Photo Credit : Derrick Koh.
KungfuMath.sg is a locally-created learning portal that is able to inspire children to actively want to learn. The game-based portal allows children to solve math problems to battle with their friends, earn rewards, and support their own in-game avatar, all while learning MOE-approved curriculum.
Children can dress, feed, and care for their online avatars using points they gain from solving math problems, and according to Kungfu Math, many parents have sent in reviews saying that their children are even pestering their parents to let them practice their math on the portal.
With this learning portal, it aims to inspire children to practice mathematics on their own initiative. It is particularly useful for primary school children who are struggling with their mathematics. Kungfu Math currently has 100,000 users, with users in 26 different schools in Singapore.
Our Parenting World is pleased to interview Derrick Koh CEO of Kungfu Interactive Pte Ltd to share more about Kungfu Math learning portal and to provide valuable insights on the topic of Education
1) How is Kungfu Math different from other online learning portals for Singapore school students (eg. Learnlogy)?
Kungfu Math offers the element of “fun” and that attracts pupils to be actively engaged without any adults like parents and teachers prompting them to do so. The questions in our portal are also self-generating in which pupils will never run out of questions to solve. Other portals are more focused on content delivery than engaging the pupils.
2) What are the challenges that you and your team faced when coming up with Kungfu Math portal?
Marketing.
The notion of online learning and element of “fun” may get teachers to be extra cautious when deciding or not to subscribe to our portal. It is just like a good medicine certainly must be bitter in taste. We worked with 60 children in my student care center to come up with a portal that is enriching and yet is not “bitter”. So we are doing our best to change the perspective that learning cannot be fun.
Schools having subscribed to other vendors who are in the market earlier may also not change vendors considering re-training involved. I will say why not try something new and more innovative, and our portal is very teacher-friendly.
3) How can Kungfu Math supplement the face-to-face teaching in class and tuition for students who are weak in Maths?
We conduct outreach programs in schools where we provide trainers to provide guidance to the pupils. Also, we conduct training sessions with teachers where we share with them how to use the portal to facilitate teaching and learning.
4) How about students who excel in Mathematics i.e. in band 1, how is Kungfu Math going to help them further?
Students who excel in Math will find the portal interesting that is not adding to their stress level. They also can attempt higher order questions which are available in the portal to stretch their limits.
5) Do you have plans to offer similar online learning portals for other subjects like Science or English? What about offering Kungfu Maths for post PSLE level?
We are focusing on math at the moment as math is one of the toughest subjects for our pupils to excel in. Rather than expanding into other subjects, we are distributing our portal globally through distributors and online channels and also coming up with mobile version of our product.
6) As an educator, do you have any advice to parents on how to help their child to be successful and excel in school?
I will say give a degree of autonomy to their children in their educational paths and let them learn freely. When learning is fun, they will not feel stressed and in turn will produce better results.
Thank you Derrick Koh for taking our interview!
Please click HERE to find out more about Kungfu Math
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