Podcasts · Education

Math Academy

Math Academy

15 episodes

Stories, challenges, and discoveries from the front lines of building the ultimate math learning system.

Episodes

  1. #9 – From Families to Schools

    · 1 h 02 min

    What we covered: – It's been a few months since our last podcast, and in that time, we've seen a huge increase in the number of schools wanting to use Math Academy for this upcoming school year. – Now, if you've been…

  2. #8, Part 2 – Failure Modes in Teaching

    · 1 h 00 min

    What we covered: – In elementary school, there's often an intense focus on conceptual understanding, but not enough time spent building real fluency with core skills. And this has left many kids without automaticity…

  3. #8, Part 1 – Role of Teachers in the Math Academy Classroom

    · 54 min

    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…

  4. #7, Part 2 – Earning the Right to Scale

    · 1 h 14 min

    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…

  5. #7, Part 1 – 2025 in Review: Content Production

    · 1 h 08 min

    0:00 - Introduction 3:57 - Added 115 “Missing Middle” topics to SAT Prep 6:06 - Integrating the SAT Missing Middle topics into other courses 9:42 - Added tens of thousands of free response questions 10:34 - Free…

  6. #6, Part 3 – Learning Debt and Skill Insolvency

    · 51 min

    What we covered: • The dangers of accumulating learning debt: the gap between what you can do and what you need to be able to do. • If you miss building up your foundational skills in school or sports, you can get by…

  7. #6, Part 2 – On The Rails and Out Of Scope

    · 1 h 17 min

    What we covered: – The benefits of short problems. Math Academy problems typically take only a minute or two. This way, students can stay on the rails with lots of reps, successfully building up complexity instead of…

  8. #6, Part 1 – Why Can’t College Students Do Middle School Math?

    · 1 h 04 min

    What we covered: – A recent report from the University of California San Diego revealed that 1 in 12 incoming freshmen were not proficient in middle school math – basically, anything above arithmetic with fractions.…

  9. #5, Part 2 – Getting Kids To Do Hard Things

    · 1 h 41 min

    What we covered: – Most kids are not intrinsically motivated to do the hard things: practice their soccer drills, do their math homework, eat their broccoli. Getting them to do the hard things often requires…

  10. #5, Part 1 – Building Without Bloat

    · 1 h 17 min

    What we covered: – Any successful endeavor requires a great team: capable people, who like and trust each other, and have complementary skillsets and ways of thinking. Some modes of thinking cannot be performed at the…

  11. #4, Part 2 – Knowledge Graph Engineering: Mental Models & War Stories

    · 1 h 20 min

    What we covered: – Building a knowledge graph is like city planning & road construction. Too many prerequisites leading into a single topic creates a cognitive traffic jam. – Elegantly rewiring a live knowledge…

  12. #4, Part 1 – The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Knowledge Graph

    · 1 h 22 min

    What we covered: – Why “problem solving” is often just a vague label people use when they haven’t explicitly enumerated the underlying skills, and how those skills can in fact be exhaustively mapped in a knowledge…

  13. #3 – Waging War on Mediocrity: Tales From the Trenches

    · 2 h 29 min · Episode 3

    What we covered: -- How bureaucracies instinctively reject new ideas like an immune system attacking a foreign organ, and what it takes to keep your project from being "spit out." Concrete example: how Jason & Sandy…

  14. #2 – Teach Like Your Life Depends On It

    · 2 h 43 min · Episode 2

    0:00 - What Would a Tutor Do, If Their Life Depended On It? (Part 1) 5:47 - Find Your North Star: Why Justin Quit His Data Science Job to do Math Tutoring Full Time 11:23 - Getting "Inside the Trade" 19:31 - What…

  15. #1 – The Long Game: Building Minds and Machines

    · 2 h 36 min · Episode 1

    0:00 - Introduction 4:00 - Applying the MA Way to X Growth 7:40 - Status of the ML Course and its Kick-Ass Coding Projects (Part 1) 25:50 - Jason's Near-Infinite List of Important Things 34:20 - The ML Course Has…

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