The future trend of learning center industry is to go specialty, the competition is so fierce among learning centers, new comers would have hard time to survive if the after-school learning center is not specialized, much like many customers now go to shoe stores to only buy shoes now. To buy a math specialty learning center, the first important thing to do is to look around and find out what types of math learning centers are available.
The most traditional way of teaching math is to use drill system, although this type of learning center is much against by the modern math scholars, they are many still around especially in the North America due to the reason the homework is not as heavy when compared the other parts of the world, especially in Asian countries. So many of these types of "drill" learning centers are called themselves "self-learning centers" since they virtually do not teach kids math or help school math work. They are not doing well in Asia when compared to other parts of the world. Why? Asian schools teachers already assign so much math homework to students, students do not really need more exercises to practice, what they really need is to get more "teaching" time, not "practice' time. So the future of this type of learning centers is very limited now especially more and more parents turn to other style of learning centers when kids are complaining how boring of these self-learning teaching method. Ironically, They are effective in improving computational skills but is downright boring. If parents believe math is more than just computation then this teaching method is pretty much out dated. It has a franchise advantage that is it so closely follows the successful principle of franchise that is "teaching" is just to mark homework a repetitive task. From franchisee to franchisee, the teaching really relies on their teaching material, not teachers. Thus the concept of fast food franchise idea can be found here. Students go through a routine of having homework marked or checked and that is about all these learning centers will do. This teaching method also encourages parent's involvement in actually teaching their own kids, but quite often it gets into arguments between parents and children and it hurts each other's feelings. This is the drawback of the system. On the surface, ideologically, the teaching method sounds very good but in reality, it has problems. Since it advocates low fee and uses fast food concept to franchise, it attracts many copycats to use more or less the same "drill" method but with modified formats.
There are also learning centers with lecture style that is the learning center will teach students regardless what the students are doing at school, it is fine if the students do not have problems at school math but if they do then this type of learning center can only attract the most bright kids to go. They really have no uniformed teaching material so it is difficult to franchise and many independent math learning centers use this type of teaching and managing style. Once the super star teachers are gone, then the class also dies since the teaching almost exclusively relies on the star teachers to attract students. There are no real teaching methods, no real teaching philosophy, no systematic workbooks. It has the drawback of selling as assets in the future since there is rally no assets to sell to others other than the super star teachers. A successful franchised math learning center must weigh heavily on the teaching workbooks and they must be unique with innovative teaching idea.
There are some other new and innovative math learning centers like using abacus or some type of mental computing techniques but they also have their shares of problems. The biggest problem is their math computation techniques are so different from the way most schools are teaching, most kids abandoned what they learned as soon as they do not register at these learning centers. Without continuing practice what they learned, they will not use these techniques when going to their day schools. The benefits of learning these so called effective and innovative way of computing go wasted if they go against the mainstream teaching method and technique.
Finally, there is another type of learning center that is it does not use any out of the world computation technique that deviates from the mainstream technique but trying to come with a different teaching method which is more effective or fun. Many in the past have tried this method but failed sine no one could successful come up with a workbook which actually integrates game and math so it makes the learning environment both fun and educational. This has all changed when Ho Math ad Chess, founded by a Canadian math teacher Frank Ho, invented the teaching method by combining chess and math together, it does not do math teaching and chess teaching separately. Ho Math and Chess created the world's first commercially available math and chess integrated workbooks and successfully implement this teaching method in the worldwide Ho Math and Chess Learning Centers. It solved the problem which has boggled educators for so long that is how to create a learning environment for kids such that children could learn math while having fun?
This "educatmaint" teaching method will be the future for math specialty learning center. With the integrated math and chess innovative teaching method, Ho Math and Chess has revolutionalized the entire math learning center industry and bring the birth of a new age to the after-school math tutoring and teaching. More details can be found at www.mathandchess.com.
Frank Ho is the founder of the only international child education franchise dedicated to teaching children math through integrated math and chess. He invented the world's first math and chess integrated workbooks using Geometric Chess Language (Patents applied), Frankho Chess Mazes, and Ho Math and Chess Teaching Set. Math and chess worksheets make the math learning more fun and engaged, as a result, children become more observant in processing iniformation and become more alert when playing chess. In additional improving children's math marks, Ho Math and Chess workbooks are an excellent training tool for for improving problem solving skills and improving memory and brainpower.
More information on testimonials (over 100), sample worksheets, and franchise, please visit www.mathandchess.com.
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