Mathematician, Jr. Abacus Math Club

Drive math mastery with tools that bring MathEASE.

While academicians and scholars are wondering how best to do this, Mathematician, Jr. suggested the use of a physical tool.  Through the use of simplified and modified soroban abacus to help teach and facilitate the foundations of math to children in a very easy and accessible, low cost and efficient way. Our aim is to work beyond the four walls standard schools partner with a non-profit to use the tool made to help make math learning, review, and teaching easier.

The above-listed Southeastern Asian countries have been identified as one of the poorest and underdeveloped countries in terms of technological and educational development. The need to bridge this gap is to address the need of the countries through the lens of the sustainable development goals making use of STEM. Mathematics is one of the cardinal points in STEM that serves as the bedrock for other subjects. However, students' performance in this subject contraindicates this goal as research has shown that one of three grade 5 students is still performing at the level expected in the early years of primary education. To bridge this gap in mathematics education so as to achieve the SDG-4 goals, it is then essential that the art and craft of mathematics be introduced to every child at a very tender age of 4-7. 

State, national, and local economic shortfalls, pandemic-related unemployment, and underemployment are all major factors to the following disparities.

According to research carried out by Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) on these countries, it was shown that gender, level of parents’ education, and socioeconomic status of the parent affect students’ performance in mathematics in these countries. The details of the results revealed that Vietnam has the highest scores in mathematics of the four other countries. 

Also, in all the five countries, there is a wide gender gap demonstrating stronger performance in boys in mathematics. This statistic was drawn from among the seven thousand Higher Education Institutes comprising of twelve million students in SouthEastern Asia.

With this said, we wish to employ the Uncommon Schools method where we meet children outside of the school walls and work with organizations already serving our target population.

Our junior counter is currently being manufactured in Bali, where children have used it and we have received some preliminary feedback during the design process.  The newly developed junior counters were made to include attractive colors that attracted children and help them distinguish numeric place value in the similitude of play therapy. Our toy-like product integrates learning math into play for early elementary/primary school ages children from 3-7 years.

As a means of addressing this disparity between the level and performance of about twelve million students, Mathematician, Jr., addresses the problem from the root to the top. Our modified abacus has been well received by homeschool parents who have used it with their children, and we seek to introduce our fun and innovative approach.

Knowing fully well the importance of the formative years in life, our solution aims at catching children young with the knowledge, confidence, and solid numeracy of math right from the corner of their homes or within their community from the preschool stage making mathematics fun and easy to learn. 

Since the identified causes of the problems include parents’ literacy and financial states that have made a multitude of children to be locked out of school and also considering the economic recession post-COVID, to balance this inequality, the Mathematician, Jr., developed a tool made locally in Indonesia.  Our supporting material can easily be obtained, furnished, and developed in large quantities at a very moderate price. Thereby, presenting the learning of mathematics on an equal pedestal to all students irrespective of their parents’ financial state. 

Also, our simplified soroban abacus is an easy-to-learn, self-explanatory tool that enables children to learn from the comfort of their home as early as age 3-7 independent of their parent’s educational level. The tool enables numeracy, basic calculation concept, quantity comparison, number bonds, composing and decomposing numbers

The project is currently at the product/distribution phase. Having passed through a pilot stage to access the feasibility of the product, the product was developed with a keen interest in fostering early and strong numeracy skills in children without the reliance on additional technologies or the complexities of other auxiliaries. The developer being an academician, mathematician scholar, and also a mother of two has tried the new product in homeschool networks and with her own twins all demonstrating initial positive results. 

The product since its inception and usage in the tested community has demonstrated improved students' performance.  We are very excited at the prospect to formalize our methods and tool with our partners in Indonesia.

The traditional soroban abacus is the world's oldest counting and calculating tool.  The fact that it is over 5000 years old and still being used is a testament to its effectiveness.  We have made several improvements to the tool, making it adaptable, brights, colorful, and inviting to children. When most organizations resort to apps and SaaS, we developed a physical tool, known for increasing mental calculating tools.  Our approach uses storytelling, singing, and song to help children with numeracy.  

Storytelling and singing are universal enjoyments of children and our approach incorporates these into our math mastery curriculum.  This method, as we have observed has a tremendous positive impact on children who have participated in our program.  

We've developed an approach to math that is not seen in the math space, teachers and parents enjoy teaching their children math through storytelling and song, moreover, they appreciate the kinesthetic learning component of using our tool, the junior counter.

We believe a broader community of educators will realize that traditional, sterile methods of teaching children math are behind us.

