How did a Duke graduate decide to build a solution that helps students fall in love with the Math?
When Amrut Dhumal returned back to India after his graduation at Duke, he heard and observed the common worries and questions:
My child is doing poorly at math because they hate it. How can I help them do better?
And it was not from one parent. But almost every parent was worried about a child’s performance in Math.
When Amrut tried to understand from the child’s perspective, he found that many students are dragging themselves to learn Math even though they don’t like it.
Hence, for Amrut, the first question to answer was “Why students don’t like mathematics?”
Since almost a year, he and his team worked closely with the students to understand the actual problem.
Let’s take a look at what Amrut find out about why students don’t like Math:
- Students don’t see any fun in doing Math. Most of the time it is a boring repetitive practice to master any Math concepts.
- The student can’t correlate the math problems in the textbook with the real-world application, and hence they don’t know it’s practice purpose.
- And, solving those textbook math problems alone / learning it alone wasn’t fun for the students.
“When we understood the problem, the first thing we did was to find the available solution in the market. But we were surprised that none of the available solutions helps make math approachable while keeping the child engaged.” as Amrut mentioned.
Amrut who is working in the education domain since almost two decades now decided to explore the solution by himself (instead of waiting in the frustration for someone to come up with the solution in the future).
“So we built hypotheses and started running multiple iterations and demos with students to understand the kind of solution that will help them to keep engaged and motivated to practice Math. And the result we achieved at the end was pleasantly unbelievable. Our data show that during the demo period, on an average, a student practiced Math 44 minutes a day.” Amrut proudly stated.
Here is the experience explained in his student’s words:
Amrut further said, “We built the Immerz — A mobile-based math game for 10 -15 yr olds that:
Allows children to explore and learn at their own pace: Conceptual puzzles gradually yield to textbook problems ensuring self-paced learning.
Makes Math a social experience: Child can compete and collaborate with their peers.
Makes Math real and relevant: Team missions are designed to apply Math in real-life scenarios.
Relieves parental anxiety: Weekly Reports will let you see the progress and where you can help.
Now, Immerz app (a pilot version) is open for every student. It is available on the Google Play here — https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ink.immerz.math&hl=en_IN
If you believe that it is possible to make students fall in love with Math, we invite you to check our campaign to learn our journey so far and support us: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/immerz-help-your-child-fall-in-love-with-math/x/19116959#/
