Not because I’m psychic or a magician – as cool as that would be.
But because I was in your shoes once too.
When I first heard that Thinkster Math is an anti math tutoring company, the statement came across as…
Baffling.
Strange.
Looking at our website, social media accounts, and blogs, I see ‘math tutoring’ and ‘math tutor’ all over the place!
So, how can we be anti tutoring?
After all, the definition of anti is ‘opposed to’ or ‘against!’
How can our math learning program be opposed to tutoring?!
But that’s just it.
Digging into some of the fundamental differences between traditional math tutoring and Thinkster’s learning program, it becomes abundantly clear –
Yeah, we’re an anti math tutoring company.
I know, I know. You’re probably still scratching your head a bit.
Just bear with me.
Math Tutoring Does Not Equate to Knowledge Acceleration
So, maybe you’ve hired your child a private math tutor.
What exactly does this look like? What is this tutor doing for your child?
Chances are it’s one of the following:
You drive to a local library to meet this tutor.
A tutor comes to your house once or twice a week.
Your child joins an online meeting once (maybe twice) a week for an hour.
Most math tutors focus on the here and now.
They help work through difficult concepts your child has trouble understanding from math class. The tutor likely also spends time providing homework help or test prep.
And, if you think about it, aren’t you really only guaranteed two things when you pay for a private tutor:
The guarantee that your child spends live time working with someone (perhaps 1-2 hours per week)
The guarantee that your child has a spot or seat reserved to work with their tutor
Does this tutor guarantee that your child will make improvements and show measurable learning outcomes?
Chances are no.
Not because the tutor is ill-intentioned. They simply just don’t have the means to provide this measurable and quantifiable progress indicator to you!
Before you know it, you may end up trying a few different tutors with the hope that your child’s grades will start improving.
School grades are likely the only measurable data point you can look to for progress.
Maybe your child improves their grades.
Maybe they still struggle in math class.
But, at the end of the day, you’ve still spent a lot of money for zero guarantees of learning results.
So, how can you ensure your child learns efficiently and effectively while you don’t empty your wallet? How can you ensure your child makes significant progress in a short amount of time?
By using the Thinkster learning approach.
We use data and artificial intelligence to drive learning experiences for our students. (Don’t worry, I’ll share more on these incredible features in a bit!)
Our tech and data science-driven platform helps our math tutors hyper-personalize a learning plan for each individual student.
In doing so, we stay true to what we are: A learning and knowledge acceleration platform.
This is a massive foundational difference when comparing us to traditional math tutoring.
Sure, our tutors provide homework help and test prep too, but they do so much more.
Our elite math tutors create a learning plan that is monitored and adjusted after reviewing data.
The goal?
To ensure students not only learn quickly, but that they understand quickly.
A student’s learning plan is uniquely created to accelerate learning and knowledge acquisition.
Students can then accelerate learning outcomes after demonstrating proficiency (aka – having a solid foundational understanding of a math concept).
In addition to this approach, our world-class curriculum is also backed by brain science.
There is a method to how we teach and organize problems so that we develop cognitive fluency.
First, a student solves a problem and reaches that ‘aha’ moment as they complete a digital math worksheet. They become fluent and learn the math concept.
Second, we bring in math word problems. While some students may seriously dread them, our Thinksters approach them with greater confidence. Our students already have proficiency in operational fluency, so this step teaches them to correlate a word problem to mathematical operations.
Third, we add the complexity of reasoning and logic. This happens after students build foundational math fluency and understand math as a language.
An elite Thinkster tutor uses our knowledge acceleration platform and world-class math curriculum to help your child understand concepts and progress quickly.
Which is an incredible outcome when you spend – comparatively – far less than you would for hiring a daily private tutor!
Not only that, but our math tutors do much more along the way – like helping make your child a math champion.
Coaches Help Make Champions
Rafael Nadal is an unbelievably incredible athlete and tennis player.
He is currently ranked number 4 in men’s singles by the ATP and has won 21 Grand Slam singles titles and 36 Masters 1000 titles.
