Learnmojo

I get asked this pretty regularly:

What kind of student is a good fit for learnMOJO?

To be honest, online learning is not for everyone.

There will be certain students who still need somebody to sit beside them, basically look at them doing the work.

So if your child needs that kind of supervision, traditional tuition might work better for them.

The students we work with are not necessarily very self-motivated, but they're willing to try something different to improve their performance.

They're more or less open to doing some work outside of the lessons.

What I usually look for is whether the student is already doing their school work.

If they're already completing what the school teacher assigns, already trying even if the results aren't there yet, then they're a good fit for us.

We do get students who are quite laid-back as well, but at the very least they need to be doing school homework.

Those students will benefit from our program because we can help them work smarter, not just harder.

But if your child is not open to tuition at all, I would say don't force them.

Wait for them to be ready. Let them come to you and say they need help.

Then you can look for options together.

It works much better that way.

Follow .humanities if you want to learn more about whether online Humanities coaching is right for your teen.

I've been asked this before:

Why did you start learnMOJO as an online program instead of opening a traditional tuition center?

To be honest, both have their strengths.

As a teacher, I would say being in the same room as students is my preference. There's that energy exchange, and I can tell from body language whether they're getting it or whether they need more help.

But traditional tuition centers face certain constraints.

Because they have to pay rent, they need to make sure every class has a certain minimum number of students before they can sustain their costs.

So classes tend to be a bit bigger, and it becomes harder to give personalized attention.

The other thing is time.

Students these days are incredibly busy.

School starts at 7am. Curriculum time goes till about 3pm. Some days they have supplementary classes till 5 or 6pm. Then CCA twice a week till 6pm.

A lot of our students only get home by 7pm.

Then how to go for tuition class? It's quite stressful for them actually.

With online coaching, they save travel time. They don't have to rush from school to a tuition center and back.

For our lower sec mastery program, students only attend 2.5 hours of live classes per month instead of 8+ hours with traditional tuition.

First lesson is one hour where we teach content and skills. Second lesson is a live practice sprint where the coach monitors their responses in real time and gives feedback on the spot.

Then the third and fourth weeks of the month, they consolidate their learning, do additional practices, submit for marking, and ask questions in the course area.

If they miss a class, they can watch the recording.

So it's more flexible, takes less time, but they still get the guidance and feedback they need.

Not every student suits online learning, but for students willing to try, it can work really well.

Follow .humanities if you want to learn more about our online Humanities coaching approach.

Parents ask me this sometimes:

How do you structure the learnMOJO programs so students can spend less time but still get better results?

To be honest, we bake in certain neuroscience-backed practices to help students actually master the subject instead of just cramming for exams.

We use a four-week mastery cycle.

Week 1 and 2 are live lessons. First lesson covers the content and skills they need to answer exam questions. Second lesson is a guided practice sprint where the teacher walks them through questions and gives real-time feedback.

Week 3 and 4 are consolidation weeks. Students do additional practice, submit for marking, ask questions, and the teachers guide them along.

So throughout the month, they're continuously practicing and getting feedback, not just showing up for a 2-hour lesson once a week.

We also have an online portal with everything they need for the entire year.

Chapter summaries, exam skills guides (basically our kung fu manual), recommended answer structures, and a full package of about 30 practices including mini practices and revision papers.

They also get two full end-of-year mock exam papers to try before their actual exams.

Because with the abolition of mid-year exams now, a lot of parents tell us they don't know where their child stands until it's too late. WAs are limited in scope, not full papers.

So we give them full papers to practice with beforehand.

All the practices come with recorded videos walking through the answers. Students can self-evaluate if they don't want to submit for marking.

We teach them how to use the marking rubrics so they understand how markers are looking at answers.

By the end of the year, they can look at their own answers or even their friends' answers and roughly tell which level it falls into and how many marks it would get.

That's the level of mastery we're aiming for. Not just memorizing content, but actually understanding how to evaluate their own work.

