S2EP84-Dr. Aditya Nagrath-Math Made Fun: How to Crush Math Anxiety!

Herb: 00:00:19

I now have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Aditya Nagrath. Dr. Nagrath helps students overcome mathematics anxiety.

He is the creator and founder of Elephant Learning Mathematics Academy, which helps students learn years of mathematics over the course of a few months using their system. Just 10 minutes per day, three days per week.

With a PhD in mathematics and computer science, Dr. Nagrath has spent over 30 years in an industry as a software engineer, author, leader, speaker, and serial entrepreneur, working on everything from atomic clocks to iOS and Android apps to Amazon's Kindle Fire.

D Edwards Innovation Award in: 2015

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:01:19

Hi. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Kristina: 00:01:22

It was very, very pleasant whenever we received your request. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is somebody who deals with the families that we deal with all the time.

They are looking for alternatives to education, alternatives to teaching math. Someone who has really worked on making this work for families and children to learn lots of different things.

And just leaning back into that, you know, you have a long history.

But what made it turn into a passion to work on this project, helping children learn math, giving their parents a tool when nothing else seems to kind of work?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:01:58

Sure. Well, somewhere along the way, I learned that four out of five students start kindergarten unprepared for the kindergarten curriculum.

And when that comes to mathematics, what we're actually talking about is a gap in language. And so it's like an understanding of the quantities is what the issue is. And that gap just becomes larger over time.

And so what ends up happening is that we have somewhere around the country, third graders whose understanding of numbers rivals a first grader or kindergartner, and they're learning to multiply. And that's an impossible situation for both the teacher and the student in that situation. And so we came up with the Elephant Learning Math Academy.

The idea was that we would teach mathematics as a language, so focusing very specifically on getting the students to do activities that researchers already found to teach mathematics conceptually. But none of these are, like, beyond the wheelhouse of what human beings maybe we're doing by themselves. And up until, like, multiplication.

And then it's like, yeah, now people don't play with things anymore. But our system allows you to have manipulatives up to, you know, hundreds and thousands and etc. Because it's a computer system.

And so we just keep going through algebra and. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's why we started it.

Kristina: 00:03:30

That is amazing, because you have already clicked on a light bulb for me, because I was really into teaching reading. I loved reading.

And one of the things I kept telling my parents constantly is that they can't learn to read if they don't have a wide vocabulary, if they don't understand the words that they're going to eventually be reading. And that's what just clicked for me. You said, oh, my gosh, we have kindergarteners entering without the proper math vocabulary.

That sets them up for not learning as much as they need to.

Herb: 00:03:57

That was going to be my first point, too. It's like.

It's like the most important part that you said was that language was the most important thing in math or in early math is getting the language of math right. And that. That was actually really interesting because it's like, no, math is about numbers. Math isn't about words.

But then again, it's like when you said that, it just. Again, like she said, it really clicked and made a lot of sense.

Kristina: 00:04:23

So what's one thing that we can maybe do right now to help our parents if they're realizing that they have a young one about ready to start this math journey? Can you give us an example of some of the critical vocabulary that they might try to experience with their child or help them understand?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:04:39

Yeah. So I think the best way to think about it is like learning the. The colors, for example.

So, like, when you're learning the word red, right, Students have to see multiple red things labeled red before they catch on that the idea is red.

So when we're talking about, like, young students who are learning counting, really, that's what we're talking about, except that they have to understand now that the quantity is what you're referring to with the. With the number that you're saying out loud. And that becomes a lot of counting strategies.

So what our system does is we focus on trying to define first. So, like, even as concepts get more complicated than the numbers, we try to tell them this is the idea.

Then we try to see if they can recognize it, and then after that, we see if they can sort of produce the idea. And this kind of works for all language. So you might see that with words, or you might see that with ideas such as addition.

But for the young learners, what that looks like is, you know, I'm. I'm holding up five fingers. I have three cars, etc. Then, well, how many cars do I have? Or how many fingers am I holding up?

And then finally it's like, could you show me or could you give me, you know, so many objects? And the, the prerequisite basically for kindergarten, my understanding is, is just being able to do that up to 10.

So if you can ask your child for 10 things, they slide over 10 things and stop on 10. They get it.

Kristina: 00:06:17

That is. Yes, exactly. And all of those things families remember can be done through games. Right.

You're taking a walk in the park and you count 10 trees and you give them the idea of what 10 is. You're playing with blocks on the floor. You put different piles out and you help count them out and figure out what they are.

There's so many things that you can do to help build those skills. Like Dr. Negrath was saying before they even get to school.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:06:41

Yeah.

Herb: 00:06:41

And it's really interesting because now that you think about it, it's like one plus two equals three.

