competitions seem to be testing students’ knowledge beyond the school syllabus and exposing what the students cannot do while a mathematics competition should actually be a platform to reveal what students can do.
That is why ISMC and Mathlympics’ syllabus are arranged systematically to cater diverse types of students and objectives. ISMC is based on the Singapore Maths (Primary) syllabus while Mathlympics is based on the Olympiad structures. Thus, students can join according to their interest and passion.
The project with HeyHi was triggered during COVID-19 when physical competition could not be conducted with restrictions on physical gatherings and virus transmission concerns. E-competition was the only way to keep the continuity of competition during the pandemic.
Aside from the main competition itself, preparation from students was also impacted. Past years papers were usually distributed via printed copy, but with the COVID-19 conditions, it was not possible without digitising the questions and putting it into an e-practice system.
To overcome the challenges, HeyHi came in as the e-competition platform solution. Both ISMC and Mathlympics were able to hold the competition online with ease. We enhance the system with various security features to ensure fairness and authenticity. We additionally lift the organiser’s heavy burden of manual marking and result calculation through HeyHi’s rapid auto-marking, delivering instant but precise results.
For past years papers distribution, we created an e-practice system built upon our core product, HeyHi Assessment. Using this system, ISMC and Mathlympics could digitise their past years papers questions, enabling students to access and practise pre-competition from anywhere in a much easier manner. Along with HeyHi’s unique AI abilities, previous Preliminary & Final Rounds papers got a level up into practice worksheets that are personalised for each student.
Not stopping there, we provide strength and weakness analytics of each student so they can improve in a more targeted and effective way. We empower ISMC and Mathlympics to benchmark across students from different countries so they can assess the effectiveness of competition questions, gain insights about students’ performance, and make data-driven decisions for next batch enhancement.
Overall, ISMC and Mathlympics reap an abundance of benefits that supersede printed-assessment or offline competition. We also make it cheaper and simpler where everyone only needs to login virtually without needing to have a big hall with many invigilators. Our auto marking capabilities also cut off long hours of manual marking that translate into savings, while we make result delivery almost instant.
Our e-competition opens up a new opportunity for both competitions by having a further reach as there are no more physical boundaries. Combined with how all student’s attempt data are analysed, ISMC and Mathlympics could unlock meaningful insights of students from different locations and backgrounds plus identify learning gaps that exist within the batch.
Co-organised by Marshall Cavendish Education, one of the leading publishers in Asia, ISMC and The Annual Mathlympics’ partnership with HeyHi proves the progression of maths competition in this era. By utilising HeyHi’s assessment, AI capabilities, question bank, and robust data analytics, we help Learners’ Connections to streamline and manage a large-scale online competition with ease.
Foster excellence and a love for learning with an advanced and easy-to-manage e-competition with HeyHi now!
