ConectaIdeas — CIAE/Universidad de Chile's Gamified Adaptive Mathematics Platform

ConectaIdeas is a gamified, adaptive mathematics platform for primary-school students, created by researcher Roberto Araya at the Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Educación (CIAE), Universidad de Chile, and running for more than 20 years. Students earn 'flags' for correctly solved exercises and compete in inter-class and inter-school tournaments against schools of similar characteristics. Students who answer ten questions correctly in a row can become peer 'monitors' who help classmates still struggling, combining motivation, gamification and structured peer collaboration to support mathematics learning.

Since 2021, an offline-adapted version of the platform has been deployed in Peru, reaching roughly 9,000 teachers and more than 150,000 students in urban and rural areas. A translated derivative called 'ColoreaIdeas' has been approved for piloting across the 11 member states of SEAMEO in Southeast Asia.

A 2017 IDB-supported impact evaluation covering more than 1,300 students across 48 courses in vulnerable Chilean school contexts found effects equivalent to half an additional year of classes. A separate 2017 experimental study across 24 public schools measured students on Chile's national SIMCE mathematics test after seven months of platform use and recorded a 27-point improvement. In 2022, ConectaIdeas was selected by the SUMMA Impact Fund, backed by the UK's Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) together with the IDB and J-PAL/MIT for impact measurement, for what organisers describe as the largest randomized controlled trial of its kind in the region, spanning around 250 Santiago schools split between treatment and control arms; results from that trial had not yet been published at the time of this write-up.

The evidence base is strongest for Chile, but the 2017 findings come from studies conducted or commissioned by the platform's own research centre and partners rather than a fully independent outside evaluator. The larger 2022 randomized controlled trial's outcome data remains pending publication, so the platform's ultimate scale of impact is not yet confirmed.