Math Project’s response to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought panic into our lives, but also an opportunity to use technology as an innovative tool for our children’s crucial learning and academic success. With our children’s safety being our number one priority, in-class learning has been suspended until further notice all around the globe.

Schools and after-school programs are shut down in Canada and the US leaving students with no option to continue their studies. With the math education system that needs an overhaul and with no opportunity to learn in traditional classrooms, students have become non-consumers of education; literally unable to access formal education overnight. Consequently, exams, EQAO tests, and entrance into universities are still on the line once our students return to school hence Math Project knew they had to come up with a solution quickly.
Being a social enterprise, Math Project responded to the COVID-19 situation swiftly leveraging technology to continue its mission of instilling the love of math in children. For years, Math Project’s primary focus has been to boost a child’s motivation to master math skills. Fortunately, Math Project has been developing an online-learning platform since last year for students who could not attend the on-site sessions. After some testing and prototyping, the program now has a solid platform to host live online sessions that allow students to interact with one another and their teachers in real-time. Students take part in learning math word problems and building strong numeration skills

At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Math Project swung into action and took its research and development into overdrive as it deployed its online-learning experience across all of its classes to support all of their grade 1 to 12 students. An astounding 100% of its students successfully transitioned to its online-learning solution within one weekend. Shehreen Zaman, founder of Math Project opines,

“Most online sessions involve watching a previously recorded session where the teacher is not present. Listening to recorded lessons is boring for students, whereas our live, interactive online sessions create a social bond. It has all the advantages of in-class learning while being on a remote platform to ensure student’s health and safety”.

Online learning is a great solution while students are out of the classroom, and in the long run, it may become a critical tool in how students learn. Amidst the challenges that COVID-19 brings, Math Project is determined to leverage technology and fundamentally transform the learning experience into one in which all students have at least as much likelihood of success as in traditional in-person, high-quality learning.