Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
Conquering the Fear of Mathematics and Navigating AI's Role in Education with Vibeke Gwendoline Fængsrud
Have you ever felt like math was an insurmountable mountain, no matter how hard you tried to scale it? Vibeke Gwendoline Fængsrud, masterful mathematician and educator, joins us on the Teach Middle East Podcast to recount her incredible transformation from math struggler to passionate teacher and how she now helps others conquer their maths fears. Through our engaging conversation, we dissect the critical importance of a solid mathematical foundation, pinpointing the common setbacks caused by overlooked learning gaps. Vibeke's approach to prioritising diligence in homework is not just about getting it done, but mastering it deeply, a lesson that resonates far beyond the mathematics classroom. She underscores the remarkable dedication required by teachers to adapt their methods to a spectrum of student needs, shining a light on the heroes behind the scenes of education.
As we navigate the evolving terrain of artificial intelligence, its encroachment into the realm of education beckons a discussion on the fate of human jobs and the vital, unchanging significance of literacy and numeracy. We address the growing gap that AI might forge between the tech-savvy and the less informed and the pressing need to prevent a societal split. Delving into the heart of teaching, we celebrate the human qualities of empathy and care that AI has yet to mimic, recognizing these elements as the lifeblood of education. Join us for this thought-provoking session that intertwines the narrative of personal triumph with the broader implications of AI in our lives.
Connect with Vibeke here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibeke-gwendoline-f%C3%A6ngsrud-4812015a/
Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.
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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson
Connect with Leisa Grace:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace
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Hi everyone, this is Lisa Grace, and welcome to the Teach Me the Least podcast Today. I am really honored to have Vibhike coming all the way from Europe. She's going to tell us all about herself, but I was introduced to House of Math on my recent trip to Hong Kong. Vibhike was there, but she had to rush, so I had to grab her really quick because her story is so inspiring and the work she's doing in Math. I actually went and read up on House of Math to find out, okay, what's going on here. It sounds intriguing, and so then, once I met her in person, I was like I want to talk to you on the Teach Me the Least pod. And so here we are.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Teach Me the Least podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.
Speaker 1:Welcome, vibhike.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here. It's truly cool, and thank you for reaching out. When we were in Hong Kong together, I was super touched.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Tell us who are you. Why are you on this mission? Give us the short version in like a minute.
Speaker 3:Well, my full name is Vibhike Gwendolin Feinsterd. I slunked Math in high school. I was even cut back a year, but I always wanted to be good at Math. So I set out on the course of this mission to figure out how am I going to learn this stuff? So over the years I decided to go back and my journey started as a 20 year old, having to learn Math from fourth grade like a 10 year old because I had so big gaps. So I started to learn Math then fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, all the way up through high school. Then I started studying theoretical mathematics at the university.
Speaker 3:I don't recommend that without knowing Math, that was really hard. But you know, if you don't give up and just you know give yourself a little tiny goal, you will reach there. And now I have my Masters in Mathematics and Mathematical Finance and I'm a Math teacher as well, and which is really important to me. And now my mission is to spread all over the globe my teaching methods, the way I taught myself and how I went from flunk to Mastering Math. That's my big goal.
Speaker 1:Amazing. That's a really big, audacious goal. The thing is right between you and I and the thousands of people listening to this, I struggled with Math like it was a struggle and in the end, when I had to have Math because I wanted to become a teacher and in the UK you can't become a teacher unless you first of all have your GCSE Math and second you've got to do the skills test I don't know if they still do them, somebody can tell me in the comments and so I had to go as a graduate, when I was doing my PGCE, to go and get extra tutoring for Math. So help me out. What's wrong? Why are so many of us struggling, as young people, with Mathematics?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with us, okay. Second of all, there's something wrong with the system, and there are many things wrong, but one thing that we all need to keep in mind is that Math is a brick by brick building, and if you lose one brick, that's enough to take you off course and into the storm. So let's say that you get a flu or you get an illness and you're away from school for a week, and that week you learn something new that was Substantial and Math. That can be enough to throw your Math for the rest of your school career offline. Nothing more than that, and that's one problem. So always remember when you're sick you need to go back and do the Math homework, and I also say that when you have to choose, always do Math first. It's easier and I would say kind of easy to learn history just reading it and at a later stage in life. But learning Math is something you can do while you're lying in bed at night or when you're just out and about. Learning Math takes a lot of effort and you need to be focused and concentrated and you need the context to be in place, so it's also demands more from the surroundings. So always, whatever you do, even though you might hate Math, always do your Math homework first and then.
