Math Academy

Alex Smith, Director of Curriculum and former UCL instructor, talks curriculum design and building middle-school math courses. He examines CPA instructional failure modes and why passive lectures and delayed feedback stall mastery. He describes scaffolding, frequent practice and games to build automaticity in times tables and percent change. Practical fixes for real classroom bottlenecks are highlighted.

What we covered:– A lot of schools have recently begun using Math Academy in their classrooms. And one of the biggest benefits of using Math Academy is that it automates all the mechanical parts of teaching, like writing questions, keeping track of what students know and what they don't know, monitoring student progress, assigning extra practice when needed, grading, all that grindy stuff.– None of these tasks is enjoyable. They suck. Just ask any teacher. I mean, we grinded through all that back when we were teaching ourselves, and it takes so much effort just to get even a halfway decent approximation of doing it right. And there's just a limit to how well that you can do it if you're doing it manually. It's the whole reason why we built the system.– And what that system does, what Math Academy we does is it frees up teacher bandwidth to focus on the human elements of teaching: building relationships, connecting what students are working on to their own unique interests. Those kind of things that enhance the learning experience, but that really can't replace skills practice.– I mean, in-class projects can be great, but only if students have the prerequisite knowledge to be successful with them. If they don't, then projects are frustrating, and the students who understand the material will end up doing all the work and carrying everybody else, who will learn next to nothing. It's inefficient and frustrating all around unless students have their skills in place.– Ultimately, if students don't master the math in each class, they'll be unprepared for the next one. And in a subject as hierarchical as math, these gaps compound quickly. True empowerment isn't simply telling students they have potential. It's making sure they actually have the real skills to move forward and realize that potential.Outline:00:00 - Introduction02:56 - What is the teacher’s role alongside Math Academy?05:37 - Math Academy frees up teachers to do the human parts of teaching07:03 - Projects are great if students have the prerequisite skills07:42 - Drills without context are boring08:43 - Games without skills are inefficient11:14 - Build fun activities on top of a solid foundation of skills12:15 - Teachers can tailor the class to the students’ preferences13:28 - Implementing mastery learning is too much work for a single teacher15:27 - Doing projects without prerequisites is frustrating16:57 - True empowerment is giving kids the skills they need to succeed19:30 - Missing skills compound in hierarchical skill trees24:06: Lack of automaticity in lower level skills slows down higher level tasks27:14 - The MA team builds and improves courses through experience29:21 - The MA team targets tasks with low pass rates for additional scaffolding31:03 - Alex built knowledge graph intuition through years of experience37:40 - Social media enforces hyper-accountability39:19 - Differential equations courses are often a hodgepodge of disjointed techniques43:20 - Math Academy university courses are a superset of elite university content45:18 - Differential equations is a highly branching subject49:21 - The breadth of Differential Equations makes it often poorly taught*Follow on X:*Math Academy - https://x.com/_MathAcademy_Justin Skycak - https://x.com/justinskycakJason Roberts - https://x.com/exojasonAlex Smith - https://x.com/ninja_maths

What we covered:– As Math Academy has grown over the past year, we're getting a better sense of general do's and don'ts when scaling a startup. We've learned hard lessons about overloading the database, the task processor, and our team, requiring numerous infrastructure and process updates.– Schools have been using the system and we've built plenty of additional features to, among other things, accommodate unique billing schemes and make it easy for teachers to manage classes on the system.– We've intentionally grown organically and were self-funded, which forced us to do things manually at the beginning. Years ago, we taught math classes in person and Jason onboarded our first online users on hundreds of hour-long individuals and calls. These were crucial experiences to learn who our customers are, what they want from the product, and common failure modes.– In our experience, doing things manually at the beginning ensures that you 1) build a product that customers actually get value from, and 2) you don't clutter your product with unnecessary bells and whistles that don't add value. In other words, you have to do the manual work to earn the right to scale.Outline:0:00 - Introduction2:18 - Building infrastructure to handle increasing load3:41 - Bringing on AWS expertise to robustify the backend4:22 - An overloaded database enters a new realm of physics5:50 - Prioritizing execution over perfection in start-ups6:33 - Paying the bill for accumulated infrastructure debt7:53 - Improving job prioritization of the task processor9:52 - Benefits of scaling organically11:42 - Wisdom is the result of failures12:18 - There is no substitute for experience13:17 - Focusing on solving problems, not advertising14:48 - Upgrading with surgical precision15:35 - The pain-point compass17:04 - Managing finite time and resources18:27 - Development of the gravity feature20:42 - Gravity is a suggestion, not a hard override22:25 - Limiting gravity to avoid cognitive overload28:29 - Balancing customization and customer confusion31:28 - The feature sandbox33:58 - Increasing volume of customer support emails35:22 - Additional infrastructure requirements for schools36:18 - Learning about the customer through direct interaction38:14 - Step 1: Manually added schools using spreadsheets 40:22 - Step 2: Developed tools to handle specialized school requests41:23 - Step 3: Goal is 100% self-service sign-ups for schools42:32 - Solve the problem manually first, then automate it43:44 - Why focus on schools?46:15 - Math Academy goes to college49:37 - You can’t anticipate every edge case 52:14 - Letting user behavior build the product roadmap 58:54 - Becoming successful means working harder1:00:24 - The customer support hurdle 1:03:27 - How Justin’s expanding roles drove growth (both personal & company)1:09:03 - Teaching as market research for Math Academy 1:10:52 - The value of having been inside the tradeFollow on X:Math Academy - https://x.com/_MathAcademy_Justin Skycak - https://x.com/justinskycakJason Roberts - https://x.com/exojason