But you're talking about written letters and it doesn't make sense unless you know what one means, unless you know what two means, unless you know what three means. And so getting those concepts of what, what does two actually mean? And like two. So, yeah, again, I don't remember learning math.

I was just somehow like, innately understanding of it. So I. I guess I kind of got lucky in that realm.

So even now, it's like sometimes when I'm doing math, she'll ask me a question, I'll just throw out a number and she'll like, are you sure? And I'm like. And I'll pull out a thing. It's like, oh, look, I was right. How was I right?

It's like, I don't know, I just throw out a number and it's the correct thing. So in ways, I don't necessarily always know how I do math, but I get to really complicated answers really quickly.

And so, yeah, sometimes I miss having that understanding of what it is that I'm doing. And proving my answers in school was just ridiculously hard for me because it's like, well, the answer is right. Why do I need to prove it?

And so, yeah, that kind of aspect for me, it's. It's different. But then if you don't have that and you're struggling with it, then yes, what you're talking about. Well, again, it would.

Would have helped me a lot as well. So with what I said, it's like, does, does the, like the brain that works like mine, that just. How, how does your system help with that as well?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:08:20

Well, so, like, I mean, the real idea is like, can you have a concrete understanding of, of sort of what's happening underneath? So, like, with the concept, maybe more challenging, like multiplication, we show them rows of different things with the same number, right?

So it's repeated addition. So it's like, if you can figure out, oh, seven plus seven plus seven plus seven.

And then, you know, like, at some point we time it so that we know that, like, they're not just counting somehow. So we, like, close some curtains so that they then have to, like, do it.

But like, the idea is, is that, like, if we can get them that underlying concrete representation of what does this written notation mean, then when they get to algebra, they have some sort of a shot. Whereas without that, if you, if you kind of get to algebra and then you see seven times X equals something X wasn't on the times table.

You know what I mean? Like, so, like. Right.

So if you just, if you got through by memorizing and executing the calculations and then you start to see some of this more complicated stuff, it doesn't feel like there's a recovery, even though there still is.

Herb: 00:09:30

Yeah.

Kristina: 00:09:32

So that actually brings me to one of my questions, because I taught second and third grade a lot, and it was that transition from addition, subtraction into multiplication and division. And for me, I almost always saw that there was a certain age, right.

The kiddos at the beginning of the year who were a little bit older, sometimes their brains caught a concept or an idea a little bit quicker, a little bit faster than others. And I don't know if maybe now it was because of that vocabulary gap or if it was actually their learning stages. Can you give some basic ideas on.

Are there actual brain studies on the acceptance of math in the brain? So is there certain stages where addition, subtraction is more, more reliable for kids, multiplication more reliable, et cetera?

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Herb: 00:10:22

Is math age based?

Kristina: 00:10:23

Yeah.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:10:25

So, like, there's a lot of these ideas out there that it's like, has the brain developed enough to understand an idea? And I just don't. I just don't believe that exists.

I don't think that even if they had a study that says that, and they do have studies that say that, that it's representative of reality. Because, for example, one of these studies said that children couldn't learn logical and.

Or so basically just the basics of logic, they said, oh, we don't even know what age that develops. And the thing is that and or logically is just a little bit more well defined than your menu at Chili's.

When the menu at Chili says French fries or potato wedges, you have to choose one. But logical or is that you can choose any, you could choose two, you could choose three. Right.

As long as one of them is true, then the statement becomes true. And so it's not that big of a leap.

And when you dive into these studies, it's kind of like they weren't able to answer the gotcha question, which I don't want to go into, because it's the null hypothesis. And it's like, okay, well sure, if there are no things is it true or false?

And mathematically we say it's true mainly because if you have that somehow in a larger calculation, well, then it works out. And if it's false, then everything fails. Right. Because something. And false is false.

But that's sort of what our system kind of disproves because we do have four year olds in our system that get as far as fractions, decimals and percentages. And we do have people who are under the age of eight learning logical and, and, or in our system.

And it's because like, if you believe that the student could understand these ideas and then you, you kind of show them the ideas, they pick up the ideas.

Because to be honest with you, if you consider mathematics as a language, then it's younger children that learn more vocabulary by the same human beings who are out there trying to do this study. And like, so then like, what are they really saying? That this particular language is not learnable.

And it sounds to me honestly like potentially they got some math anxiety themselves.

Herb: 00:13:09

Okay, so that brings me to like a weird, controversial question, maybe not quite so controversial that that happened with Christina is I used to help her grade her math. Actually, I helped her grade everything.

Kristina: 00:13:22

As a teacher, I had lots of papers.

Herb: 00:13:23

Lots of papers. So there was one point where Common Core Math came into being and suddenly I couldn't grade her math anymore because it made no sense to me.

And, but at the same time, it's like they were taking second graders and pushing them into division and multiplication and these heavier concepts.