Speaker 3:A third point is when you do your Math homework, it's all about learning the homework, not finishing the homework. And some of us are like, well, if I just tell the teacher I tried, then I can get away with not doing it. You just have to show effort. But my dad told me, through life you may have a lot of really good reasons for why things weren't done, but at the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that it's not done and you don't know what you're supposed to. So be very, very careful when you come up with excuses, because you're the only one who's going to get punished at the end of the day. So that's also one third thing that is really, really important Keep math first and make sure you do your math homework to learn it, not to finish it. That's two very different goals. And then you also need to give.
Speaker 3:Teachers have probably one of the most difficult occupations in the world. I mean having 20, 30 people in your class who are all different, who all need different support, different teaching styles. They have different base levels, different gaps in different places. So your teacher is working really hard to figure out. How am I going to teach everyone at the same time when there are different levels and different abilities and different homework attitudes? So know that your teacher really makes a huge effort in terms of how to help everyone, but also now following up 20, 30, 40 people in a class is almost inhumane and impossible to do. So I think that's also really important to keep in mind.
Speaker 3:And a sixth thing I ask my students all the time when they come in and we meet for the first time. I go, you expect me to be a great teacher. You expect me to know the answers to all your questions and to teach each and every one of you the way you need to. But what's your contribution to this learning situation? What are you going to contribute with? Because you're putting me in a pedestal very high and you have very clear demands on what I'm going to deliver on. What are you going to deliver on you as a student, as a pupil? What are your deliverables? Because I have some really clear deliverables I expect you to be on time, I expect you to bring all the stuff you need in order to participate in class and I expect you to do the homework we agree on, and I expect you to behave and focus in class. These are your deliverables that you will be measured against, and if I don't deliver, on what I know.
Speaker 3:That means I'm not answering questions, I'm not teaching and I'm not showing up on time, I'm not prepared for class, you get to complain. And if you're not showing to class with your deliverables, I get to complain. But if both of us deliver, we are going to become a great team and you are going to be really good at math. It's that simple. And then, of course, I super respect if you're struggling with homework. That's why giving good homework is an art in itself. And then I built this house of math platform so that when you're sitting home doing your homework, you can always just go to house of math and we'll help you in whatever you need. Tell me more.
Speaker 1:That was very short, but you're not done, vibhike. You're not done because I want to know a little bit more about what you're doing differently to help students master math at House of Math.
Speaker 3:So the foundation is just completely different, because most website or apps or teaching platforms are very, very catered to kind of three things what grade are you at, what class, what does the teacher need to evaluate you and what does the parent need to follow what you're doing. But these platforms aren't catered to what did you, as a student, need to learn in the best possible way? And we know that in the Nordics, for instance, the average competency level within a class differs in five years.
Speaker 3:So the difference between the weakest and the strongest student is five years incompetent. That's a huge gap, right? So when you go on and it's the same linear path for everyone, how's that going to work? It doesn't. It does not work. It's that simple.
Speaker 3:And I think that's why we're seeing your first question why do so many people fail? Why does so many people struggle with math? Because they're made for the average student, and the average student doesn't really exist Because we're all unique individuals, right? So the way that we build a house and map is it's all open all 13 years. So if you want to go like super fast, you can do that. If you want to go super slow, you can do that. If you want to go in circles, because you find something to be really difficult and you just need to revise very much to do it, then you're able to do that. If you feel like, oh, I'm really good at this thing, like I'm actually really good at multiplication, and then that's an invention to be hard, then we'll figure that out. But also, the strength of it is that you're able to do what you do in school and in the next minute you can tell your gaps, because that's often what you see, right, everyone is struggling with fractions.
