Thinkster – As Featured in the New York Times!

As another Thinkster member, Anna Hinton told us:

“Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Thinkster is that it allows the child to take ownership and control over their own learning and development. When using Thinkster, the student plays a vital role in helping to design their own learning experience, talking to and providing feedback to their instructor about likes, dislikes, challenges and successes. On the other hand, for our son—surprisingly—the most valuable aspect has not proven to be the rewards offered, but rather the opportunity to assess his own progress with the immediate graphing of performance data after the completion of each worksheet. At six year olds, this child is excited about identifying trends in his performance with the worksheets—areas of strength and needs for improvement, both in terms of the actual content and completion time.”

As a coach, offering that “Human Touch” to Thinkster’s international students (we currently have students in all 5 main continents), I see my role as being my students’ coach and removing some of the pressure from parents who are supporting their children’s math learning.

Thinkster as an Alternative

We have great respect for our “competitors” in the supplementary math education field. IXL, Kumon, Khan Academy to name a few, are all helping students with math. However, Thinkster comes to the math education arena with a unique mix of mobile technology, a full curriculum and a dedicated, experienced tutor whose aim is to guide students through this important subject.

Over the weeks and months, our students are gaining a huge amount of math knowledge, as well as strengthening their existing knowledge. The New York Times article discusses how Thinkster has worked with students in schools:

“Students took a skills assessment at the beginning of the school year, and then the same test again in March. The first graders, for example, got about 30 percent of the answers right the first time and 90 percent the second time, in March.”

Our coaches see similar improvements every week with our students who are using Thinkster as a supplementary program. 

Thinkster as a solution

Overall, Thinkster’s technology, our coaches and our in-built rewards are there to celebrate students’ achievements when they find the learning easy and also to support and coach students through the tough math concepts.