Revamping Math Education with Cognitive Sciences
Cognitive sciences can revolutionize education the same way biological sciences revolutionized medicine.
JUMP Math is already making this happen in math education and, as far as I know, they are the only ones in the world which can honestly claim
breakthrough results on a consistent basis, shattering previous paradigms about math and student potential, especially the ones that
appear hopeless in math.
But JUMP focuses entirely on Grades 1-8.
I've had some big "JUMP-style" successes, such as helping a severely troubled 13-year-old go from 8 + 3 = 11 to acing a Pythagorean Theorem test in just 9 months. (This is not an isolated case; JUMP is doing this for zillions of kids and I've done it for a bunch myself.) Along the way, I've found that improving math education is why I was born. It's what I love to do and I'm making a living out of it now. Currently, though, I work almost exclusively 1-on-1 and am self-employed. My schedule is so full that I've told clients I can no longer accept referrals.
It's time to scale.
I'd like to start making JUMP-style lesson plans, workbooks, and other support materials, but for grades 9-12 and introductory calculus courses.
According to most sources (
I,
II,
III, etc.) the next step is to find
lead users, i.e. teachers who are already aching for better a way to teach high school math. Then I make a piece of crap to begin with ASAP (lead users tolerate initial crappiness) and iterate until I have something that they consider a breakthrough.
Questions:
- Can you think of other/better ways for me to scale my work?
- How do I find lead users? Is there a standard process for doing this? Or a standard way of doing it in the education industry?
- How should I find partners/employees/advisers/etc? (I already to know to only work with "A players" but that means tomorrow at 9am I [insert first step].)
- Aside from finding first customers and seeing what/when/if they buy, what else should I do?
Any other feedback would be greatly appreciated!
p.s. I envision my business as a benefit corporation, of which I will own 100%... if I'm so luck to have the money pour in, I'll probably convert it to a non-profit after I've made a few million.