In the modern world, when knowledge is available everywhere and in every possible form, the role of educators or teachers becomes all the more crucial in shaping the future of society. They are the ones who can guide the students and save them from information overload, helping them separate fact from fiction. They are responsible not just for imparting knowledge, but life skills to students that will help them thrive in today’s economy.
The role of educators and educational institutes becomes more crucial and the demand diminishes simultaneously, as the number of potential clients (parents and students) will decrease but with more requirements. Therefore, educators and educational institutes must provide services and products with a higher quality. With the rapid advancement of technology, teachers need to be familiar with modern teaching methods and be able to use technology effectively to provide students with a holistic education. For Matthew Yip and his team, they understand that there is a demand for the recognition of students’ abilities, and it cannot be fulfilled by the digital revolution alone. So, they have made it a point to introduce interesting and competitive ways in which students can understand mathematics and be ready for its applications.
An Innovative Educator
Matthew’s current role is as an innovative mathematics educator. His institute, Top Mathematics Education Centre mainly provides 3 products or services with their uniqueness. First, he has published 14 books. For instance, “Mathewmatician’s Pedagogies Collection”, “Mathewmatician’s Challenging Problems”, “Mathematics Olympiad Masterpiece”, and “Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Learning and Teaching Masterpiece”. It is impossible or very difficult to find similar publications in the market. For this reason, their readers come from more than 40 countries or regions.
Second, they have published the “Global Mathematics and Mathematics Olympiad Graded Assessment Test with Competition”. The current math public exams do not have a detailed grading system, and there is no competition to examine the school math. On the other hand, the Mathematics Olympiad competition does not have a systematic and popular training system, leading to unfairness in these competitions, such as the use of a large amount of money to purchase training courses, and the difficulty level of the questions exceeding the range of the questions that the students of that grade have learned, so that only a small number of questions need to be answered to win the award.
Therefore, the Global Mathematics and Mathematics Olympiad Graded Assessment Test with Competition could improve all the above problems at the same time, and be open to all ages to apply. It will encourage people with higher math intuition to learn faster, and people with lower math intuition to apply after completing the preparation, and graduated individuals can apply at any time to improve their math level. In addition, applicants can get a free preparatory course, which is sufficient and fair learning support, to reduce the inequality brought by different family backgrounds.
Third, the Top Mathematics Education Centre has published an automatic math learning system, called “Mathewmatician’s Dictionary”, which integrates textbooks, notes, teachings, exercises, and assessments into one, allowing each student to learn actively according to their own abilities and at their own pace. The progress is also automatically adjusted according to each student. Students must be able to fully rely on themselves to complete all the math problems in a topic before moving on to the next topic, to ensure that they will not be unable to understand the content of the later topics due to the insufficient absorption of the previous topics.
Finding his Light
Matthew’s professional journey has two key turning points. The first turning point was during his high school course selection. He had to choose one subject between economics and additional mathematics. He chose economics considering the subject to be more practical. His grade in compulsory mathematics came out to be the highest, while that in economics was just average. He realized that he had a talent for mathematics, so he spent a year self-studying additional mathematics and chose a major in mathematics at university.
The second turning point was after Matthew started university. He began to teach at private tutoring and mathematics tutoring classes. The first reason was to support his study financially and the second was that he found it difficult to understand the course content through the lectures of the teachers. This was not because they taught poorly, but because he believed that mathematics has a unique learning mode. He could fully rely on himself to study by reviewing notes and reference books after class. Therefore, he spent a lot of time working part-time to earn income.
During the time he took up private tutoring and mathematics tutoring classes, Matthew did not want to make the same mistakes as those university lecturers, and he hoped that every student could understand his teaching. Therefore, he constantly studied and improved his teaching methods. On the other hand, he found that many mathematicians may not be able to prove some of the more important theorems even if they spend their entire lives. Compared with this, he hopes to do more beneficial things for people in the field of mathematics education in his limited lifetime.
“To be a mathematics educator, there are a few reasons. First, I just love math. but not other subjects since I was a teenager. I enjoy the process of solving different math. problems, and teaching my classmates to solve difficult problems. Second, my father gave me “Matthew” as my English name when I was born, I believe that my life mission is to be a mathematics educator, but not to be a mathematician. The reason is I realized there could be many improvements in mathematics education, and I hope I can be the leader to change the current situation,” says Matthew.
