Mathulong

According to Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, the basics of literacy and numerics are as low as 2% for children in countries such as the Philippines, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Vietnam. There falls a wealth gap where those in wealthier backgrounds pursue higher education, but those without the means lag behind and suffer to reach any learning opportunity. In Southeast Asia, between 2019 and 2020, there has been a sharp decrease from 85% to 63% in education dissatisfaction-- and it continues to decrease. The Philippines contains the greatest decrease among all the other Southeast Asian countries with an 89% to 56% reduction. 

Although the Philippines' higher education has become stronger and has formed strong programs with other thriving countries such as Singapore, the lower education programs still struggle. The Philippine gross domestic product is increasing but by 2023, the Philippines will fall back behind the poverty edge. Even if many schools have newly transitioned into digital infrastructure, there is still a limited amount of technological resources being introduced to these school systems. According to school statistics, there is a stagnant line of citizens who finish primary schooling but don’t continue to higher education. Unlike, other countries such as Cambodia or Laos which fall behind this line, the Philippines is at a teetering edge where they have the budding resources, but still lack the push due to economic struggle and differing priorities among the citizens.

Regarding fourth grade math, the Philippines is ranked the lowest among 58 countries for maths and science assessments based on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted in 2019. It is a recurring problem for Filipino students as there are also studies that date back to 2000 showing students’ poor performance in math and sciences. These results are reflective of the current abilities in mathematics in comparison to other countries and the general sentiment of Filipinos feeling indifferent against the subject. According to our fieldwork interviewing Filipino students and educators, mathematics is not considered a “survivable” skill as many citizens from low-income families prefer to drop out of education to support a living within their community. 

 With all these statistics and research in mind, our problem exceeds just bridging gaps for underserved elementary students. Our problem becomes a race between the economic dilemma and the apparent struggling need to utilize untapped resources.  We are to be cognizant of cultural philosophies and technological accessibility. This is the problem we aspire to clarify with Mathulong. 

Mathulong aims to bridge the learning gap in mathematics among elementary students by providing them with an individualized learning environment. Students are able to practice their mathematics skills through the math question generator made with machine learning and behavioral technology. It is a personalized adaptive learning tool where the program analyzes students’ strengths and needs and automatically adjusts to each student’s level as they use the generator. This provides a personalized learning experience that maximizes their time and helps them succeed. In the student’s profile, the platform will be able to provide digestible information that identifies the skills they are proficient in and the skills they need improvement.

For the initial push, we are targeting K-6th graders, as well as their guardians and teachers. We’re hoping our solution serves three things:

1) The need for inclusivity and accessibility
2) Individualized learning, where kids can grow in their own pace
3) And easy access for parents and teachers to their kids’ learning

In both public and private institutions, the average teacher-to-student ratio is 45:1. It is difficult for instructors to deliver individualized attention to every student in the classroom. The latter statement also includes pupils who are neurodivergent as well as those who require special education. The Republic Act 1277 (Magna Carta for Disabled Persons and Other Purposes) stipulates that persons with disabilities have the right to an education; nevertheless, this does not imply that educational institutions would ensure inclusion. It is more common that guardians of special needs kids in schools without special care must advocate for themselves. For Mathulong, we provide extra care in basic accessibility in our platform. In the future we hope to implement bigger accessibility features such as those with visual impairment or a font customizer for those with dyslexia.
Mathulong is an anytime, anywhere platform. Students will be able to access lessons that offer video resources and practice questions. In later versions, we aspire to evolve lessons into an interactive learning component. This will of course not replace educators, but will fill in the time and interactivity an educator of 40+ students cannot.
Although currently not prototyped, we will add a teacher portal and classroom feature. Teachers will be able to access each student’s profile and view an in-depth description of each student’s weaknesses and strengths from a bigger picture or specific subject. 

The Sproutech team consists of members who, like our users, are themselves part of the widespread Asian community. Our team comes from various backgrounds in education and income standing which provides many angles to how we approach our solutions. 

We have a Filipino team member who closely empathizes with Mathulong’s users. Our member was a former math major that had emphasized his struggles in his educational math journey due to the lack of quality and structure of the education system. He has been a great help in outreaching his network of educators and participants for our surveys and interviews which has helped us gather crucial, substantial information for our platform. 

The rest of the team come from first-generation families where there is a similar-- albeit, smaller-scale-- lack of opportunities presented to hone our skills. Many of our family members have emphasized focus on providing for the family, leaving a gap of support in our own personal educational journeys.

Our team has an unwavering belief in the importance of the research phase. For Mathulong, we have curated interviews, preference testing, and surveys to further understand the Filipino education system and its needs. Currently, we are still gathering research to further our findings and provide the most beneficial generator for students. We continue to delve deeper into key aspects such as learning engagement, color psychology, and positive reinforcement that will help our product appeal to kids from various backgrounds. As we continue developing Mathulong, we are sure to exhaust our networks and keep an open dialogue with our target users every step of the way with cultural sensibility in mind.