And kind of what you're saying says, you know, that's okay, but was it just the implementation that was so messed up with Common Core or where did that fall apart? Because obviously your systems works a whole lot better than that.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:14:02

Yeah.

Herb: 00:14:03

Because you wouldn't still be on the market if it didn't. So, you know, longevity proves it. Out. So how, how, why. Wow. I'm not even sure how to phrase that.

Kristina: 00:14:14

Why are parents so upset with Common Core, basically?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:14:18

Yeah, Well, I mean, there's a lot of frustration with Common Core. And the reason why is because they're trying to take something that, again, is. Is very physical, right?

These are ideas that you have to show someone two things. You can't talk abstractly about two. You can't talk abstractly about addition. And. And then pray that a child will understand it.

And so, like, they had to turn that into something that children could do on a piece of paper. And so that's not, that's not like, I don't know if that's feasible. You know what I mean?

And so, like, I think that the frustration is, is that, like, on top of that, there's not a lot of explanation that goes back to the parent, right? And so, like, what the parent is looking at is sort of unknown.

And so now, like, if you're part of the 54% of Americans that admit to having mathematics anxiety, then you start to see this and you start to say, this is impossible. I can't even understand this.

And now you're at flip out mode because you're the parent and you're supposed to be teaching the child this at the same time. Common Core had a good goal. It was to try to create a standard that would try to determine, does the child understand the mathematics?

And so, like, it's looking for these ideas of, can the students see a problem in the world?

And then identify that, like, oh, multiplication and addition is the solution, and then actually multiply and add the right numbers in order to get the solution. And that's understanding, and that's what we want.

Because if you memorize your multiplication tables and you don't have that understanding, then to you, multiplication is absolutely useless. And what you're going to do is you're going to ask, when am I going to use this? And that's what we see children doing.

I mean, all over the world, right? So, so there's this, this, this tug and like, right, like this tug of war going on with, like, okay, we want to do a good thing.

But then in the United States of America, we don't have processes for teaching. It's just. It doesn't exist. There's 50 different states. Every state wants to do it differently.

Inside of those states, there's a whole bunch of different counties. Each one of those counties think they can do it better than the other guy. Every single district thinks they can do it better.

Every single school thinks they can do it better.

And so then like, and I mean, I don't know if this is a like, but like, it's almost as if in the union it's like, no, but you can't give these guys a process. You know what I mean? And so, like, I don't know. Right. But like, that's the thing that actually our system does extremely well.

It will follow the process every single time. It's a mathematical algorithm that most likely humans are not going to be very good at executing.

Like, I, I bounce around and try to guess I'm not as precise as the algorithm, but that's what it is, is that, like, we're constantly calculating what is the level of your student, and can we give them puzzles directly at that level or just beyond it so that they grasp that?

But there are other countries where, like they said, this is how we're going to do it, and this is how we're going to do it in every single classroom. And uniformly they tend to get better results.

Kristina: 00:18:04

Yeah.

Herb: 00:18:04

And another thing that you said in there that really got me to thinking about some of the stuff that we do is you said over 50% of the people have math anxiety even after they get out of school. And one of the biggest hurdles that parents have with trying to want to take their children out of school is, I was bad at math.

How can I teach my kid math? And, you know, my response to that always is, well, if you're bad at math, that means the school let you down. So why do you think they're.

Your, your kids are going to learn any better? So let's, let's bring them out and look at how to actually bring your child up in a correct way and learning.

And again, I, that's one of the ways that your system and your tools really, really help. And that's also one of the things we say is the parents don't necessarily have to be the teacher.

They just have to be the person in charge of the education. So if they're in charge of the education and they work into your program, then they don't have to be good at math.

And the cool part about that is then while they're helping their children learn this system and learn this, they learn a lot. They get their vocabulary, they start filling in holes.

And sometimes one little hole that they missed in third grade, suddenly they don't have math anxiety because things start clicking and tripping and, and their math grows up to where they are and suddenly is like, oh, that. And now they're more competent themselves.

So do you find that sometimes that the parents who are helping the children suddenly are getting better at math as well? Have you got reports of that?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:19:36

Yeah, I mean, what you're saying is actually very, very correct. But more than that, like our system has within it the videos.

The videos were actually meant for the parents because I didn't think like a first grader would watch a video of me explaining. So like what it is, is teacher training. So we're giving the parent and actually teachers teacher training at the student's level of understanding.

So it's like this is what we're working on, this is how we intend to teach it. This is things that you could do outside of the system to support it. And so like, that's all there for the parent.

But I think that human beings have these experiences, we have these mathematical experiences, whether we understand the vocabulary or not. Right.

And so the thing that we find is that it is sort of like what you're saying is that if you can just fill in one of these gaps, then maybe all these other experiences start to make sense all of a sudden.