As “King of the Clay,” Nadal surrounds himself with a coaching team.
Why would he need a coach?
Because the greatest athletes realize the importance of having their own coach!
A coach is not a teacher.
(Sure, when starting to learn a sport, a coach may focus on the mechanics. This role will then transition as a player improves.)
A coach is another set of eyes to analyze a player’s actions and performance. They provide another point of view to help fine-tune the game and tailor plays to each opponent.
A coach helps keep a player mentally fit, organized, healthy, and prepared for the game.
A coach helps make a player a champion.
To become the greatest, you need someone at your side to accelerate improvements.
Now, don’t you want your child to be as academically strong as possible and show incredible and accelerated improvements?
Your child should become a math champion!
And making math champions is one of our big goals at Thinkster!
Again, this is another fundamental difference when comparing a traditional math tutor to Thinkster’s math coaching platform.
A math coach helps create an impactful and long-lasting learning experience. It’s not just about studying for an upcoming test or reviewing a formula or math equation.
A coach helps your child understand the methodology behind the problem. By understanding this context and learning the math language, your child establishes rock-solid foundations and applies their knowledge to more complex problems in the future.
Then, when confronted with more complex problems, they tackle those math problems without fear or hesitancy!
A math coach also helps your child identify the exact areas and math topics they need to improve.
This is just like how Rafael Nadal’s coaches examine his plays from another perspective to help him be the best he can be.
Our Thinkster tutors use similar coaching techniques to help your child improve and accelerate learning.
Your child is frequently assessed and tested so that their math tutor can analyze performance and proficiencies through data.
A dynamic Progress Matrix is made available to both you and your child. This Progress Matrix provides a visualization of your child’s current proficiencies and deficiencies across various concepts and math topics.
The tutor hyper-personalizes a learning plan for your child using the matrix and seeing the exact areas where your child needs to improve. This targeted approach accelerates progress by focusing specifically on those concepts.
A math coach also needs to see exactly how your child unpacks a problem to solve it. They can then help your child improve their problem-solving skills and math performance.
This is where our daily math tutors have quite an advantage compared to many traditional tutors.
Our patent-pending Active Replay Technology (ART) gives tutors the ability to see everything.
Your child shows all of their work on a tablet or laptop screen when solving problems on their Thinkster math worksheets.
They can write, erase, or pause to watch a video tutorial if they need immediate help to solve the problem. Our technology captures everything your child puts on the screen.
Our math tutors review assignments every day. As part of this review, they use ART to see how your child solves a math problem.
In doing so, the tutor sees the math strategies used, plus how and why your child may have made a mistake.
This level of daily monitoring is likely unavailable with other tutors or learning centers. (Unless you pay someone to sit next to your child every day as they complete math work. That could get very expensive!)
Our math tutors don’t need to sit side-by-side with your child. They get all performance details and send your child daily feedback. This helps your child take quick, actionable steps when tackling their next problem set.
In addition to this, the Thinkster tutor will also have interactive, private, online tutoring sessions with your child.
These sessions are always conducted with the same tutor that is monitoring daily worksheet performance.
Why?
Because working with one dedicated tutor is important!
Let’s face it, having a pool of tutors or coaches working with your child could get confusing.
It could also impact how your child progresses because:
Your child will need to get used to a different teaching style each session.
Your child likely misses getting to develop a rapport with a tutor.
A different tutor will need to spend time understanding the learning style that your child responds to best.
You will not have a go-to person who can answer questions on progress improvements!
These are just a few of the reasons working with multiple tutors may not be the best option for your child.
Instead, your child can work with one dedicated tutor when they’re a Thinkster! It’s always the same tutor creating and tailoring the learning plan, reviewing worksheets daily, and conducting the one-on-one tutoring sessions.
One math coach is thoroughly involved in every aspect of your child’s learning plan – there’s no flip-flopping between tutors!
You will then see an acceleration in improvements – not just in math, but in other crucial learning and life skills.
See Improvements in More Than Just Math Skills
Rafael Nadal isn’t a tennis champion just because of his skills on the clay.
