OC education officials study math computer game

When you think about learning fractions, it might be easier to visualize... a pizza. That's the idea behind math-based computer games by the non-profit MIND Research Institute in Santa Ana. The institute, a UC Irvine professor, and the Orange County Department of Education netted a $3 million grant to study how well those games teach math.

Andrew Coulson is with the MIND Research Institute.

Andrew Coulson: "To the students, this is similar to a game or a video game where they are not necessarily used to solving a problem the first time, but they eventually figure it out and their reward is they get to go to another level. And in our case, with these math games, they get to a more difficult level of mathematics. That's their reward for winning."

Coulson says that using visual programs also removes language barriers by teaching the concepts first and introducing the math terms later. Fifty low-performing elementary schools in Orange County plan to test the games over the next four years. This is the largest-ever study of this kind of math-teaching technique.