Assisting with the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown by enhancing maths and science learning
With the teaching of the 2020 school curriculum having been affected by the national COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, teachers, parents and students would appreciate some learning assistance. The group of engineers at MathU Teaching Emporium would like to help with overcoming some of the COVID-19 challenges by granting free access to their mathematics and science learning platform. All grade 10,11 and 12 students will be able to download the MathU Infinity app free of charge until further notice.
MathU brings a unique approach to learning mathematics and science to the South African market. MathU is designed in such a way that it creates a virtual teaching assistant for each student. The proprietary adaptive learning system generates a customised learning pathway based on the individual’s performance. Students have access to immediate feedback on their progress. The MathU app guides the individual along their learning journey by reinforcing core concepts in the sections that they don’t grasp, thus providing assistance that was previously only available to students during one-on-one sessions with teachers.
The optimum, customised learning pathway promotes more rapid mastery of the content while aligning to the pace of the individual. Students are provided with thousands of exercises, each with a corresponding video memorandum. Students are also able to access the course content offline. The assessment portion of the app is run via a smart software suite in the background creating custom sheets that cater to the needs of each individual.
This alternative method to assist students in understanding mathematics and science more efficiently is already making a real, measurable impact in the lives of South African students. Students who participated in the trial run showed an improvement in average assessment scores of 20% to 30% after making use of the app.
The MathU Infinity student app will be accompanied by a parent app that allows parents in-depth access to understand the concepts that their children are struggling with grasping. It also allows parents to see what needs to be done to master problems.
The app can be downloaded from the Android Play and Apple App stores under the name MathU Infinity. The MathU Infinity app is usually available on a subscription basis for R199 per month. The course content facilitates both the CAPS and IEB curriculums.
“The MathU learning suite is the swiss army knife of tutoring that can greatly advance the academic absorption rate within technical fields such as mathematics, maximising the quality of learning by providing students with the necessary information when they need it,” says Will Burger, MathU CEO.
“South Africa has around 250 000 students taking mathematics who will undoubtedly be anxious to write Grade 12 this year. There is a great need for a teaching tool that can help the class of 2020 stay on track. We believe that the MathU solution can assist thousands by providing the right foundational tools to prepare for their final examinations. It’s like having an engineer in your pocket ready to explain a math problem to you!”
“At Tracker we are passionate about education and we are proud to have been a MathU partner since its inception,” says Grace Dipale, Tracker’s Executive for Human Capital. “This is the fourth consecutive year that Tracker is partnering with this initiative that is transforming young lives, ensuring greater uptake of maths and science and increased literacy levels across the country. We hope that access to the free app will help our 2020 students to keep up with their learning work despite the COVID-19 restrictions.”