He shows determination, has strong mental focus, and puts 110% effort into being a champion.
These are all character skills that help him be the best he can be in tennis.
For your child to become a true math champion, it takes more than just having an excellent understanding of math concepts.
When your child is a Thinkster, we help them become a champion by improving various learning and life skills.
Your child will need strong analytical, logical reasoning, and critical thinking skills for extraordinary future academic, professional, and life successes.
These are the skills that are crucial to focus on developing. While tied to many math problems, these skills are also transferable to nearly all school subjects and professions.
Does your child want to be a biochemist when they grow up?
Those analysis skills must be sharp!
Does your child find detective work fascinating?
They must be able to think critically and use logical reasoning skills to solve cases!
Plus, not all problems your child will face in their future workplace will be procedural-based.
By having sharp critical thinking, analytical, and logical reasoning skills, your child can unpack problems and learn to use different problem-solving strategies.
The tutor will also work with your child to make sure they understand how to problem-solve with different strategies. In doing so, your child learns to think flexibly and non-linearly. When your child can do this, they’ll expand their thinking and mindset, and build skills that will make them highly successful!
Your child will accelerate their learning when they work efficiently, productively, and organize their thinking to ask the right questions.
A Thinkster tutor will work with your child to help them develop these skills.
(If you want your child to become the ultimate math rockstar and math champion, then our white-glove service tutoring plan is a fantastic option! With our Diamond plan, your child gets both a dedicated tutor and a SMART STUDY coach. This coach meets with your child once a month to help teach prioritization and organizational skills.)
So, yes. Analytical, critical thinking and organizational skills are all incredibly important to develop and build.
And yes – a Thinkster tutor will help your child develop these life and learning skills!
Now, do other traditional math tutoring services or private math tutors emphasize building these skills?
Typically no – they don’t.
Not because they don’t want to.
It’s just a matter of time!
If meeting with a private tutor once or twice a week, that tutor focuses on catching up and understanding where your child’s performance has improved or declined since the last session. Then, the current tutoring session likely focuses on reviewing mathematics strategies, concepts, or homework problems.
A daily Thinkster tutor doesn’t need to spend time on catch-up because they follow your child’s performance every day of the week.
This gives our tutors time to incorporate developing learning and life skills into your child’s learning plan.
You Don’t Need a Flashlight
One thing that we really pride ourselves on is that we don’t leave parents in the dark!
When it comes to your child’s learning, not having any insight into performance or results can be frustrating.
You might ask a private tutor –
Is my child actually improving? How will I know?
Is my child demonstrating proficiency in multiplication? Do they really understand word problems?
What is my child working on now? Next week? What are our 30-day goals?
They’re important questions to ask!
After all, don’t you want to make sure the money you spend leads to improvements and results?
It’s not that these are questions that a private tutor may evade answering.
Instead, they may not have the reporting or analysis tools to give you a clear answer.
This is why we live and breathe for data at Thinkster.
All of our data and reports are available for you to access 24/7. You get reports via email, along with access on any device to our Parent Insights App.
You can see various important data points – from worksheet performance to accuracy and time spent on Thinkster. Your child’s Progress Matrix is available anytime for you to review so that you can see learning improvements!
We bill for guaranteed results and learning outcomes.
Conclusion
I know I gave you a lot to digest on how our math tutoring program will transform your child into a math champion.
The big takeaway is that Thinkster is an anti math tutoring company.
We aren’t your typical or traditional math tutoring program.
We aren’t like what you might imagine when picturing a private tutor.
We’re a math coaching program.
We create math champions and accelerate knowledge by using data and behavioral science to hyper-personalize learning plans.
As a Thinkster, your child will see incredible improvements in learning and life skills. Our tutors can help strengthen skills to help your child get accepted into an Ivy League school, become a millionaire, and become highly successful in life!
Our results are guaranteed and can all be tracked daily. We strongly believe in keeping complete transparency and providing you with data and reports – constantly!
Are you ready to make your child a math champion and unleash their potential?