Speaker 3:What I see to be the biggest problem with people struggling with fractions is ask your times tables? You know your times tables? And if you do don't, then fraction is going to be impossible to write. It is not going to work. So then we have to go back and we need to work a little on our times table or say you're working on linear equations and actually there are not that many rules for linear equations, like four rules, and most people find these rules really easy. However, if you don't know fraction, four times tables fractions are going to be a mess. But you as a user, you're going to feel that I don't get linear equations. But that's not a problem. You're probably good at linear equations, you're just missing something else.
Speaker 3:So the way that we're building House of Math is that you get to work on filling your gaps when you need to and then being classed when you need to, and just back and forth, back and forth, in a way that's going to strengthen your learning and that's why you learn math faster, easier and smarter, and then we have an AI underneath that has it all mapped out to be a good guidance for you and, of course, we have all the statistics. And it's game and fun. You have an avatar and a pet dragon and it's super fun to be on these quests. So, of course, what we call the math delivery system, which is basically how to present math in a way that makes you focus, concentrate, be engaged and have fun while doing it. That's also something we focus very much on.
Speaker 1:How long on average do students need to spend on the platform? Maybe daily or weekly?
Speaker 3:That really depends on where you are. I, of course, if you want to become like super good and the better you want to get, the more time you want to spend there, because it's like anything else, the more you do, the better you become. But I think that we've talked about a lot is I mean, if you were to only spend like 10, 15 minutes a day, you would become very strong, solid and you get those gaps filled and you would be able to follow an increase. But for you also, if you would spend like half an hour every week in addition, that's always going to pay off as well. That's a lovely part about math, right? Because whatever you do extra, it's going to pay off. So if it's only five minutes a day or 10 minutes a week, those extra minutes actually can count. That's a good part, that's a very good part. That's one of the great parts about math, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because what you said at the beginning was really key, that it's building a house brick by brick. That analogy is really really good, because you can see if bricks are missing, things start to tumble down and it really does mean that you have to go back to foundations and build all the way up again. When it comes to in the classroom, how can teachers make use of House of Math alongside what they're doing in the classroom?
Speaker 3:So basically, what we suggest, and that I personally have had very good experience with, is when you have a class working and you're supposed to do this and that it's hard to follow all the students because one teacher can only talk to one student at the time.
Speaker 3:When they're not lecturing, they're going around helping and they're working, and then using House of Math as that extra helping hand, saying, oh, I think that we need to strengthen multiplication. You can just go on, you go to the multiplication game which is basically the best way and most efficient way on learning the multiplication tables is going to multiplication master, you go in there and you would sit and do that and then using it as a gap filling tool, because you can't build that next brick if you don't have the one underneath and we can get angry or frustrated, like well, you have to learn this, yeah, but it's still not going to happen if you don't get that initial brick in place. So using it as that brick filling tool is a monumental way to actually use House of Math in class when you're having work sessions, but also as a part of the homework, so you can basically use homework time to gap fill time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to talk to you a little bit about something, because I know you said there is AI underpinning some of what you're doing at House of Math. But let's talk a little bit about AI and how students utilize that Like. Where do you see it fitting in in the whole education landscape? How do we get students and even teachers to use AI effectively?
Speaker 3:That is an amazing question. It's a great question. I think that on average, we don't really know because it's still pretty young and I think a lot of people are worried that it's being used to cheat and having AI do the whole homework. And from my point of view, my worry is it's like having that friend that does all your homework and your friend that's really smart and gets a really good education and a great career and earns a lot of money and you're stuck with nothing. That's kind of where we are in the AI world right now. So AI is running off with all the good stuff and we're stuck in behind.
Speaker 3:And let's be a little honest about things. When you have a company, like I have, and I go I have a problem that we need to solve and to solve that problem I'm going to hire a person or AI. But let's say we're going to hire a person and then I say, okay, to build this, we need these and these things, we need these and these skills in order to solve the problems. So I need to hire a person to have these skills. I don't really care why you don't have those skills, because I'm just certain for the person who has, which means I'm going to hire the friend who did all the homework, but that's the person with the skills. Then you, of course, can be like yeah, but then there's these excuses again and I hear you, but you're not going to end up with the job, because your friend who did all the work is going to get the job.
