On September 4, 2001, the Math Forum proudly announced its new relationship with Drexel University. You may have noticed some changes to our site, including new logos and banners. Over the coming months you are likely to see other changes as we work to improve our services and update our archives.

One change that has been difficult for us to face is the need to adapt our much-loved Problem of the Week services. While we have scaled back greatly this fall, we want to make it clear that we are working hard to restore the mentoring aspect of these services. Our intention is to move in the direction of full functioning as we harness new funding sources and develop ways to train new mentors.

We appreciate your patience as we do everything we can to provide you with quality problem-solving experiences. Please check back with us frequently because we will begin to offer more options as they become available.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is currently happening with the PoWs?
The Math Forum @ Drexel is continuing to post problems in each of the six services. We will be accepting a limited number of submissions from specified test classes as we pilot some new mentoring ideas, one of which is a Mentoring Exchange Program (MEP). In this program, teachers will mentor students from other classes while other teachers mentor their students. It is our hope that the MEP will eventually allow us to scale the PoWs back up to larger numbers of submissions. We will also have occasional "open" problems when we have committed groups of volunteer mentors. You will be able to check for these "open" problems on the individual PoW calendars. We'll continue to post updates on the status of the PoWs on our site. You'll be able to find it from this page or from our What's New area.

• each teacher mentors their own students' individual responses
• each teacher mentors their own students' group responses
• teachers exchange mentoring each other's students

What does it cost to run the PoWs with individual mentoring?
While the PoWs are one of the Math Forum's most used and loved services, they are also the most expensive to maintain. Paying our administrators a competitive salary, it cost us about $3.50 to reply to each submission last year.

Can my school or state pay the Math Forum @ Drexel to mentor students?
We have considered charging for our mentoring service, but understand that without subsidizing the costs with other sources, individual schools will have a difficult time paying for the services.

Is there anything I can do to help revive the Problems of the Week?
Individuals can help by volunteering to mentor or write problems for one or more of the PoWs. Can you or someone you know spend 3-5 hours a week mentoring students? Perhaps you know a retired teacher who would like to continue working with students in some capacity. Please write to Annie if you would like more information about volunteering.
You can also send us letters of support on your school letterhead which may help us locate funding from foundations and charitable corporations. Please send your letters to The Math Forum @ Drexel, 3210 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, or e-mail them to Annie.

Kristina Lasher, Associate Director of Programs
Annie Fetter, PoW Supervisor
Lisa Lavelle, PoW Manager and Mentor Coordinator