And so what we see is that we have maybe 12 year olds testing at the second or third grade level and within six months they will catch up to grade level because they still had those experiences in the classroom. It's not like they didn't memorize their multiplication tables. They just understand what multiplication means.

And as soon as you figure out what it means, guess what? That memorization of the multiplication tables is now useful to you. You've already memorized it, so now like that.

That's actually, I think one of the, probably the better benefits is that like, if we can get more people to just realize that these concepts are not beyond their grasp, then I think that's the alleviation of the math anxiety. That's the goal.

Our mission from day one was to empower children with mathematics because we realized if we just continue to focus on that, then we can achieve any sort of larger vision that we aim at.

Kristina: 00:21:37

And that leads me into shifting a little bit into that math anxiety that you also wanted to talk about during this interview. So are people innately just like, bad at math? There are so many people just like, oh, I'm just bad at math, I'm bad at reading, I'm bad at writing.

Is it that they're bad at it that their brain doesn't quite get it, or is it probably because of a gap somewhere that they've missed that's caused issues? Where does that anxiety come from? And how early do we see it? And how late do we see it?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:22:06

So like we. So we have this book, Training Math Anxiety.

Kristina: 00:22:10

Uhhuh.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:22:11

And in this book we do talk about, like, where does this belief system come from? Yeah, interesting. Is this way down?

Herb: 00:22:21

Yeah.

Kristina: 00:22:22

Oh, there we go.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:22:23

There we go. So like this, what you're seeing on the screen is actually sort of the highest level description of what an artificial intelligence system is.

So in the: 1970

And the idea was that, like, if you have some inputs and you have some outputs and you have a function, then you could create a training function to continue to alter that functions so that the inputs move to the outputs. And what you're hoping for is that that continuity on F takes similar inputs and maps them to similar outputs.

And so, like a concrete example, the inputs could be images. So this is a very easy iPhone app to make.

This was like in: 2015

Like whatever your categories are, and you put it into this xcode thing and it gives you a little model in it. And it would do that. Okay. So for the human being, the inputs are the experiences that we're having.

The outputs is the meaning or the story that we are associating then to those experiences.

And so, like, when it comes to mathematics or it comes to basketball or tennis or piano or whatever it is, the student's belief system actually sort of breaks down to I can do this or I can't do this. And everything that we hear after that is like the justification for the belief system that they're trying to veer towards at that moment.

And so then our suggestion as an overarching strategy is that first, you have to believe that the student can do it. Second, you have to tell them that you believe that they can do it.

Because as soon as you've made that commitment to them, as long as they're talking to you, they're now also committed to that goal. The third thing is, is that you have to meet them at their level of understanding. So elephant learning is that piece.

We find out what's Their level of understanding. We meet them there, and we build them up and we show them meaningful progress. But it starts with one we believe they can do it.

And we've told them, like, we. Our advertising is learn one year of math in three months, guaranteed.

And the thing is that if you sign up, you have now committed to me that you want to do that. And so as long as you use the system 10 minutes a day, three days per week, it's probably going to happen.

95, 96% Of the students in our system achieve at least one year. In fact, the average is a year and a half.

Kristina: 00:25:22

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. And this relates so much to where I was in the classroom. Like I said, I taught second and third grade the most.

And when those students came into me, they would look at me with big eyes like, do you believe I can do it? And that was my job as a teacher, was help them believe. It's like, I believe in you.

Yes, it might be hard at times, it might be a little bit challenging at times, but I believe you can do it. And I saw that in the structure of the classroom because I had high expectations.

And believe it or not, most of the times the children rose to that expectation. And when they couldn't get there, then I move back around and support them and help them get there. So it's exactly what you were just saying.

We believe in them, we help them believe in themselves, and then we meet them and help them get there. Right.

Herb: 00:26:11

Yeah. So there was times I was good at math, that in class I was tasked with helping people who didn't understand it as well.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:26:22

Yeah.

Herb: 00:26:22

And it really seemed like there were some people that it didn't matter how I explained it or what I got, that these concepts didn't land. Is that really a thing, or were we just missing concepts? Are there some people whose brains aren't geared for math?

Because, like, mine was exceptionally geared towards it because numbers came incredibly easy for me. And some people, they just don't seem to. So is that a thing? And if. Would it be a little slower on.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:26:58

Your system, potentially getting comments on Facebook? But we used to get comments like this.

And what I ultimately finally started telling parents when they would put this comment onto our advertisements is that Helen Keller not only learned language, but learned mathematics. And, like, if she can do it, then your child can do it. You just have to believe it. And that's. And that's the challenge.

Is that, like, part of, like, I want to say the ego, because that's kind of what we're talking about, right. We've adopted a belief and now we're going to protect the belief at all costs is to behave confused is to convince everyone else I can't do it.

