Show HN: Learn Fractions with our Automated Private Tutor

Hi HN, we are Jurgen (CTO) and Raphael (CEO) from amy.app

We have been working for several years on a tool (Amy) that emulates a private tutor. Amy is based on Raphael's experience as a tutor and university lecturer in Mathematical Modeling.

Today we want to show you Amy in action by teaching you fractions.

Why fractions?: Because fractions form the foundation of many more advanced topics and is often the first major barrier to student success in maths. Mastering fractions is an important indicator of long term success.

Why tutoring?: Tutoring has been shown to be one of the most efficient ways of learning.

What's different about Khan Academy, etc.?: The main difference is, Amy identifies knowledge gaps in students and then tries to fix them. This differs greatly from most other tools which simply ask you to repeat the current exercise if you fail it.

A word about AI/LLM: First, all our math is human-curated! Second, we experimented a bit with LLMs but their math constantly failed us. Also, we are looking for pedagogically relevant math, not scientific math.

Here is a direct link to the Fractions course: <https://learn.amy.app?inviteCode=pef1d> In case it's not working you can use this code: pef1d

Contact: jurgen@amy.app Discord: https://discord.gg/N6Kcegr7 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mytutoramy/

If you want to hear about our upcoming work on SATs and other topics, please use this form: https://share.hsforms.com/1MG8hGNpDRDyULjMOyLiaMw3lmuk

Thanks for your time and we apprecate any feedback!

BrandiATMuhkuh 2y ago ↗

Here is a clickable link directly to the fractions course: https://learn.amy.app?inviteCode=pef1d

gus_massa 2y ago ↗

Do you have any screenshots?

BrandiATMuhkuh 2y ago ↗

Sure thing. Here is the main interaction. You will see how amy gives you feedback after you do something. The interaction is step by step. Instead of "give me the full answer at the end". This helps kids a lot in understanding what the correct process is https://ibb.co/rx6SZXy

gus_massa 2y ago ↗

Why does the student give 5 replies?

How does the student add the fractions? Do you have a wysiwyg editor? (I don't expect everyone to type LaTeX.)

BrandiATMuhkuh 2y ago ↗

No. What you see are buttons so select from. Too often do students give the wrong answer because their input is wrong and not their math. We took at unnecessary pitfall out of the equation. So far, teachers and students are pretty happy about this situation,

gus_massa 2y ago ↗

We did something similar with Moodle for the students of the fist year of my University. The fist quiz includes fractions, because they still can operate with fractions :( .

One of my coworkers wrote the options and the hints for the wrong answers. She has too modes: normal (where she is very smart) and student simulator (where she makes all the common mistakes).

I even patched Moodle so she can see all the hints without clicking in each option.

BrandiATMuhkuh 2y ago ↗

That's pretty cool. Is it still in use? And what affect did it have on the students. Did they learn well with it?

gus_massa 2y ago ↗

It's still in use. We have like 400 classrooms and like 400 T.A. so it's difficult to get a good statistic. We have some anecdotal evidence from students and T.A. that say that they are useful.

For example, IRL we have 7 courses of different topics/levels. One of the students took the virtual helper course for Calculus and he asked about the virtual helper course of Algebra. So he liked the first course in the first semester and wanted the second one for the second semester. We sadly had to answer that the his Algebra course would be ready 3 or 4 year later, because before that we had to complete other courses, and each course took us like 1 or 1.5 years. It was a side project (like the 20% projects), so we didn't have too much time to allocate.

We started with the biggest one that is Precalculus+Easy_calculus that is huge, then a few Calculus courses that are similar, then we started with the Algebra courses.