{igebra.ai} is a global EdTech company aiming to make kids fall in love with math. We believe math is an essential skill for a kid to learn and master. Because math builds the foundation for logical and analytical thinking for kids from a very young age.
When we heard the stories of Bendapudi’s kids speaking beautiful English, we were excited to meet them and wanted to give them more skills to learn. We could connect with the mastermind behind the famous English program, Mr. Prasad. One of our directors, Mr.Venkat explained our willingness to visit the school and interact with kids, and give them some methods to learn math quickly. Mr. Prasad was very excited about this and gave us a go-ahead for a 2-day workshop (21st and 22nd September 2022) at ZPHS, Bendapudi.
As soon as the dates got confirmed, our other director Mr. Chiranjeevi started working on the program along with a math guru, Mr. Pradyumna Kumar. We did a workshop at Kammetal village recently and wanted to do something different and more valuable to the kids.
We wanted to create a long-term program to help these kids to solve these issues in scoring well in math. We absolutely believe that the teachers are doing a great job in teaching the students all the concepts of math. But unfortunately, the preparation required to practice problem solving is not adequate to score well. We wanted to fill that gap by placing a trained math resource (absolutely for FREE) to help these kids practice math problem solving with some unique methodologies.
To make this more organized, we selected 9th and 10th grades to start with. We prepared a set of questions for which we wanted to provide a different way to solve them. We prepared about 50 questions for each of the grades and also put together a few methods to make the process of learning math easier; like making multiplication tables easily upto for any number between 1 and 99, an easier way to calculate the squares of the double digit numbers and a way to remember trigonometric values.
Finally, the day has arrived! The team included Venkat, Chiranjeevi, Pradyumna, Lakminarayana and Arun. When we first arrived at the school, we were amazed by the scenic beauty of the school. The compound contains Mango trees, there is a mountain behind the school and it gave us a very nice vibe. We met Mr. Murthy, the PET of ZPHS. He welcomed us and helped us with the session setup.
About 70 students of the 9 Grade B Section assembled in the classroom and the classroom has a very nice view of green fields from the windows. Pradyumna started the session with a warm welcome to the students. The entire class was filled with a lot of energy and excitement. Pradyumna started with the multiplication tables and all the students were seriously engaged. He showed them the underlying logic and patterns to build the multiplication tables, without the need to memorize each of the values. He showed them the methodology to build 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th tables. Some of the kids got this and they started coming up with their own methods to build the tables, which was fascinating to see. After the tables Pradyumna started with the problem solving process. To our surprise, the kids were more active than expected. It felt like they learned all the basics very well and the only missing thing was continuous practicing.
The math teachers of the school were also present in the session along with other teachers. They were closely monitoring the progress of the class and they were encouraging the students to participate in the process. Pradyumna focused on the most important concept for the 9th grade, which is “Polynomials”. He explained to them the processing of solving problems with a systematic approach which sounds simple and interesting to the kids.
We believe that a lot of kids don’t see the simplicity of math, which leads to confusion and fear ultimately leading to avoiding math completely. Our goal is to show them the way to understand each of the problems without a lot of stress. We believe that “Right Thinking” makes the difference. Kids should be equipped with “Mathematical Thinking” to analyze and solve math problems so that they will be able to score well in math.
Pradyumna helped the kids solve 10 math problems by explaining to them the easier and more effective ways to solve them. Later he made the kids come on the dias and solve them. He rewarded them with chocolates. Kids liked this approach and other kids also started showing interest to come on the dias to solve the problems. We felt that the kids started seeing something different and started connecting with us. Some of them were very curious and started asking a lot of interesting questions! We were delighted to see this curiosity and excitement. The session ended with the lunch bell. We were overwhelmed when the kids gathered around us and started asking about our next session with them. They wanted us to continue the classes!
We went out for lunch and when we got back, to our surprise, kids started wishing us, asking about our lunch and many other things. We started our session with the students of 9th Grade, A section. There were more than 70 students in this batch. We wanted to do this session in a slightly different way and Chiranjeevi talked to them about {igebra.ai} and the reason for us to come to their school. He told them that we wanted to help them solve the math problems easily so that they can score well in the examinations. Pradyumna took over and delivered his magic. This batch has even more energetic kids who invented even more methods to build multiplication tables. We also wanted to give them a simple test to understand their approach to problem solving. We gave them a question paper with 7 questions. We observed how they were answering the questions and got some insights. After that, we concluded the session and kids were super excited and elated to know if we would come back the next day also!