So then they then leave me alone and, and now I don't have to do it.

Herb: 00:27:47

Yeah, I've ran into those people too. Yeah, very much so. Yeah.

And it again, that, that is so much with the current state of understanding is, and even with children is like if you tell them that they're dumb all of the time and then it's like they start to become that which you tell them.

And so parents who are uplifting and very involved and are telling them not, not that, hey, that you're smart, but that you can do it, that effort pays off in that, you know, you are capable. Not not praising them, you know, just willy nilly, but actually giving them the confidence to move forward helps so much.

And so it sounds like that's also what you're talking about.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:28:27

Yes, in the book we call this maintaining the hoop. So what we do is we create an analogy between mathematics and basketball.

And so they're, they're the same in the sense that like anyone can look and see did the ball go in the hoop or not? And one of the things that we say is that like you have to actually maintain the hoop.

It's sort of what Ms. Hugh Everett said a second ago about, you know, the children rising to the expectations. Right. So like the hoops at a, at a certain place and the ball has to go in and then you made a basket, otherwise it didn't exactly go in.

And if you tell them no, it went in well, now you're kind of compromising the hoop. You see what I mean? And at the same time, you know, when the ball goes in, they deserve to get the points, they deserve to get the score.

So they're seeing the reward and they're seeing like, you know, the consequences. But like there's a lot more to be learned from the basketball analogy. Just when you keep examining it, right,.

Herb: 00:29:35

Like the, about the analogy that they did a study and they had half the team sit on the bench and imagine making free throws and then going in each time and then half the team practicing.

And then at the end of the day, the people who were sitting and imagining it going in over and over and over again did more shots in their mind and actually had better percentages than the people who were practicing. And so, yeah, in the same way that that happens with math.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:30:03

I mean, visualization obviously, I think helps because you're living into a future then that you're sort of creating.

Herb: 00:30:11

But again, it's a little more than visualization. The. The visualization also, it's like, if you see it happening, then it gives you the confidence that you're going to do it. So it. It's.

Yeah, because I don't understand visualizing math.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:30:25

Like, in. In our analogy, one of the. One of the observations someone made, and it's an observation I had, but I don't think I wrote this down.

Maybe it's written down there. I can't remember now. But, like, sometimes you'll come across a student, right? And they just keep asking you, well, did I set this up right?

Well, did I write down the right things? Like, like, almost. Not every.

Even every step, but like, but the analogy would be like, well, yeah, but that's like asking, am I standing right before you take this shot in basketball? Or like, but like, am I. Am I doing this piece right? And like, at some point, it's like, you know what? Just take the shot. We'll.

We'll help you after you've taken the shot. But you got to take it. You got to show us you authentically taking the shot, and then I can correct your technique, if that's what the challenge is.

And so, like, I. I mean, it's just the more you kind of look at, like, hey, how do these two things line up? Where do they differ and where are they the same? You keep kind of seeing more and more.

More and more ways that you can support the student with mathematics, but treating it more like basketball.

Kristina: 00:31:33

I like that. Yeah. And it goes for so many different things, right? Sports and horseback riding and music and all the different things.

Back to that math anxiety that your book is talking about. Is there a way? Is there a. Yeah. How do we get kids past that? We've talked about the visualization.

We've talked about, like, correcting technique and stuff. Is there anything else that you've kind of figured out that helps kind of get them over that hump into, oh, this doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Herb: 00:32:03

He did write a program for that.

Kristina: 00:32:04

Yeah.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:32:07

Outside of the program, it's the progress. So, like. Yeah, if you can show them measurable progress. Because, like, while you're doing it, right, While you.

It's like, again, like the basketball, right? Like, if you just.

If you're just taking shots after shot after shot after shot, at some point, you're so focused on taking the shot that you don't know what. What are your. What are your Percentages or like, is it any good even? Right.

Like, sometimes you see a percentage, you're like, I don't know if that's good.

Kristina: 00:32:35

Right.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:32:35

You know what I mean? And so, like, being able to show them that progress, like, you started at 30%, now you're at 40% or 50%. In our system, it's the elephant age. Right.

So it's the age that a student outside the system is doing the same mathematics as your child.

And so it's like as they go from age 4 to age 5 to age 6, they're seeing that progress happen, and so they believe they can do it because they're seeing years of progress.

Herb: 00:33:05

Yeah. You're also using gamification in your program, which makes it fun. And as I was just thinking about that, I realized that I. I liked math.

I like the sheets of papers, and I gamified it myself. It's like, can I get through it faster this time? Can I? So can I do it better? Can I get through it with less mistakes? How? How?

So I played my own games within mathematics, and I think that's why I liked it so much, because it didn't lie, it didn't change. It wasn't like English, where there's subjective values and. And weird rules. It's like math was very precise.