Mathematician, Jr has implemented several programs to test our tool and our approach.  In 2019 we hosted a series of community abacus-math workshops.  Later that year, we launched an official pilot class aimed at generating parent feedback on our tool and methodology observed by their children's usage. In early 2020 when we began production of our junior counter in Bali, our project manager facilitated having children in the community play with the tool to assess the usability of the tool.  

In 2020 we launched the sale of our junior counter and the supporting curriculum which included live remote classes.  Since we've enrolled over 75 children in our program and sold over 150 units.

Based on parent testimonials, feedback and surveys we continue to make improvements to our processes.

Our junior counter device and accompanying curriculum is geared for pre-school and primary school children, helping them with counting, adding, and subtracting. The Junior Counter and our Mathematician, Jr. fun curriculum will help children learn in a physical, visual, and play-based way that is known to be effective for young learners.

The first level or the single component of the junior counter uses simple exercises that are easy to understand, your child will be able to master the basics of abacus math in no time. Level I covers all parents and children who need to master calculations from numbers 0 to 9.

The second level or the double component of the junior counter accompanies the expansion of the junior counter which covers numbers 10 to 99. With this expansion, you can continue to challenge your child and develop their math skills. 

This final level and including all components of the junior counters practice and mental math mastery of numbers 100 to 999 and beyond. 

Children between the ages of 5 and 7 will engage in Mathjr.'s math acquisition skills offerings, which will include activities, methods, and tools that will increase children's understanding, knowledge, and confidence, skills, calculation accuracy in math.

We plan on measuring the following variables as indicators: Participation rates, pre and post-assessment results, (including measuring 1. general abacus knowledge, 2. calculation ability, 3. calculation speed, and 3. calculation accuracy), level progression levels, overall feeling towards math, and math confidence.

Our impact goals include meeting our recruitment targets and having 80% of children enrolled in our program increase:

•  their post-assessment results, 
• increase abacus knowledge, 
• calculation ability, 
• speed, accuracy, 
• level progression, 
• improved overall enjoyment in math and 
• math confidence.

Accent to talent: we currently have our startup team which limited our capacity to expand and many areas.  Access to capital will allow us to hire and expand in the needed areas.  The Solve and Octava foundation can help us identify potential team members or mentors with expertise in needed areas.

Financing: With grants that we have received, we have been able to launch pilot programs, manufacture beta testers, develop curricula, and access to small-batch manufacturing in Indonesia.  Micro and small grants have allowed up to create partnerships with homeschool networks.  Additional funding will allow us to provide our products and services nationally and internationally.

Market Entry: as a very green venture, we seek assistance entering the market. The Octava foundation will help tremendously by facilitating our market entry.

Mathematic,Jr. is out on the mission to improve and enhance how young children are exposed to math.

I spent time in Fukuoka, Japan, Circa, 1995. The highlight of the day would be an observatory visit to a School.  During the visit, I witnessed the proficiency of Japanese children in Mathematics. 

Fast forward to the point in my life, when I started homeschooling my twin daughters Maida and Mainuma when they were about 2 years old.  

I started researching more effective ways of teaching math to young children. A few weeks in the struggle, out of the blue, I was back in Japan, in that ecosystem, where the students followed a progressive learning system using the abacus.

That’s when I started looking at the abacus as the tool to teach my girls.

On the basis of my experience watching Japanese kids, I immediately sought out the tool. And since the ones on the market were too complicated for me to get easily, I decided to build my own. That’s when I created the junior counter- inspired by the Soroban Abacus with a little American twist. Through a combination of innovation, and tradition out came the junior counter that allows the user to add pieces to form a collective.  This is how Math, jr. was born.

Three

Our team consists of Ameerah, a veteran educator, Pasek our Indonesian-based project manager, Siddiq, our product developer, a business developer. We have worked with several homeschooling groups, conducted community workshops, gathered data, received feedback.  We’ve done the work, developed the tools, built out the curriculum, conducted community workshops, gathered data, worked with dozens of homeschooling groups, received feedback, iterated our products and services, and generated some revenue.  We know our community and our customers. No other team is better qualified, more passionate, and better positioned to continue this work.

When asked to implement an abacus math class virtually, Ameerah tested several platforms to assess which would be best to use with young children and which had key features that would facilitate the learner and user experience.  She then had some children test the platforms by delivering some test-workshops, which led her to make some pivots.  After making some adjustments, Ameerah had some junior counters 3D printed to increase the effectiveness of the tool with a virtual delivery.

We currently partner will Liberated Minds Homeschooling Network.  In this capacity, we provide programming for their virtual homeschool resource.