Whether you’re studying fractions in the classroom or calculating the tip at a restaurant, math is a key part of our daily lives. But that doesn’t mean people are comfortable using math every day! In fact, many people experience stress when faced with math-related situations—this is known as “math anxiety”. Recent studies found 93% of U.S. adults have experienced at least some math anxiety and half of high schoolers have very high math anxiety.
We felt like it was time to make learning math more fun… for everyone. That’s why we’re so excited to announce Duolingo Math! Here’s everything you need to know about the new course offering:
Duolingo + math = a winning combination
Our Math course builds on what makes learning with Duolingo so delightful and engaging: fun animations, interactive exercises, and a world of characters cheering you along the way! We have two options for new learners: beginner math, which covers foundational topics, or intermediate math, which enhances everyday skills with more challenging exercises.
We’re particularly excited about the range of inventive exercises we’ve developed to help teach and enhance foundational math topics.
Here’s a list of concepts you’ll find in the elementary course:
- Multiplication (times tables, commutative property, associative property, multi-factor)
- Division (division tables, even versus odd)
- Fractions (fractions with numbers, improper fractions, mixed fractions, comparing fractions)
- Area and perimeter
- Place value (rounding to nearest 10 and 100, rounding operations, magnitude by 10s, adding and subtracting with 3 numbers)
- Geometry (angles, parallel and perpendicular lines, quadrilateral classification)
- Measurement (reading and setting clocks, ruler measurement, metric conversion)
- Decimals (floating point decimals, converting between fractions and decimals, decimal operations, comparing decimals)
The intermediate math track covers similar content with harder exercises and increased difficulty. In this course, you’ll also find concepts that can be applied to everyday life, like calculating hourly wage.
Each of our exercises are uniquely engineered for the content they teach. One way we do this is by having learners manipulate virtual tools, like the clock below. Having learners interact with these tools allows them to focus on the most important mathematical aspects of the objects and deepens their understanding of the underlying concepts. For example, in a clock challenge, we present a simplified version of a clock with the hands set arbitrarily. Then learners can move a minute or hour hand and watch how the other hand moves accordingly, solidifying their understanding of the relationship between hours and minutes. And this is only a fraction of the fun exercises we've developed! 😉
When deciding what to teach, we look for subjects that will improve people’s opportunities in life. With Math, we are offering a free way to learn math and build foundational, essential skills that everyone can use throughout life.
Making math accessible and fun is the natural next step in our quest to bring high-quality education to everyone on the planet! As our CEO Luis von Ahn said: “As long as there are people in the world who want to continue learning things, we still have a lot of work to do. We haven’t won until we have taught everything there is to teach.”
Ready to get started?
We have big plans for our Math course... and we're revealing them at Duocon 2023 on October 11. Register today so you don't miss a single update!