And so within that precision, I could play games with my. With myself and how I was learning. So I kind of did that on my own. And that was one of the reasons that. That I liked math so much.

And so it sounds like that's also what's in your program. Is that. Is that gamification? Can you do it quicker next time? Can. Can. How. What is your percentage? Can you do it without looking? Yeah. So is.

Is that how you develop this, or was that. Was that intentional or did that just kind of, kind of happen?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:34:22

So what we did was we took the activities that the researchers had already found to be most effective, but then we paired that with characters so that it then feels like a game. So, like, when you touch it, like, maybe you interact with it a little bit and.

But you move them around and you put them into whatever, however you want to arrange it, to count them or add or whatever you want to do. And, like, sometimes they're on a line and sometimes. Right.

So it's not like hiding the math from the student, but it's all sort of conceptually based. So we give them all the time to try to play with it and try to figure it out, and we time it so that they know how much Are they doing every day?

And the goal is to get to 10 minutes. But that's sort of the idea is that, like, the way I like to describe it is through the basketball analogies. It's like we find the level where the.

They can throw the ball, and it gets in, and then we just slowly inch it up from there. So we're inching them through these activities, and they're picking up these ideas along the way.

Kristina: 00:35:28

Excellent. Let's get a little bit practical. Maybe a parent doesn't have your program, but they really want to help their child.

Is there something else that they can do? We talked about vocabulary earlier. What else maybe could they do to help their child get a little bit less anxious about math?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:35:46

Sure. The Y method, I think, is, like, probably the best thing to do.

So it's like, if a student is answering incorrectly, we let them answer incorrectly, but then we ask them, why do you think that's the right answer? And this is sort of like that. That idea of the proofs.

But, like, when you start to hear what they're thinking about, you start to understand what the misconception is, what it is they don't understand. And then you start. You're able to start to alleviate that by some sort of pointed explanation.

Whereas, like, if you just kind of keep explaining them, like, what does it mean? Or like, how do you do it over and over again? They're not getting that dissection of, like, well, your thought process is a little bit off. Right.

Like, it's this word that you're not getting that. Then. Now that you get. Now it's, oh, now it's easy. Right. So that's, I think, another piece of advice that would typically.

Herb: 00:36:43

Why? The why question.

Kristina: 00:36:44

The why question? Yeah, the curiosity. Right. And we actually talk about that in behavior as well. When we're talking about parents, like, our child is acting up.

It's like, okay, so then let's approach that with curiosity. What's going on that's causing you to act like this? Or what's going on that's bothering you that ends up in this kind of behavior?

So the same kinds of things. They're having trouble in math. Awesome. Be curious. What are you thinking? Show me what you did to get to that answer. Yeah.

And then you can, like, recorrect and direct and change it around a little bit. I love that. Thank you so very much. Yes. Beautiful.

Herb: 00:37:19

All right. And that happens within your program, too? Or can you. Can you give us a little understanding more of how the children move through the program?

And what that looks like.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:37:29

Sure. So, like, when the students come in, what we do is we put them into a placement mode.

That's if they're older than five, because older than five, well, under five, they don't have to learn much. They just have to learn counting through 10. And so, like, we can kind of diagnose that very quickly.

But older than five, they start on a placement exam, and we. We. That's where we kind of take the hoop up a foot at a time to figure out what's the level of the ball.

And then when they start to answer incorrectly, we start to place them into the subjects where they're answering incorrectly so that then we can take them through those subjects. But the feel for the student then is like a puzzle game that starts out super easy and then gets very hard very quickly.

And then it's challenging after that, just kind of right at their level. And so that's the experience we wanted them to feel.

And we don't give them a transition between placement exam and learning because it's like, no, like, we don't want to break. The idea of this is. This is that game for them.

And then the other piece of it is, is a little bit of limiting the time, because sometimes if they get into it and you stop them at 10 minutes, well, now they want to play again the next day. They want to keep trying. So there's that. But, like, I mean, the research showed they were using it less than that and gaining.

So, like, it was like, fine, let's do 30 minutes.

Kristina: 00:38:58

And I love that. Yeah. Restricting it. So they want to go back to it instead of pushing so hard that they're like, oh, I'm done with this right now.

Herb: 00:39:04

Yeah. So when you first started explaining that, it's like, wow, that's. I want to do that now to see where I would land.

So even just explaining that my personality type was like, oh, I want to try that to see how far I could get and then how fast and how far I can go. So. Yeah. Do you work with adults as well?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:39:29

We've had adults go through our system, but again, we're talking about remedial mathematics. And then we. We do some algebra. And so it tends to be that, like, if an adult's in our system, they'll go through it in. In a day. They.

I mean, they won't stop at 10 minutes. They'll go for an hour, but, like, they'll get through it in a day or two kind of story.

