It’s been a short but incredibly successful three-month journey for our Age of Learning’s Schools Solutions and My Math Academy.
In early June, we announced our new Schools Solutions, which we developed to provide schools and districts with standards-based early education programs proven to help teachers differentiate instruction and accelerate learning while helping students achieve mastery. We also announced the launch of our innovative My Math Academy, the School Division’s first product, which our curriculum and production teams spent six years of development, iteration, and testing. My Math Academy is a research-proven, personalized, adaptive math program for pre-k through second grade. Multiple randomized control trials have shown that students using My Math Academy for as little as 45 minutes a week over a twelve-week period experience significant learning gains, and the children have increased engagement, interest, and confidence in learning math.
In mid-July, we shared that two Age of Learning teams behind the successful launch and ongoing development of My Math Academy published chapters in the academic journal Adaptive Instructional Systems. Design and Evaluation and were to present their work at the HCI International 2021 Conference.
In late July, the head of our Schools Division and a senior researcher on our Learning Science team were featured presenters at the #NYCSchoolsTech Summit 2021, where they shared the truly amazing results we had already seen while rolling out My Math Academy in school district pilot programs nationwide prior to its public launch. Their presentation: Results Count, My Math Academy Delivers! A PreK-2 Game-based Approach that Tripled Math Gains for Early Learners, focused primarily on the truly amazing results achieved in our pilot program in the Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District (HCISD) in Texas.
This pilot program was also the focus of a Government Technology magazine website article: My Math Academy Improving Early Childhood Math Skills. The article reported that after offering our My Math Academy: Classroom Edition product to more than 900 largely economically disadvantaged pre-K students in the district, math skills more than doubled for 4-year-old pre-K students and tripled for 3-year-olds. The average pre-K student aged 4 is now at mid-kindergarten level, while the average pre-K student aged 3 is approaching kindergarten-level math skills. You can watch a HCISD school district board meeting discussing the unprecedented impact of My Math Academy on children’s skills and achievement (start at 8:50 for a quicker watch).
This past week, My Math Academy received another honor, winning the Awards of Excellence from Tech & Learning, which named our adaptive early math program one of 2021’s Best Tools for Back to School. Tech & Learning’s Awards of Excellence have long recognized innovation in the edtech industry, and its latest iteration, The Best Tools for Back to School, celebrates the most impressive products and solutions that support the work of teachers, students, and parents as they prepare for the new 2021-22 school year. Tech & Learning’s panel of advisors evaluated My Math Academy on ease of use, value, versatility, and (most importantly) the product’s ability to solve a problem.
Tech & Learning Group Publisher Christine Weiser framed it this way: “As we head into another uncertain year in education, technology will continue to be one of the key drivers for innovation. Our judges chose the winning products recognized here for their versatility, compatibility, value, and ability to help schools solve challenges and support continuous instruction. Congratulations to all of our winners.”
In addition to this latest award, My Math Academy has already achieved an impressive list of certifications: Stemworks Design Principles and Rubrics for Effective STEM Programs, Digital Promise Certification for Research-Based Design, Digital Promise Certification for Research-Based Design and Learner Variability, and the kidSAFE Seal Program’s COPPA Certified seal of approval.