We applied to Solve in order to get our ideas off the ground and get our foot in the door. We are hoping Solve can help us overcome three barriers: 

1) Mentorship/Coaching: To find guidance and feedback on Sproutech’s trajectory in advancing our product. In addition, to provide fresh ideas, new perspectives, and guide us to solutions in overcoming challenges more effectively. 

2) Recruitment: Onboard passionate team members aiming to create adaptive and precise math problems from machine learning algorithms. The goal is to have a set of different types of questions that ranges in difficulty and is able to generate an infinite amount of questions that cater to each students’ varying skill set level.  

3) Resources: It is imperative for Sproutech to gain insights in the Filipino demographics, education system, case studies, and marketing strategies to grow Mathulong into a precise and accurate learning tool for students in the Philippines and potentially students across Southeast Asian countries.

With Mathulong, its reach is not only limited to the Philippines but can be expanded to other countries for children in disadvantaged situations to get access to an equal quality education regardless of social status. This can help close the literacy gap between students and reduce math anxiety also by helping students understand problems better without relying on negative reinforcement unlike traditional means of math education in the Philippines. Another value proposition of Mathulong is that it can help solve teachers’ pain points by serving as a learning tool that can understand students’ individual needs and provide practice exercises for the students. With this feature, teachers can create a more personal learning experience for every individual.

For the coming year:

1. Finish developing the platform. This means designing and developing the additional features. We will add more interactive components and personalization. The teacher/classroom portal will be fully designed and developed. 

2. Introduce our prototype to 500+ students. We can pinpoint our own pain points within our platform with usability testing. We want to make the platform adaptable to most school curriculums within Manila. 

3. We will concentrate on developing a more efficient math generator and narrowing our design options using heuristic approaches. As our main feature, machine learning will be crucial to providing well adjusted modules based on each student’s skills.

4. Flush out detailed analysis on student’s needs of improvement and strengths. We want to add a radar chart/skill chart that will provide an easier, digestible visual component to what a student is lacking in mathematics. 

5. Outreach to 100+ educators. We want a constant dialogue between our product and those who will be introducing it to their school systems. 

Next 5 years: 

1. Onboard marketing partners. Although we are a hybrid organization, we still have to be able to sell our product to secure funding. 

2. Secure funding to provide the best services within our platform. As most of us are based in the Americas, the United States is considered one of the Philippines' biggest donors in education. 

3. Introduce product to 90,000+ students within Manila or surrounding areas. 

4. Expanding our reach for math help to other private schools and aim to get an agreement to use Mathulong with the government.

• The success rate in implementing Mathulong into everyday classrooms.
• A stable user retention rate in the platform
• Number of users access the product through mobile devices and laptop
• Analysis report on the duration spent on each topic, types of questions being answered 
• Completion rate from grade to grade and lower to higher education
• The proportion of elementary school students achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in mathematics
• Rise in numeric literacy within students

Mathulong is a web based application that uses machine learning to help students learn math fundamentals through a question generator, which is a system that is able to learn from data and identify patterns in order to make decisions. As students use the math generator, the machine will measure how long they are retaining the information and assess the student’s skill set level based on what type of questions and topics they are successfully answering or struggling in. With enough data, machine learning can predict what types of questions and topics students will struggle with and formulate easier or challenging questions based on their progress in completing the lessons. In addition, we can enhance the learning experience by assessing the data and personalizing their progress with suggestions on what type of topics and questions they should work on. In other words, our generator can detect trends in the student’s progress on each topic and with enough data, it uses the information to formulate detailed analysis and actionable steps for students to improve their knowledge.

Mathulong is using a freemium business model where our platform offers student users to work on their mathematical skills through a machine learning generator that tailors to the student’s learning progress. Our key beneficiaries are students from Grade K to Grade 6 that lack a higher quality education, especially students from the Philippines. Our key stakeholders are teachers, parents, and school programs where Mathulong can help reduce the expenses that schools exhaust to use for students that are struggling to catch up with the curriculum. Our value proposition for our main customer, school systems, is for Mathulong to create a personalized math trajectory for students who are at an educational disadvantage. Our platform reinforces students’ skill levels and increases their confidence in the topics they are learning. Not only that, but it will reduce the disparity in the education gaps between students from different backgrounds. With that in mind, it allows teachers to focus on being on track with the curriculum and provide higher-quality education. Mathulong will also assist teachers by reducing their energy and time in planning and formulating a personalized curriculum to help students.

For financial sustainability, we are currently in the process of seeking funding and allowing donations to further our research and development of the product. In long term goals, we will achieve financial sustainability through selling monthly or annual subscription plans to schools, so teachers can access the teacher portals and have full autonomy on how they want to implement extracurricular lessons to the student’s learning along with a detailed analysis on each student’s progress.