Herb: 00:39:47

Yeah. I made it through to calculus and calculus Got a little too boring for me because I couldn't figure out how to gamify calculus.

But up until then is like math was what. Math was my favorite thing. It's what I scored highest in the sat and in through college it was like, yeah, this is a breeze.

And then it got really difficult and it stopped being fun and I fell out of it. So. So yeah, by keeping it fun and moving forward, I can see how valuable that is especially for children to make them want to keep going.

Kristina: 00:40:20

One last question here because we have a lot of parents who also have like either a special needs child, a neurodiverse child, et cetera. Is there anything that needs to be adjusted or worked with those kinds of special cases?

Because sometimes you know, they don't, they don't connect in like a quote unquote average child. So give our parents an idea of what, how this might help or an adjustment that might need to be made.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:40:47

Yeah, so we don't have any research on our system about like how well does it work with the like one of these students? Because we don't ask that question at sign up. And so we don't, we just don't know which, which student has what, why. Right.

And but we've had parents raise their hand and say they have had success.

And we've had parents from all different backgrounds, dyslexia, dyscalculia, I mean adhd, autism, and like the idea is just when they're coming into our system, like to pay attention to like what's the placement exam that the student's going into?

Because typically now that parent knows more about their level and so they could set it to that appropriate level or if they don't know, they could set it to the first grade exam and we can test them from the very beginning of the system.

But like other than that, like my thought pattern on this is that like again, human beings are geared towards learning language and these students are talking to you. So like they, they have the capability to learn language.

And so like I just like to keep taking it back to that so that then the parent believes that the student can do it because otherwise there appears to be some sort of a doctor approved reason not putting the ball in the hoop.

Herb: 00:42:12

And if you kind of think about it, the autism rate in young boys right now is I believe 1 in 12 and medically fragile.

And so if you have a lot of people coming into your program and you have 98% of them hitting, I think that's what you said about 90, over 90% reaching that your, your target of a year in three months. It's like unless you like are completely skewed out and don't have any autistic people in your room. That makes no sense. Then it does.

Then it would work for those, those people as well.

Kristina: 00:42:52

Learning different. Yep.

Herb: 00:42:53

So yeah, that's, that's, that's really cool to even think about that. You don't track that and you still have numbers in the 90% because then you're obviously not taking the outliers out of your data.

So that's just well done for that.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:43:11

That knows me. It's hard to take the outliers out of the data because it's all mashed together in the database. Exactly.

Herb: 00:43:18

And you don't even track that. But with that, but with that percentage of children going through the system, it's like there's gotta be.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:43:26

Yeah.

When we research the effects, we take like a minimum usage, so it's like 20 minutes and then we say give us everyone that used it more than 20 minutes and give us the first like 10 to 20 weeks of usage and then tell us how much math. So it's like this very complicated query.

I think you could get this paper, it's on our website and, and like you can look at it and then like the next time we do this, we're going to make this query more complicated because like people ask questions like what's the. I can't remember what they asked. I can't, I'm blanking the word. But I give up.

Herb: 00:44:07

Most kids don't even get through algebra before high school. Or if they do, that's like the last subject they get in high school.

And so if you're getting through algebra even before grade school, that, that's really, really impressive.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:44:22

Yeah, I don't know how many students are doing that, to be honest with you. We get five or six year olds. They get to like fractions, decimals, percentages.

And then like at some point the parent will notice this and they'll leave and then they'll come back to or three years later.

So like it's hard to imagine that they'll get through the fractions, decimals and percentages and then see like the algebra curriculum because like in algebra now it becomes all written. So we call it the Introduction to the Written Language of Mathematics. And we say, well, because of that we're not even going to show you videos.

We're just going to, we're just going to do it written. And so like, yeah, like the younger students, they're probably going to dip out. They're going to be like what I.

Herb: 00:45:06

Am so interested to know if your mathematics program actually helps with language learning for, for, in other ways as well. Just because that, that spark that connection. I wonder. Yeah. That, that's got to help with language as well.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:45:21

Case study. But we had a group in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was an after school refugee program.

They got it through a nonprofit for free and they ran I think 30 students. I, I don't remember exactly. But on average the students learned 1.4 years of mathematics over the course of 10 weeks. That's all over the 30.

And we started to dive into some of the students and what we found was that they were maybe nine, they were close to nine years old. But they, some of these students were testing in at the four year old level. So it was almost like they had language issue. What's 2, what's 5?

Kristina: 00:46:02

Delay.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:46:03

Yeah, right. And then so like they tested in there but they very, very quickly got to about the seven year old level.

So like clearly they must have understood the math but just maybe had it challenged with the language. And so within a week or two they were at the seven year old level. Those kids still caught up to the nine year old level.