Speaker 3:So what we see with AI right now is that AI is taking over a lot of jobs that just a year ago were very, very safe, which means that one of the most important skills you need to have as a person in this new modern society is the ability to learn and wanting to learn and upskill yourself, because the way I have no clue, if I'm just going to be honest, what kind of work is going to be gone in five years and what new positions are going to be in place in five years. I think nobody knows. If you talk to whomever everyone's like, we don't know, but what we know, it's going to look very different. The only way we can actually be a part of that is to upskill. Then you need some very basic skills to be able to follow that. These basic skills are you need to be able to read, to write and do math. Those are the basic skills. Then you need to be able to read and write English, because that's the international language. The more languages you learn, the better. But these are the fundamental skills, because if you can't read, write and do math, then there's nothing you can't learn. So I think that focusing now on basic skills, those tools that put you in a position to learn, is going to be more important than any time before. And, as I say on a weekly basis here at House of Math, before math was for engineers, math teachers and bakers. The rest could fairly get along with that too much, but now it's not like that anymore. Math is one of the most important tools to be able to see fake news from facts. Look at sources and critique them Like is this a reliable source, is it not? And it's an art, technological and digital world. It exists, all based on math.
Speaker 3:Understanding math is now something everyone needs to do at a completely different level than we did before.
Speaker 3:Like back in the days, it was like if you know math, you can be like economists and finance and engineer and doctor, and if you didn't, you'd go into marketing or something else. What has happened now, just in the past five years? Marketing is completely data-driven. It's all based on numbers. So people who chose a way math and didn't want to do that, who went into marketing are now, like I am, being attacked by math at all angles, and this is happening in a lot of offices in a lot of jobs out there and things that were just like math wasn't real, that relevant is not jumping on you from all sides, so this is also something that worries me in terms of we're gonna create a new system those who understand math, technology and science and those who don't, and we need to get as many people as possible across the divide so that we at least have enough so we can follow into this new modern society that we don't really know what's gonna look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so right. You know you had me thinking just now. I was going I wonder what jobs are going to disappear. But the key thing I started to think about, which I'm gonna ask you about before we finish the podcast, is what skills do you think AI will not replace? Because we need to double down on those. What?
Speaker 3:are those we make.
Speaker 3:Well, I think there's a short term goal here and a long term goal. Okay, I mean, I'm one of those who think that, for all we know, we're gonna be able to make that AI that works like a brain and then they're gonna be just like us. But short term, ai isn't going to be sensitive, sensitive in feeling, psychology. It's going to have its biases, it's going to have these hallucinations that we talk about. I think that caring, that anything that has to do with caring, is something we, short-term, is not going to feel from an AI. Then you see that, well, people have AI boyfriends and girlfriends already. It's because some people are more innovative and more adaptable than others. Like any other product, it's like an innovation product and then more adaptors, and then early adaptors, later adaptors, then it matures and then you have the people who just comes on after a while.
Speaker 3:I think it still makes a lot of funny suggestions in math and it still does a lot of weird stuff. I think that now we have to really double down in actually building knowledge on ourselves being fact-based. You can't trust AI straight off the bat because it says a lot of weird stuff. I think another thing is you can see it when people have written something with AI, you just get that oh, that's an AI way of formulating stuff. Yeah, because it's so professional, has that tone of voice All of a sudden, when we go over to having AI write our emails and they all look the same.
Speaker 3:When I then write an email in the Bickey words to you, then you're going to feel special because I actually took the time to say hey, it's like you could get a letter these days, not just a thumbs up or a like or a heart. You're writing that extra special. I think stuff like that. But this reality is always way more extreme and crazy than any imagination is. I'm not going to sit here and think that I have a strong enough imagination to even be able to try to predict what's coming out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for real, before we go off. How can people learn more about House of Math and where do they need to go to?
Speaker 3:Go to houseofmathcom. It's an easy web address. There you will find all information to contact us directly. We can have conversation if there's anything, or just go on and learn as much math, as you can Also know that we are continuously improving and developing the platform, so if you go on today, in 14 days it may be different. So it's very important for us to always optimize and develop the product to be the best there is.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 3:Thank you, breke, thank you so much and thanks for having me. We've been so lovely talking.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmedaleastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.