Follow .humanities if you want to learn more about our approach to online Humanities coaching.

I get asked this pretty often:

How is it possible that students spend 50% less time with learnMOJO compared to traditional tuition but still get better results?

To be honest, it takes a very skilled teacher to be able to compress the syllabus content and exam skills into a short lesson.

We minimize the lecture portion of our coaching program.

There is some direct instruction where we teach the key content students need to know and the exam skills they need to learn.

But we keep that part focused and efficient.

Then we move quickly into the practice portion and the feedback portion.

Because that's where the real improvement happens.

Most traditional tuition centers run 2-hour sessions every week. A lot of that time is spent covering content that some students already understand, or sitting through explanations they don't actually need.

With online coaching, we can be very targeted.

We focus only on what each student needs, compress the teaching into the essential points, and spend more time on practice and feedback.

So students only attend 2.5 hours of live classes per month instead of 8+ hours with traditional tuition.

But throughout the month they're getting continuous practice and personalized feedback on their answers.

That's why they can spend less time overall but still see better results.

It's about being focused and efficient with the time they do spend.

Follow .humanities if you want to help your teen study smarter without adding more hours to their already packed schedule.

I got asked this question during an interview: When things get really difficult, juggling the business, the team, being a mom, how do you keep going?

To be honest, I tell myself this will pass.

Knowing that even very difficult patches won't last forever helps a lot.

But I'm also very practical about it.

I have a WhatsApp group with my girlfriends where we vent and rant to each other. Sometimes I'll meet up with them just to destress.

Because we as parents, we give a lot. We work, we provide, we're there for our kids.

But in recent years I've started to realize I have to take care of myself first.

So when I'm really feeling down, I'll talk to my good friends. Sometimes it helps because I borrow their energy, their positive energy.

And when they're down, I can be there for them too.

Friends help. My faith helps. I'll pray when things feel beyond me, and usually I feel a lot better after.

I'll meditate. Sometimes I go for a walking meditation or just exercise.

These are very practical things, not so much to distract myself, but to get myself into a state where I feel like I can carry on.

Because motivation will fail you on the hard days.

But systems, support, and self-care won't.

Follow .humanities for more real talk about building something meaningful while staying sane as a parent.

A parent asked me this once: Do you teach your own kids the same way you teach your learnMOJO students?

To be honest, I try.

But you know how it is when it comes to learning from parents. It's a completely different dynamic.

Somehow my patience level is a lot lower with my own kids.

My kids have actually told me before, ""Mom, you're a lot more patient with your students than with us.""

And I'm like, sorry. I know. I'm working on it.

So I try, but it's not the same as sitting down to formally teach them History or Social Studies.

What I do instead is we'll discuss things that we see happening around us.

Something on social media, or when we watch TV together, or a movie we just finished.

There'll be certain themes that come up, and we'll have a discussion about it.

Why do you think this character made that decision? What were the consequences? What would you have done differently?

Or if there's something in the news, I'll ask them what they think. Do you believe this source? What's the agenda here?

So I'm trying to build that critical thinking habit without it feeling like I'm teaching them.

Because the moment it feels like a lesson, they tune out.

But if it's just us talking about life, they're more willing to engage.

That's the best I can do as a mom who's also a teacher.

Follow .humanities for more behind-the-scenes of what it's like being both an educator and a parent.

Someone asked me recently:

What's your message to tiger moms and tiger dads who put a lot of pressure on their kids?

To be honest, I think it's very hard to tell them to just chill.

I mean, as a mom myself, my kids will tell me, "Mom, why you always so anxious? Can you relax or not?"

But I know it's very hard to relax when you're worried about your child's future.

So I'm not going to tell parents to stop caring or stop worrying. That's not realistic.

What I try to remind myself is that my kids have their own path to take. They're still discovering who they are.

My job here is to support. Provide the resources they need, whether that's time, a good coach, or a proper learning environment.

I'm here as a sounding board.