0:00 - Introduction3:57 - Added 115 “Missing Middle” topics to SAT Prep6:06 - Integrating the SAT Missing Middle topics into other courses9:42 - Added tens of thousands of free response questions10:34 - Free response questions are useful because they don’t prime you13:33 - When to use free response vs. multiple choice questions14:54 - Too many free response questions taxes learners16:39 - Limiting the length of free response answers18:08 - Building infrastructure for free response questions was a beast20:42 - SAT test prep course22:22 - Machine Learning has been the hardest course to develop so far.23:12 - People who know machine learning, math, and how to teach them are rare25:06 - The Eurisko book was the best resource for developing the Machine Learning course28:51 - Balancing repetition and computational load in Machine Learning problems29:43 - Designing minimum viable problems for Machine Learning33:53 - Building the infrastructure for dynamic select questions was a nightmare36:12 - Dynamic select questions are good for proofs and university-level math38:03 - The Differential Equations course is almost finished40:23 - Iterating on course development to make better courses42:00 - 2026 is the year of scaling up course production43:03 - How to scale up the team without sacrificing course quality44:39 - Learning the hard way about hiring too quickly46:20 - Challenges of managing a fully remote, geographically dispersed team48:54 - Building tools to measure company output50:06 - Optimizing content writer performance is like optimizing student learning52:31 - Incentivizing content creation to improve output56:36 - Courses planned for the longer term58:01 - You need to learn concrete computations before abstract proofs59:32 - Why we separate university-level courses into computational vs proof-based1:01:07 - The best textbooks for beginners are NOT the most complex1:02:37 - Teaching proofs and computations at the same time overloads most students1:04:16 - Intuition through repetition1:04:49 - Wisdom is the abstract compression of lived experiences1:07:39 - Mastering details before abstractingFollow on X:Math Academy - https://x.com/_MathAcademy_Justin Skycak - https://x.com/justinskycakJason Roberts - https://x.com/exojasonAlex Smith - https://x.com/ninja_maths

They unpack the idea of learning debt and how missing foundational skills forces complex compensations. They explore measuring aptitude with accuracy metrics and propagating those estimates through a knowledge graph. They discuss pacing learners to avoid cognitive overload and using SAT-style practice to expose gaps. They warn about systemic costs when adults tolerate shortcuts in learning.

Short math problems maximize focus and skill development, allowing students to build complexity without getting overwhelmed. Traditional college math classes often fail to provide proper scaffolding, leaving students to navigate knowledge gaps alone. In the startup world, founder involvement is crucial to prevent things from derailing. Open conversations can foster innovation, and frequent communication helps align teams. The importance of context sharing is highlighted, emphasizing that it drives better collaboration and problem-solving.

A shocking report reveals that 1 in 12 incoming college freshmen can't handle middle school math, prompting universities to create even lower-level remedial courses. High school GPAs are misleading, with some students maintaining perfect scores despite lacking basic skills. The pandemic exacerbated grade inflation and diminished the value of standardized tests, leading to untethered admissions standards. To combat this, teachers face the dual challenge of maintaining rigor while addressing rampant cheating facilitated by LLMs. The need for in-person assessments becomes critical in upholding academic integrity.

Discover how kids often lack intrinsic motivation for challenging tasks and need creative incentives to engage. Gamifying activities, like a fun 'Zombie Attack' soccer drill, proves surprisingly effective. Small but meaningful rewards can transform behavior, especially when linked to interests. The hosts explore the importance of guiding children through tough phases, pushing them toward long-term goals. They emphasize the role of parents in fostering perseverance and encouraging exploration of various talents, including art and math.

A great team is essential for success, with complementary skills boosting collaboration. Accountability requires control, so leaders must give team members authority to influence outcomes. The discussion highlights solving today's problems without over-engineering for imagined futures, as complexity can create future constraints. User behavior often uncovers unexpected edge cases, and it's crucial to prioritize simplicity to avoid unnecessary feature creep. Ultimately, embracing unpredictability while delivering practical solutions is key to effective management.

Building a knowledge graph resembles city planning, where too many prerequisites can create a cognitive traffic jam. The hosts dive into the evolution of their tooling, emphasizing the importance of efficient command-line tools over complex UIs for internal tasks. Justin shares his journey from research coding to handling real-time systems, highlighting the challenges of production deployment. Alex proposes a 'papercuts team' to tackle minor content issues proactively. They also tease an upcoming differential equations course and discuss its curriculum relevance.