Approaching the curriculum development team about the fastest curriculum to acquire abacus-style mental calculation skills!
Takahashi (hereinafter referred to as --): Mrs. Iwasa and Mrs. Miya, thank you for taking the time today to talk about the development of the curriculum for the abacus-style mental calculation learning app "SoroTouch". Could you briefly introduce yourself?
Iwasa: I am a university classmate of Chairwoman Yamauchi. When I first became interested in early childhood education after raising my children, Yamauchi told me, "I want to create educational materials specifically for mental calculation". I felt connected to this idea, which continues to this day.
Since the beginning, I have mainly been creating and developing teaching materials, but I also teach classes to see the students' reactions firsthand.
Miya: I learned the abacus when I was little and majored in education at university. I joined Digika because I was attracted to the combination of the two things that I was most interested in which are abacus and education.
Until last month, I was working in the curriculum development team while working as the center administrator at the lab center. From this month (November 2023) I have been focusing on developing the curriculum.
-- Thank you. I have also heard from Chairwoman Yamauchi that "Iwasa knows about all the history of the curriculum of SoroTouch"...!
Mrs. Miya also has a 10-dan in mental calculation so "SoroTouch development has a strong backbone of abacus-style mental calculation", which is a big attraction.
Consistent curriculum structure since its inception
-- First of all, when you were developing the curriculum with the theme of, "Learning abacus-style mental calculation as quickly as possible", what did you do first?
Iwasa: First, we defined an advanced mental calculation expert (clear stage S12) and summarized the curriculum that should be studied for that purpose. Although there have been some name changes and some additions, there have been no major changes since April 2014.
Based on this curriculum, we make changes in the curriculum while always asking ourselves, "What should we do to help students understand how to move abacus beads and establish strong mental imagery skills ?"
-- As a person in the industry, I found it innovative that you took the effort to define and categorize the process in which students progress in their calculation abilities (I looked through the confidential materials, and the categorizations are very detailed).
Iwasa: Thank you.
At SoroTouch, students who have cleared the S12 stage are designated as "mental calculation masters" and approximately 900 students have achieved this goal in 2022.
-- The S12 stage can be said to be about the 3rd-level mental calculation in the abacus world. Wow! The achievement rate of "mental calculation master" among first to third graders is extremely high.
Quoted from 2022 SoroTouch learner demographics and learning results
--Even in the traditional abacus class, which strictly teaches mental calculation, I feel that the pace is extremely fast for children to reach the 3rd-level mental calculation at around the age of 8. I know it is very rude to ask, but students don’t automaticall
Iwasa: In SoroTouch, you can't advance to the next stage unless you meet certain criteria, so it will not be an "automatic" advancement just by clearing missions. The learning amount required to reach the level of "mental calculation master" varies from student to student.
▼Watch the S12 stage▼
How to efficiently study with SoroTouch
--I am convinced that students can learn abacus-style mental calculation at a very fast pace! Could you please tell me about how to efficiently use the SoroTouch app?
Iwasa: The first thing is to do your “today's mission” every day. The missions are a combination of “Calculation problems'' and “Games'' that can help students learn and deepen their understanding, allowing them to learn abacus-style mental calculations in a well-balanced manner.
--I understand that it is not enough to just solve calculation problems and that it is necessary to provide supplementary training according to the student's needs...! The fact that this assignment can be presented as a "Games" on a tablet rather than as problems written on paper is a big advantage.
Miya: Exactly! One thing I would like to add about games is that when you open the game list, there are several games with Thumbs up marks.
These are "Currently recommended games" that are appropriate for each stage and are designed to provide supplementary practice to what students are currently learning.
For example, if the students are in the J3 stage, games suitable for J3 stage learners will be marked.
Ingenuity that helps maintain motivation
--If students get lost and start thinking, "What should I do now?", it will be difficult to maintain motivation. "Today's mission" and "Games" suitable for each student are a perfect lineup to maintain motivation... Do you have any other ideas for maintaining motivation?
Miya: Regarding the ways to maintain motivation, the "Ranking" function has recently been improved. The ranking is now displayed by the number of missions cleared by month/day, and with a recent update, the ranking is now subdivided by stage.
The subdivision has not only increased opportunities for children to be happy such as, "Out of all the students in the world studying at the S5 stage, I'm in 6th place!", but it will also help parents to praise their children. We have received many comments such as "It is easier to praise my child!" and "My kid is enjoying watching ranking", I feel that this feature can strongly increase student’s motivation.
Miya: Also, "Early Riser" on the right side of the ranking is interesting! It's wonderful to see that some students open SoroTouch even before 6 a.m. so that they can be the first ones to get up early and do SoroTouch!
I also think that SoroTouch's unique feature is that it helps to praise children's hard work from various angles and perspectives.
--There is a lot of creativity and ingenuity that considers the children, not only in terms of learning but also in areas other than learning. I feel like this is what education is all about.
Miya: To add on, a special animation will only appear if students study for 7 days in a row.
Amazing points about SoroTouch!
--As an abacus instructor, I would like to share one thing that I was most impressed with about the teaching materials. That is, the division mode in SoroTouch. I feel like it incorporates the good parts of handwritten calculations that you can't do with an abacus.
Iwasa: It was a rough road to make the division mode. It took three years of long discussions within the company to arrive to its current form.
--What impressed me most was that it was difficult to mistake the 0 position of the answer.
I think it's easy to imagine the mistake of "setting 67 instead of 670", but there are also many mistakes in the abacus such as "the 0 in between is missing". For example, setting 67 rather than 607".
The “SoroTouch method” allows students to place the answer vertically instead of horizontally, which I find truly revolutionary.
Creating a system to continue delivering a robust curriculum
--As an abacus/mental calculation 10-dan and as an educator, I can clearly say that the SoroTouch app is a good product. How do you come up with so many ideas and approach the product development from various points of view? Is there anything special that you do to come up with these creative ideas? (Takahashi, who is confident in his creative ability, is feeling defeated)
Miya: I think one of the reasons is that our company places great value on leaning into and listening to the various inquiries we receive.
There are many things we don't notice ourselves. We listen to the feedback from those who are learning as students, as well as the voices of parents and center management partners, and we roll out new features based on such user feedback.
--（I saw it on X this morning！）
ア！ハイ、THIS IS フラッシュ検定用ゲーム！（カタコト）
— いおり先生🌏そろタッチ (@sorotouch_ise) November 24, 2023
そろタッチの開発部ってそろタッチユーザーの声を凄い大事にしてるので是非【大事なこと】も【声を大】にし【メンション付】けた【要望】もしくは【独り言】をお願いします！
This is a game to practice for the Flash Test!
The SoroTouch development department places great importance on the voices of SoroTouch users, so please make sure to shout out the important things with a mention!
Iwasa: However, new features won't be implemented right away. New features are first reflected in the Lab Center app, completed while incorporating the reactions and opinions of the children, and then released to the entire app.
The SoroTouch app we have today is possible thanks to the cooperation of Lab Center students.
-- Within the larger PDCA framework to improve the SoroTouch app as a whole, you have the Lab Centers schools which act as the smaller PDCA framework to beta test with a faster feedback loop.
Hats off to you...
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Digika's SoroTouch makes you think, "It's great. But it will be even better a year from now."
Next: Taking a peek inside the SoroTouch Iidabashi Lab Center
▼Click here to try SoroTouch!▼
▼＼Trying the newest features?!／Click here for information on the SoroTouch Lab Center▼
▼SoroTouch Official Website▼