If they have a decision to make, or if I see something that needs addressing, what I try to do is share the possible consequences with them.

Because we've seen more of life, right? We can see where certain decisions might lead.

But at the end of the day, they have to decide for themselves. Can I bear the cost of making this decision or not?

The idea of trade-offs. If I make decision A, I can't have this other thing. Or I may face a certain consequence I need to be ready for.

By the way, this is also what we cover in Social Studies. Trade-offs in policymaking.

I think it's tricky. It's really tricky to tell parents to relax and have faith.

But I think it helps to remember that our children will be able to figure it out eventually.

With our support. Not our control.

Follow .humanities for more real talk about parenting teens through the school years.

Parents ask me this sometimes: Do grades really matter in this day and age?

To be honest, I think they're important to a certain extent.

We can't pretend grades don't matter. They do determine where students go after O-Levels or N-Levels, what options they have for their post-secondary journey.

And for many students and parents, grades are also a gauge of where they stand. Whether they're on track or falling behind.

So we can't just dismiss that.

But to me, grades are not the end all be all.

What's more important is learning how to think for yourself.

Learning life skills like how to get along with people. How to read a situation and figure out whether this is something you should get into or stay away from.

How to evaluate information and make good decisions.

Those are the skills that will actually carry students through their lives, long after the exam grades stop mattering.

So yeah, we help students get good grades at learnMOJO. 70% of our students achieve A1 or A2.

But what I'm really trying to teach them is how to think critically and navigate the world.

Because that's what they'll need when they're 25, 35, 45 years old.

Not just the A1 they got when they were 16.

Follow .humanities for more real talk about education beyond just exam scores.

I get this from parents sometimes:

Why should we focus on History when Math, English, and Science are the core subjects for JC?

To be honest, that's a very valid concern.

I mean, I understand why parents worry more about the traditional core subjects. Those are the ones needed for post-secondary options, for getting into JC.

But what I've found over the years is that History, Social Studies, and Geography teach something that students will actually use for the rest of their lives.

We teach them how to think critically.

How to look at a source of information and figure out whether you can believe it. Whether someone is trying to con you. Whether the information is reliable enough to make decisions on.

Especially now with AI, deepfakes, misinformation everywhere. Students need to learn how to evaluate sources and detect bias.

Because if you make life decisions based on unreliable information, it impacts everything. Your career choices, your financial decisions, even your relationships.

The other thing is pattern recognition.

When students learn about patterns of civilization rise and fall, they start seeing how history repeats itself. They realize a lot of what's happening in the world today stems from these patterns.

And that helps them think about future trends. What careers might be relevant in 10, 20 years. How to navigate changes in society.

For Social Studies, they learn about current affairs and how to make sense of what's happening in Singapore and the world.

These are practical life skills.

To students, it feels like just another painful subject they have to study for exams.

But a lot of my former students tell me after they go out to work, they realize what they learned in History and Social Studies is actually very useful in real life.

More than they expected.

Follow .humanities for more real talk about why Humanities matters beyond just exam grades.

I wrote an article once called ""Why Motivation is Overrated"" and some parents were quite surprised by that title.

But to be honest, motivation comes and goes.

We don't wake up every day raring to go to school or work or study. I know I didn't when I was a student, and I definitely don't as an adult either.

There'll be days when your energy is lower and you just don't feel like doing anything.

So if we're waiting for students to feel motivated before they start studying properly, they're going to fall behind pretty quickly.

What actually matters more is having systems in place.

Systems that work even on days when you're tired, unmotivated, or just not feeling it.

As long as a student is willing to try, that's already a very good start.

Then it's about putting the right systems into their daily life to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be.

When we design our programs at learnMOJO, we don't just think about what to cover in each lesson.

We think about the entire system. How do we make sure students keep progressing even on low-energy days? How do we build in accountability and feedback loops?

Because motivation will fail you. But a good system won't.

Follow .humanities for more real talk about helping your teen succeed without relying on motivation alone.