Living, Breathing and Eating Math

Here is a sneak peek at the interview our CEO, Barry Malkin, gave to EdSurge: 

EdSurge: What’s changing at Carnegie Learning?

Barry Malkin: I took over as CEO a year and a half ago, and we have been on a mission to reinvent the products and the business itself. We’re creating a new approach to math learning, where students learn through collaboration and discussion to develop math and 21st century skills—we call it the Carnegie Learning Way. It’s a blended learning approach that combines online learning with face-to-face instruction. It’s based on decades of proven research and combines consumable textbooks, intelligent 1-to-1 math tutoring software, professional learning and data analysis services.

Our goal is to shift the teacher from the head of the classroom to moving around the classroom working with students on a more individualized basis. If you walk into a Carnegie Learning classroom you sense the difference immediately because the teacher is moving around and kids are debating with each other. Interaction between students is a regular occurrence in our classrooms and that is unique.

So we offer a blend of group-based instruction and individualized learning. The software is individualized—it’s meant to personalize a pathway for individual students. The classroom environment is where we’ve designed our textbooks and lessons to promote group-based discussion and exploration of math topics in a more creative fashion.

We’re rejuvenating a wonderful brand that’s been providing some of the most respected adaptive learning products in the market for in excess of 20 years. We’ve been working hard to bring back a spirit of independence and innovation. The employees at Carnegie Learning believed in the mission, rolled up their sleeves and worked exceedingly hard over the past year. It has been amazing. Someone recently said to me that when they joined Carnegie Learning 15 years ago it felt like a family and today it feels much like that again. It’s fun to be a part of. Really fun.

Is your technology changing too?

Yes and no. The founders of Carnegie Learning created a product that coaches students through a mathematical process with real artificial intelligence. So the core artificial intelligence engine isn’t changing.

But we’re building more functionality, content and analytics on top of that platform. For example, when a student moves through a problem in our software, not only is the problem multistep, but it also gives them contextual hints along the way to help improve their understanding and mastery of the content.

We’ve also transitioned our products from Java to a completely HTML5 cloud-based environment. Now our software is fully device agnostic and has a modern look and feel with incredibly sophisticated reporting. And we’ve made our textbooks more digestible. What’s more, we offer the professional learning services that our customers are asking for, like learning academies to strengthen math content knowledge and job-embedded instructional coaching.

Our company lives, breathes, and eats math. We want to make a truly measurable difference in math learning and outcomes. So, our products promote deep conceptual understanding, pattern matching and ultimately creativity in problem solving. And yes kids—you will use that throughout your adult life!

Read more at EdSurge

Follow Barry on Twitter: @BarryMalkin