“Innovamat is the solution to bad results,” says some. “Innovamat is the culprit of bad results,” others reply. But does the method work? To some schools yes, not others. And the Department of Education admits that it cannot evaluate it because it is a private company. In the absence of evidence, this newspaper has collected the experience of a happy school with the program and another that abandoned it a year ago because it did not work.
Innovamat is a creation of two entrepreneurs – Jordi Balbín and Andreu Dotti – who began their journey by riding a school reinforcement academy. Then they organized extracurricular ones about, until they decided to create their own methodology, helped by graduates in mathematics didactics. They began in 2017 with 13 Vallès Primary Schools -where the project was born -but the following year there were already 108 schools and in 2021 they started an internationalization process, especially in the United States. “It was a good time because with the new educational law, the Lomloe, a more competence teaching is requested, but no one knew how to do it. We have not created a magical formula, it is only that there was a need,” admits Balbín. Currently, Innovamat is implemented in about 900 schools (25%) and institutes, both public and private, in Catalonia (and the company considers that it has touched the roof) and 1,700 throughout Spain. Located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, he billed 16 million in 2023.
When a Center hires innovamat, it provides the notebooks of teachers and students, an application and manipulative material, in addition to an advisor that forms teachers, at the beginning of each indicates what to teach and how, and occasionally enter the classroom to observe if the method is being applied well. The method advocates a more practical teaching of matter, based on experimentation, reasoning and reflection; In short, understand what you learn. “We are like a mathematical editorial. We have not invented a rare methodology, but based on international research and experiences. And to generate a deep knowledge of mathematics, the student has to understand what he does,” says Balbín.
The Bisbat ègarahace school six years that progressively incorporated the method. “We have always opted for manipulative mathematics and even had our own material,” explains director Pepi Mayor, who admits that, at first, they had to deal with certain reluctance. “Not all teachers align, but this happens with all projects and in all schools. But as you get in peace of mind, you have the support of the guide and accompany you in classroom management.”
Other positive aspects, they add, is that. “Before you passed more to tiptoe through things you don’t master, such as geometry, which is very abstract, but now you make sure you do all the subject and indicate the questions you should ask to understand you,” says Vanessa Lucas, head of studies. And also have a complete report of the evolution of each student. This College of Terrassa is happy with the program, but admits that it cannot compare the results of its students because up to two years will not pass the diagnostic tests of the Generalitat the first promotion that has worked all primary exclusively with Innovamat.
But the system also has its buts. “Although it happens with the rest of the publishers, and in recent years they have been improving, the problem is that they do not have adaptations by levels and is not contemplated for children with learning problems,” says Mar Valverde, a reference for Innovamat at the Bisbat d’A ègara school. And ready other inconveniences, starting with the use of screens: 45 minutes in class and 30 at home a week. “Many parents also complain, on the one hand, for the price – about 45 euros per student per year – and because they learned the mates in one way and their children, from another they don’t understand it. ”
The experience with Innovamat is not positive for all centers, and some decide to leave it. This is what an Eastern Vallès school did, whose director requests not to identify to avoid controversies. After trying the method for about seven years and seeing that “the learning did not have just consolidated,” they canceled it a year ago. “One day you did the division and you did not do it again up to three weeks later, so that the students had not internalized it,” explains the director, who also details that the students knew the tricks to pass from level in the application.
“When you see a whole generation from 1st to 6th and it turns out that the subtraction does not know how to do it, it means that something is failing, in addition,” says the director, who also admits that, probably, they did not know how to apply the method. “From Innovamat they already told you that it was not necessary to do the whole book and that you could select, but the teachers took the book A Rajataba and as they did not give their lives they did not do the whole content, they also did not make decisions if something did not work.” This teacher, who is a mathematics specialist, says he modulated the program to his knowledge and his own methodology. “Until a day came that the students told me that I forgot about Innovamat and explained things in my way because they understood me better. The cloister also asked to eliminate it because they saw that the children did not learn the families no longer convinced them either, so in the end we leave it.”
From Innovamat they are aware of criticism and noise generated around them, but consider that they are a minority. “We are asking teachers and schools to change the way of teaching and sometimes that generates friction. Families also have difficulty helping their children because they learned otherwise,” says Balbín.
“They tell you what you should teach, not how”
“There has to be a responsible debate about how mathematics learning has to be,” defends Jordi Balbín, director of Innovamat in Catalonia. The problem is that this has not occurred or it seems that it will go in the short term. The director of the Bisbat d’Ar, Pepi Mayor, believes that the Department of Education should assume the materials and “unify criteria.” “The department tells you what you have to teach, but not how. Each school has different methods, so it is normal for the results to be different.”
Albert Granados, a member of the Catalan Mathematics Society, considers that at the level of methodologies, “the extremes are bad.” “We must not do exercises battery, you have to understand what is being studied, as Innovamat says. But there are things that take them to understand them and it is the practice that helps you, just like when you learn to play an instrument.” Raül Fernández, president of the Association of Mathematics Professors of Girona (in addition) points out that education, in fact, follows a line similar to Innovamat, “for the activities or programs he proposes, such as Florence, which are more to think and reason.” Fernández sees with sympathy the proposal of Innovamat, although he points out that it is “a bit crowded” and that one of the keys to work is to train teachers. “Every class of class requires an hour of preparation, if not the class can be a disaster. The problem is that many teachers do not like mathematics and the last mates what they did was in 4th of ESO. ”
