We want our students to understand the reasons behind everything. We want to spark their curiosity, make them understand why things work the way they do. We do not want them to agree with us simply because we say so.
Whereas traditional teaching makes students vulnerable to just following steps — they figure out “rules” to “answer” questions — learning through thinking helps them problem solve in a variety of contexts.
Our math tutoring program leverages human interaction and groundbreaking artificial intelligence to create personalized learning programs. Our technology actually tracks how a child arrives at an answer, something that after-school “learning centers” have long overlooked.
Think about this: If you’re learning a foreign language such as Italian or Japanese, the process is much easier if you relate the grammar and vocabulary initially to specific context, and then apply those rules to other contexts.
At Thinkster Math, we do the same thing with math.
For example, here’s a word problem that involves distractors:
You have three apples, four oranges, and five carrots in a basket. How many pieces of fruit are there?
Students have to understand they can’t just add the numbers to get the answer. Instead, they have to realize that carrots are not fruit, and remove that from consideration. This teaches them contextual skills.
We don’t want students to think that numbers only belong on a number line. Four isn’t simply a number that comes after three and before five. We want our students to realize that each number occupies a position in space — that four can be four units added to each other, or it can be 2 plus 2, or 6 minus 2, or 9 minus 5.
We want our students to implicitly understand that math isn’t simply numbers. It’s a language. The more nuanced their understanding, the easier it will be to develop confidence and fluency.
Imagine you’re on the tennis court with a coach. He doesn’t just hold your hand and hit volleys with your tennis racquet. Instead, he teaches you to think about the angle of the ball and the different ways you can hit. This is how tennis champions are made.
Our math tutors have the same goal: To make math champions. Thinkster coaches don’t just observe how our students work out problems. They understand and visualize their thinking using our Active Replay Technology (ART), identify where students make mistakes, and provide guidance so students can solve new problems that improve their understanding of math.
We use artificial intelligence and machine learning in our math tutor app to visualize how a student is thinking while he or she works on a problem. This helps improve how fast and precisely our teachers can spot problem areas.
This is about being nimble, about innovating and about significantly enhancing learning outcomes!
We know accelerated learning means accelerated understanding of life and opportunities for growth.
