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When Math Begins With Play, Everything Changes
Monday, December 8, 2025 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EST
Presented by Brandon Smith, Former Educator, Current Director of Outreach Mathematics, MIND Education
Sponsored by MIND Education
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
This edWebinar explores how incorporating play into math instruction can improve understanding, engagement, and confidence for all learners. Grounded in research and classroom experience, the session highlights how playful learning activates the brain’s problem-solving centers, encourages persistence, and supports the development of critical-thinking skills.
Viewers examine the role of curiosity and exploration in mathematical learning and learn how to move beyond traditional drills and worksheets. The session includes practical strategies for creating classroom environments that promote active engagement, discussion, and creative problem solving. Examples demonstrate how to use games, manipulatives, and open-ended tasks to deepen conceptual understanding.
Educators leave with a clearer understanding of how to balance academic rigor with joyful learning experiences. The edWebinar also addresses how to shift classroom culture to focus on process, collaboration, and reasoning rather than speed or accuracy.
By integrating play into math instruction, teachers can help students view mathematics as a subject to explore rather than fear. When learning begins with play, both students and teachers experience meaningful growth and renewed enthusiasm for math. This recorded edWebinar is of interest to PreK-12 teachers, school leaders, district leaders, and education technology leaders.
About the Presenter
Brandon Smith is the Director of Outreach Mathematics at MIND Education, where he creates experiential learning programs for people of all ages, both in and out of the classroom—including two that are patent pending. Over the past several years, he has focused on developing innovative projects to close what he calls the math “experience gap,” where children have insufficient exposure to math in their daily lives. These projects include interactive exhibits and games for math fairs, math camps, and family math nights. Early in his career at MIND, he designed mathematical requirements for the game-based ST Math® software and led the national roll-out of the sixth-grade ST Math curriculum. Brandon co-authored a paper in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications and has written for the Huffington Post and presented at ISTE. Prior to joining MIND, Brandon was a college instructor, where he won an outstanding teacher award and was an educational liaison for the City of Costa Mesa to Windham, Australia. Brandon has a bachelor’s in math and two master’s degrees in pure and applied mathematics. In his spare time, Brandon enjoys piloting planes.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
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MIND Education’s math curriculum solutions build conceptual understanding—at scale. Designed to meet students where they are, these programs invite all learners into math in a way that feels natural, intuitive, and empowering—while delivering results proven in classrooms across the country.
