SCIENCE, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects may not be popular among many students.
Given the worrying decline of interest in these subjects in recent years, something needs to be done to spark interest at a young age as these subjects promise amazing careers to pursue in life.
And to address this, Japanese Education Technology (EdTech) company SoroTouch has come up with a solution to make learning arithmetic easier and fun.
While the mobile application is developed and established by Digika Co Ltd, SoroTouch's president, Yasunobu Hashimoto leads it to reach kids around the world.
He joined Rakuten Inc after earning a master's degree in business administration from the University of Sheffield, and later became director of PT Rakuten Indonesia and PT Rakuten Belanja Online.
THE START
Since becoming a father, Hashimoto could not help but notice that primary school pupils in Japan and other countries, including Malaysia, do not like to study STEM subjects.
Realising that the root of the problem lies in the children's unfamiliarity with arithmetic and numbers, Digika developed SoroTouch, which improved the 2,000-year-old abacus method so that pupils can have fun while learning to do math.
"The OECD PISA 2018 Assessment 2 results showed that Malaysian pupils are below the overall average score. So, we partnered with Malaysia's mental arithmetic expert West Wong to localise the abacus method for Malaysia, which will help close the education gap," said Hashimoto.
"An EdTech company, Ai Tech House, has been working with us as our partner in the country since 2019. Despite the language barrier, this has not deterred me from communicating with my colleagues during my tenure and using the common language of numbers in commerce," he said.
INTERACTIVE LEARNING
The mastery of mental arithmetic is like the rise of Rome — it is not built in a day.
When it comes to learning, the minds of children tend to wander off in subjects they are not interested in, especially math.
This is where SoroTouch steps in and transforms the "boring" classroom into a fun and interactive environment with enjoyable games, adaptive hands-on learning, and collaboration with friends.
"Through an amusing learning experience, students will be motivated to learn while having fun at the same time. Their insistence will acquire them mental calculation skills in less than two years.
"We focus on activities with friends that can lead to remarkable learning outcomes and instil the love of math in children from a young age," he said.
SoroTouch uses a gamification approach in a "Flipped Classroom" concept that utilises the abacus method, and is powered by the company's Patent Invisible Mode for kids to visualise the mental calculation image.
"We cultivate the '4Cs' (critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication) in our classroom, as well as practice the visible and invisible mode consecutively for students to learn better.
"Besides, we also plan to give them confidence through real-life situations to improve their thinking skills. If they are up to the challenge, they will advance through the levels of mental arithmetic with increased difficulty," Hashimoto said.
SoroTouch also uses data from learning records with more than 500,000 questions daily to identify the students' weakest areas, and assign more related questions and challenges to help them improve.
"The number of questions varies depending on the students' progress and percentage of correct answers. Which means if the students solve more than 100 problems per day, it'll take two years to reach the S-12 stage, which is the advanced level of mental calculation. After clearing out all 720 missions, mental calculations can be a walk in the park," he explained.
CHALLENGES
According to Hashimoto, mastering mental calculation skills is not an easy feat. In fact, the only way to thrive is through earnest practice and repetitive drills.
"SoroTouch uses a gamification concept for children to calculate in a fun, short-term and efficient manner. Rather than relying solely on technology, the community must play a crucial part in building their children's motivation and keeping them going," he said.
Learning without succumbing to boredom is a challenge for sure. Hence, SoroTouch has created the SoroTouch Centre System, which includes SoroTouch, an app for students, SoroRoom for facilitators, and SoroHome — the content management system (CMS) to synchronise the centre's offline and online learning.
"To build the awareness of EdTech in Mental Calculation, we have been participating in various educational events, such as EdTech Asia in Hong Kong, TechSparks in India and EduTech Philippines.
"By inculcating the foundation of STEM at an early age, we can expect more children to embark on STEM fields. Since Bahasa Malaysia is now available for learning, SoroTouch can be implemented in other families that will improve STEM education in Malaysia," he said.
FUTURE PLAN
Moving forward, SoroTouch plans to expand its business overseas to nurture self-confidence and a "growth mindset" through one's experience and effort for children around the world.
"Our mission aims to uncover children's potential and improve their abilities to build a foundation for future learning," said Hashimoto.
Currently, five million Japanese and two million Malaysian children are at the appropriate age to learn with SoroTouch.
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