We left the school and went to visit the famous Annavaram Temple and got a peaceful darshan. The prasadam was very nice and we wanted to come back and buy more of them to take to our homes!
We were talking about the curiosity, knowledge levels and affection shown by the kids. This is a different experience for us and the best so far. The next day we were going to deliver the session to the 10th grade kids. We wanted to change the flow of the session by having the test first.
The next day we reached the school by 9:30am and saw the kids in their assembly. The school wanted to start the session for the 10th graders at 10:00am and meanwhile they wanted us to interact with the kids of 9th graders. When we entered the class, it was a blast! Kids were super excited and we couldn’t express our feelings in our words. When the time arrived, they didn’t want to leave the classroom to let the 10th graders come inside! Somehow we convinced them by saying that we will interact with them again.
Around 60 kids of 10th grade arrived in the classroom with bright smiles on their faces. We gave them the intro and asked them questions about their completed syllabus and understood their pain points. They said the concept of “Polynomials” was tough for them to understand. We gave them a test with 7 questions and gave them 20 minutes to solve them. We understood where they are facing complexity in solving the problems and after they have finished the test, Pradyumna started explaining the solutions to them and during the process he also made a few students come on the dias and made them solve the problems. We could see the excitement and a sense of accomplishment in many of the kids.
We wanted to close the session by lunchtime but the kids wanted another session after lunch and we couldn’t say NO! When these kids left to have lunch, we were again surrounded by the 9th grade kids with various questions and many of them wanted to talk about their experience for video. One of the kids wrote a speech on math and wanted to present it in front of all the students. After lunch, Pradyumna taught them about Trigonometry. He explained to them an easier way to remember the Trigonometric Equations by writing 2 lines of Trigonometric ratios.
[SinΘ, CosΘ, TanΘ, CosecΘ, SecΘ and CotΘ]. He also taught an easier way to remember the Trigonometric Values table. He asked if anyone from the class knows these values and what’s the logic behind them. Some kids showed the table from their textbook but couldn’t explain the logic. After learning the underlying logic students got excited! The session ended with tricks to learn multiplication tables and squares of double digit numbers.
The whole journey was beautiful and it gave us a lot of things to remember forever – the energy and enthusiasm of the kids to learn more, their questions about math and future career opportunities and their ability to speak in English etc.
We were getting ready to come back to Hyderabad and just an hour before our departure, we got a call from Mr. Prasad said the District Collector was very impressed with our program and wanted to meet us the next day. We couldn’t believe that it happened so fast!
The team visited the collector’s office the next day to explain about the Math4ALL program whose purpose is to enhance students’ understanding of math and eventually prepare them for school and competitive exams. The collector of Kakinada district Dr. Kritika Shukla, IAS was thrilled with our mission. She in fact gave us more time than expected to completely understand ideas. We learned more about the math education facility in the district. Dr. Kritika told us there are about 200 government schools in the district and some of them don’t even have a math teacher, which is alarming and needs immediate attention. She immediately called Ms. Subhadra, the District Education Officer (DEO) and got some key data from her to understand the situation.
Dr. Kritika Shukla, IAS has asked us to implement our Math4ALL program across the district in order to make sure that the children of grassroots society get access to math education and are able to learn the skills that are necessary for their education as well as future career growth.
Math4ALL program aims to not only be helping the grassroot community by providing a valuable service, it is also creating local employment opportunities by helping graduates of the district to get their foot in the door of a profession they might not have known existed. Dr. Kritika Shukla also informed the concerned agency to help us identify the right talent from the district.
There’s nothing quite like contributing to the grassroots society. The team {igebra.ai} had a wonderful experience visiting government school at Bendapudi to make them fall in love with math. It was lovely to see how the children interacted so beautifully with our team and were so responsive to everything they did. They were elated to learn new techniques and tricks to solve math problems.
Also, it was a pleasure to meet the collector of Kakinada district Dr. Kritika Shukla, IAS and learn a lot more about the education infrastructure and facilities of the district.
It was a fulfilling experience for our entire team and the story has just begun! Stay tuned to know more about our “Math4ALL” program.
Team PR, {igebra.ai}
