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Outlook It’s Plain Murder,By Rote  Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?  Times of India – Kolkata Kolkata out shines other cities in schools education  Bangalore Mirrior There is no hope for a better tomorrow… …if these are the prejudices young minds nurture  TOI Jaipur Looking Beyond Traditional Goals  Cool but no privacy for kids in cyberia  Be it Angles and Trigonometry,concepts of Fractions or even integers,learning Maths is not only easier but also a lot of fun. City based educational research organisation,Educational Initiatives,has launched a set of games that help children learn basic concepts of Maths the fun way. Unlike other educational games available that are pre-programmed,these games have a built in algorithm that identifies a misconception and changes its path to target it. This means if two students are playing these games,they will be taken on different paths,depending on their misconceptions and learning gaps. Through the interactive game or activity,the system will identify the concept that is not clear with the child and will make him understand the same by asking more questions and giving hints. There are around 30,000 students across the country,who have already learning with these Maths games. With the new academic year just beginning,this number is going to get higher. These games have been launched in three different categories –general games and activities;remedials or personalised learning modules that focus on specific misconceptions;and enrichment module especially designed for high scoring students to pose high challenges.
“These games are add-ons with the Internet based,self learning programme of EI,Mindspark. These games have been designed to make the programme more engaging and interactive. Also,these games focus on very specific problems that the students may have,”said Sridhar Rajagopalan,the founder and managing director of EI. These games are embedded in the curriculum flow. For example,in decimals if a child has a specific misconception,the Flying Photographer will be available to him. “These games become personalised activities for children because of the adaptive logic and special algorithm that they are based on. These games have been built on our own research of 10 years and study that educators have done across the world. The interactive remedials offered also help slow learners,without pin-pointing them in front of the whole class,”said Swapnil Agarwal,one of the team members who have developed these games. The team that has built these games are a group of young graduates from IIT,St Stephens College and Nirma University. “These games are very motivating. We made sure that we do not add much text. These visual heavy games are easy for the differently abled children also,”said Paarkhi Mehrotra,another member of the team. “We have tried to keep a in mind the need of the high scorers or extremely intelligent children in a class. They are usually ahead of the class,and while the teacher is working with the rest of the class,they tend to feel bored. Three special games –MasterMind,Broken Calculator and Magic Squares,have been designed especially for these children and is offered to students who score higher than a decided mark. These throw challenges at them and stimulates them to achieve them,”added Sujay Shivram,also a team member. A deep desire to make the best use of his MBA degree from Harvard Business School to solve a real problem is what inspired Pranav Kothari to improve the education system in India. After a career as a hedge fund analyst,a private equity investor,a management consultant and a MBA from the Harvard Business School,Kothari realized that he wanted his work to directly and meaningfully improve people’s lives.
Kothari (29) grew up in Ahmedabad and completed his schooling from St Xavier’s Loyola Hall. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. During the four years of graduation,Kothari trained with General Electric’s manufacturing facility dealing with union environment and optimizing Capital One’s two billion pieces of mail every year. He joined the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) based out of the Atlanta office and advised several Fortune 500 companies in various sectors in US,Germany,Chile &Argentina. Thereafter he spent two years as a private equity investor in US &India. After five years in the corporate sector,Kothari decided to get back to studies and joined the 2 years full time MBA program at HBS. “The Social Enterprise Initiative at HBS had a profound impact on me. In particular Professor Clay Christensen got me thinking ‘What is the purpose of my life’? It was a question I introspected every day during my time at HBS,” says Kothari. Kothari chose not to sit for placements. As soon as he completed his course,Kothari came back to India. He chose to work in the education sector because he believes that there are two main things that the society needs – good health and good education. “Since I don’t speak the same language as doctors,I chose the latter,” said Kothari. Kothari decided to focus on primary schooling,rather than higher or vocational education,because primary schooling has a higher marginal impact on a person’s life. Why India? “I came to the conclusion that there are far fewer people with my background in India working to improve the education system. India also has a much weaker education system,so the scope of improvement is fairly large,” added Kothari. Kothari initially moved back to India wanting to set up a cross-subsidized school where he wanted the fees from the rich kids to cover the costs of the poor kids. He faced resistance from parents who objected to the idea of their kids sitting next to someone who hasn’t showered or has communicable diseases. Rather than bow down to the pressure of having separate classes (which he considered segregationist) he decided to travel around India and get a grassroots feel for what is happening. After a four month long journey across India visiting different education organizations,including non-profits,affordable private schools,advocacy groups,school rating agencies,and curriculum design companies,Kothari decided to join Ahmedabad based education research company,Educational Initiatives and is helping develop Mindspark – an adaptive learning program that helps teachers teach,and students learn Maths,Gujarati and Hindi better. “I found that the best way to solve a large problem by cross subsidization is by using technology. How many students’ education could I have improved if I had started one school or even a few schools? The education sector is an effective way to improve people’s lives and it is exciting to see that people from a variety of backgrounds have joined. My colleagues include ex-employees of IBM,Microsoft,Reliance and several other national and international corporates” adds the Harvard graduate. | ||||||
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