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Justin and Jason discuss the launch of the Math Academy online learning system and the pivot of Morning Brief.
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You predicted me too well, Justin. I’d actually already messaged Jason about how to sign up before you published this episode!
Congrats on shipping, Jason! 🚢
@Jason: Congratulations for launching
RE: gamification, my first thought when you said you enabled the leaderboard without optin or allowing changing names is that someone will have issues with Personally Identifiable Information (PII) being shared.
I also wonder what the impact will be for those who are in the same cohort that is running away with the lead, whether it is someone that is simply miles better than you are they are doing none of their other work, or down the road someone having figured out a way to game the gamification. If there’s no chance that you’ll ever make the top, or even break into the top group, the leaderboard will then become a disincentive.
I think that with Duolingo one way they handle it is by having leagues, kick butt in your league and you’re promoted to the next league up (or you slack and you’re pushed down a league), so you’re always with a group that you can compete. I know from my wife’s experience the notification that she’ll be demoted triggers here to through enough lessons to not be demoted.
about 50 minutes in so far, will listen to the rest tomorrow
Another non-kid here who is interested. While I had Calc in high school and a few additional semesters of math in college, the knowledge mostly sat there for 20 years so I don’t even really remember remember basic trigonometry or many algebra concepts. But on the other hand, bits and pieces are in the brain somewhere, even a niche derivation rule or whatever.
How do you think your adaptive learning curriculum would handle this kind of ‘swiss cheese’ pre-existing knowledge? Is it possible to slow down for some sections, and ‘test out of’ other sections?
Congrats to both of you! It’s such a good feeling to release something 🙂
Re. MathAcademy – I wanted my son to join it for a long time already – he just has a few years to get to the right level. But I love the idea – we’ll get there!
Re. Morning brief – have you considered tweaking the setup to guide people to more specific things rather than a grand change. For example “The topic X you chose is very broad and you may not produce interesting results. Would you like to try more specific topics: (10 tags which are commonly tagged with X, but are happen less frequently)?” Could be a quick improvement while you work on bigger changes.
Huge congrats on the Math Academy launch! I’m looking forward to when my kids get old enough to start using it.
@Mark – Thanks, man! It was great meeting you over zoom.
@Danilo Celic – Yep, those are great points! In fact, I’m in the process of implementing that stuff now. Should be done by the end of the week.
@Jon – Yes, the system can handle “swiss cheese” knowledge pretty easily as it adapts to the student’s individual strengths and weaknesses.
To kick things off, we allow the student (or student’s parent, depending on the situation) to select an optional (but recommended) “course readiness” test to identify any potential holes in critical prerequisite knowledge. In addition, there’s an optional placement exam where the student can select which modules they think they know and want to try to place out of. This could also be really useful if you’re either just brushing up on a course, or if you were picking it up halfway through the year, after say deciding that your high-school or college Calculus teacher isn’t doing the job for you.
If we were to use Calculus as the example course, the readiness test might find that you’re solid on basic algebra and functions, but weak on trig and parametric equations. Likewise, the placement test might find that you remember basic derivative and integral rules, but the other stuff has kind of gone to pot.
So, in short, the answer is “yes”. 😉
@Stan and @Joe – Thanks, guys!
Another very enjoyable epsiode to listen to.
Jason, congratulations on releasing Math Academy into the wild! I’m sure the stress level has been rising steadily over the past few years as you navigated towards this moment. It’s really great to hear about the journey as it’s happening.
Justin, it will be interesting to see how Morning Brief evolves. Surprised by you talking about paid advertising. Looking forward to more updates.
@Jon (and anyone else who’s interested in joining the Math Academy beta), you can start the process by completing the following form. We’ll follow up to schedule a demo/onboarding session within 24 hours.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEsbdp8SJ78e6naAB6kA1L_kzVtSAEbV9cjWfQMfBM9DFENg/viewform
We’re bringing on both students (starting at the level of Prealgebra) as well as adults looking to push forward in advanced mathematics (or recapture lost mathematical knowledge if that’s the case). The beta price is $39/mo.
@Shawn – You got that right! The stress level has been growing month by month for years and pretty much hit a fever pitch the week before last. God, it was horrible! If you wonder why more people don’t do startups this is why. And now starts the 18-24 months of grinding. 😉
But thanks so much for the positive feedback. It’s much appreciated.
@stan – Yeah that was something I did think about. I think changed my mind, I might take Jason up on his idea of interviewing customers. That would help us understand that part of the journey much better.
@Shawn – Yep! The paid version is still a thing too. Our first goal is to get 5k free subscribers and that will give us a user base to run some tests with.