Kristina: 00:46:22

That's amazing.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:46:23

Wow.

Herb: 00:46:24

And that brings us back to homeschool kids is, is if they, if they're not getting math and then they're pulled out of school and you let them settle down and then you find what they're interested in and then you show how that's related to math and you show how what they're interested in is related to learning or reading, then they catch up so fast, even for just a couple hours a day or even an hour a day in all of the subjects and start surpassing public school education that it's just mind boggling how fast that they can actually catch up.

Once they get the foundation, once they actually get that love of learning and gamifying math in a way that, that gets right to their level and sparks them and they don't have to go through a lot of stuff that they've already learned. Oh, that's too simple. I'm bored. Just get right to where they are and then inspire that, that that's a tremendous advantage.

That, that would be great in school. But now in homeschool it's like that just gives them an even greater advantage.

And I believe you said that you have quite a lot of homeschool parents in your group and that's one of your main groups.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:47:37

Yeah, like our main focus. So like from that story in the beginning. Good. Wrap up.

Our main goal actually was could we get the student to then understand the teacher in the classroom for this exact effect that you're talking about? Right.

Because maybe I didn't get all of the different ideas that they talked about in second grade at that time, but now that I'm in third grade, if I could just catch up conceptually to where the classroom is, I can at least participate. And so that was the goal of the program. And when you're a homeschool parent, you. You are the teacher.

And so this was made for you because now your job's easier because as you're explaining them where you believe they should be, curriculum level, and we're telling you where they think we think they should be. Right? So, like, you could always try to match us where we're at to have them catch up faster even.

But as you're doing that, they actually understand you, and so your job is easier.

Kristina: 00:48:36

Yeah. Beautiful. Oh, my gosh. Dr. Negrath, thank you so very, very much. This has been an excellent interview.

I love all the different ins and outs we've taken and taken our parents through this journey. Thank you for explaining more about math anxiety as well and how to kind of reduce that that.

Was there anything that we didn't talk about that was kind of on your little checklist? I want to make sure I talk about this before we end the interview.

Herb: 00:48:57

So your book. When is your book? Your book just came out. How can they get your book? Where can they find it?

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:49:02

This book is on Amazon. I think you get it. Audible, Kindle, etc. Etc. Etc. And we're working on the second edition now. We're beefing it up quite a bit. And just as we.

As we learn new techniques.

So I gave you guys the overarching strategy, but we have a chapter just dedicated to, well, okay, if the student's doing this, then maybe you could try this sort of story.

And the idea was just that if we just present them as a set of tools, either the parent or the teacher in the classroom could then identify potentially the right tool for that moment. For example, one of them is to maybe just ignore it, right? So it's like if, like, they get it wrong and they flip out and they say something.

It's like the. If the student or if the basketball player just threw the ball against the hoop. It's just they're not even trying anymore.

And you just kind of give them a second, right? You give them two, three seconds and then you say, all Right, Next shot. Let's go again. Right.

And a lot of times they'll just pick it up and they'll just keep going. They were just releasing frustration, so it's not a big deal. Why dig into it? And that's, like, one of the techniques.

But, like, there's a whole bunch of other techniques, because sometimes you'll do that and they'll be like, no. And it's like, maybe we should take a break. Let's get some water. Let's get some. Right.

Let's make sure that, like, your nervous system gets calmed down. And so, like, there's a whole chapter full, and then we just keep adding more as we discover more. So that'll be the second edition.

Kristina: 00:50:30

Beautiful. And of course, everything is down. The show notes. You can find the book, you can find the website, everything.

Dr. Negrath, thank you again so much for being here today and for sharing this with us and our families and our audience. We really, really appreciate your time.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:50:44

Thank you. Thank you, guys for having me. I appreciate being here, and I would.

Herb: 00:50:48

Also like to thank you for being here. There are so many people that are bad at math, that have math anxiety, and they figure it out themselves and they just keep it.

But you took that and you are bringing it out to the rest of the world, and that is not easy. Being an entrepreneur is not easy, but you're persisting, and you are making the world a better place one kid at a time. And.

And that is the hero's journey.

You went out, you found a problem, you went out and you fought that dragon, and now you're bringing that information back to the community so that others can share in the wealth and enjoy math. So that makes you a hero. Thank you for being on our show. Thank you for actually doing stuff to make the world a better place.

We need more people like you.

Dr. Aditya Nagrath: 00:51:30

I appreciate you guys. Thank you. All right.

Kristina: 00:51:32

All right, audience, you know what a time it is. It's time to like and subscribe. Subscribe and share.

If you have someone in your life who might be a little math anxious, make sure you listen to this episode and grab the book and figure out how to help them be happy, healthy, and successful in that land of math. All right, everybody, bye for now.

Herb: 00:51:50

Bye for now.