Sydney-based edutech startup Mathspace, which has created an online platform helping students with their maths learning, has today announced an extension of its partnership with global publisher Pearson Education that will see its program rolled out across thousands of colleges around the US.
Mathspace will be integrated into MyMathLab, Pearson’s online homework, tutorial, and assessment product. The companies state it will be used to help an estimated nine million students over the next five years.
Founded in 2010 and launched to the public in 2012, Mathspace essentially puts the maths textbook and exercise book online, allowing teachers to mark work through the platform for both teacher and student to look back on at any time.
The startup first formed an agreement with Pearson in 2014 to offer a packaged subscription to the Mathspace system for distribution in Australia and New Zealand, offered as a supplement to Pearson’s own mathematics resources.
Mohamad Jebara, cofounder and CEO of Mathspace, said the new partnership with Pearson solidifies the startup’s footprint into the US and will introduce the product to millions of new users.
“In the USA alone, there are more than 50 million students studying maths across primary and secondary schools. To put things in perspective, our partnership with Pearson will see more students using Mathspace per year in the US than the total number of students in Australia,” he said.
As well as students in the UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong, there are over 100,000 Australian students using the Mathspace product across over 200 schools.
The platform was until this year available only to students in year 7 to 10, with demand seeing it expand to cover years 11 and 12. It is also now being launched into primary schools. It sets high schools back $30 per student per year, and primary schools $20 per student per year.
Mathspace works by offering students step by step feedback, video examples, and hints to help with problems. A ‘digital tutor’, Mathspace works by the old line our maths teachers always used to tell us: show your working.
It coaches students through each line of their working, and through this is able to identify if a student hasn’t actually mastered a specific concept or topic.
“While there are many providers who base their teaching techniques on games and multiple choice, we are not competing with those products. Any mathematics teacher will tell you that they’re more interested in the ‘working out’ than the final answer. No other technology has ever been able to capture the working out until Mathspace,” Jebara said.
The news from Mathspace follows that from fellow Sydney edutech startup OpenLearning last month of the launch of its new ‘pay for certification’ platform Learn.com.au in collaboration with Hunter TAFE.
Launching with Certificate IV in Leadership and Management and a Certificate IV in Business courses, Learn.com.au allows students to take courses for free through the platform. They are then given the choice to pay if they want to receive a nationally recognised qualification, with this model aiming to increase access to vocational education and training and improve affordability.
Image: The Mathspace team. Source: Supplied.
Trending
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.