Beating Challenges Skillfully
Matthew’s biggest challenge is not in the development path of mathematics and mathematics education but in his ATCL piano performance exam. When taking any mathematics or other exams, as well as lower-level piano exams, he passed all at once. When he was in high school, he took the piano performance exam for the first time, and the result was far from a passing score. Then he focused on his studies, and after entering university, he continued to work hard to practice. The second time, he made a significant improvement, but it was still a small score from passing. Therefore, he worked hard every day to practice and improve and finally passed with a passing score for the third time. However, when he continued to register for the LTCL exam, no matter how hard he tried, he could not reach a score close to passing. Therefore, he decided to give up and focus on developing the field of mathematics and mathematics education.
As he accumulated achievements in mathematics education, he found that the lowest level of piano performance exam seemed very small. In this experience, he realized the following three points.
(1) Persist if it is close to your own ability.
(2) As age increases, gradually give up those fields that have not enabled one to reach the top of the field.
(3) As long as there is one field left, continue to persist until reaching the top of the industry.
Matthew continues to apply his learnings in his life thereafter. At work, he sets up his ultimate goal and then separates it into smaller goals. After that, he ranks the order of each small goal by the combination of importance and urgency. Finally, he uses the principle of “first effective, then efficiency” to achieve his goals. For him, the process is to first enhance his own strengths, including education, professional qualifications, and teaching experience, and then enhance personal achievements, such as helping students achieve good grades in public exams and competitions and publishing various meaningful publications.
The next step Is to make good use of his own strength and personal achievements to increase personal fame, and at the same time launch the life-representative work of the greatest math educator, namely the Global Mathematics and Mathematics Olympiad Graded Assessment Test with Competition and automatic mathematics learning system (Mathewmatician’s Dictionary). Finally, uses the reputation, strength, and achievements he has accumulated to promote the above two life representative works, to improve future math education development.
Trends in the Industry
Matthew shares that for the next 5 years, the involvement of AI in education, including math education, will have a greater proportion and significance. Therefore, he. Along with his team members are involved in a continuous process to learn the latest tools in AI, and find out which of them are suitable to their products or services. “For example, we would like to develop an automatic grading system by AI in the long term, to reduce the demand for mathematics teachers, to release good mathematics talents to engage in professions other than teaching mathematics, give full play to their strengths, benefit the people, and accelerate human development,” he explains.
Goals for the New Year
Matthew’s ultimate goal is to be recognized as the greatest mathematics educator. To achieve that, first, he and his team are setting up the “Global Mathematics and Mathematics Olympiad Assessment Test”, to assess all students fairly and without age restrictions. Second, they are developing an automatic math learning system – Mathewmatician’s Dictionary, which integrates textbooks, exercises, and classrooms into one, starting from the basics and teaching each math problem step by step. Third, they are to promote an optimized method to learn math, to improve effectiveness and efficiency.
Matthew lists our four main reasons for him to achieve the above goals.
- Let people now and in the future learn mathematics anytime, anywhere, according to personal needs and progress.
- To enable individuals with high mathematical aptitude to learn advanced mathematics and Olympiad mathematics more quickly. People with weaker mathematical abilities should the same amount of time mastering basic mathematics. Once they reach the level required for their chosen profession or further studies, they can stop, rather than forcing themselves to study mathematics in higher grades.
- In the future, academic qualifications will not be divided (the division of Bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees is not necessary); instead, recruitment standards in the workplace will be based on grades obtained in various subjects and their levels from public assessments.
- Reduce the demand for mathematics teachers, improve the average quality of the remaining mathematics teachers, release good mathematics talents to engage in professions other than teaching mathematics, give full play to their strengths, benefit the people, and accelerate human development.
“Since my goal is to be a great person, but not a rich person, I expect my life will not change a lot in the near future. On the other hand, I strongly believe I could make great progress in 3 to 5 years,” says Matthew.
Words of Encouragement
Matthew concludes with the following advice for young entrepreneurs:
“First, in the early stages of life, seek and establish personal ultimate goals, as well as break them down into smaller goals to achieve the ultimate goal. In the process of striving, enjoy the joy of achieving each small goal.
Second, time is far more important than money. There are far more people who die of old age than of hunger. Changing the time originally spent pursuing goals to pursuing money and material enjoyment is a reversal of the meaning of life.
Third, do not be influenced by other people’s thoughts, and do not let others control you, thereby giving up self-realization.
Finally, try to experience and enjoy special moments in your life.”
Quote: “Fulfil what you need, find out what you want, then take action!”
Quote: “I have devoted myself to the field of mathematics education.”
