While everyone is talking about online learning these days, we urge schools to use this time to ponder on ways they can make their classrooms smart. Covid-19 is going to go away but schools and classrooms will all outlive us, for sure!

Education, as we know it, has always been an involved process. Involved, in the sense that multiple stakeholders have vested interest in the process i.e. the students, the teachers, the authorities and the parents. But, somehow, we have been unable to bring all these stakeholders on a single platform.

As of now, the information flow does exist through report cards and Parent-teacher meetings, but the continuity of flow of information is not there and this is because information exists in silos. Due to this, we have been slow at plugging the gaps.

This is what brings us to the concept ofSmart Classrooms. Over the years, as the technology has been evolving, the need for smarter classrooms has come into the fray.

While the concept of smart-classroom can have answers to varying problem statements, we, at TagHive, will only focus on three problem statements that we believe have far-reaching consequences.

1. Digitize learning in schools

Data, as we like to believe, is crucial to make learning smart because unless we’re able to pinpoint the topics or segments where a student is weak, how can we expect them to improve? And that is precisely what we are offering with Class Saathi - a product which will help the schools understand their students better. We use a stop-gate methodology to achieve our goal.

And, how do we do it?

Well, with our product, once the teacher teaches a concept/topic in class, she can pause the teaching for a bit and carry out a quick formative assessment usingClass Saathiwhich will help her to understand the learning outcome of her students. The teacher doesn’t need to come up with questions; we have her covered. She can choose from unlimited questions on the Class Saathi app.

And, if the result is satisfactory, she can move on to the next topic but, if it’s not, then she knows that she needs to re-teach in that topic.This is the type of stop-gate approach that we have been developing - a necessary intervention to understand and improve the learning ability of students.

Such interventions strengthen the fundamentals, boosting student confidence and learning outcomes. This also boosts the morale of the teacher as she can now guide her students better while the school benefits from the improved result.It’s a win-win for everyone.

What happens post this is that over-time when the data starts to accumulate, we can measure theclass-wise, section-wise and student-wise performance.

2. Create a personalized learning experience

Once we digitize learning and gather student data points, we can personalize the learning experience for each student. We acknowledge that the learning curve varies for each student. The underlying philosophy is different from that of the existing education system that tries to use aone-size-fits-allapproach which is definitely not the way forward.

Education happens in blocks. Each class that a student attends in school is a block. Over time, if too many blocks are weak at the basic level, the whole structure will come down. We aim to strengthen these blocks so that the structure is strong.

Once we have the individual student-wise stats, the school can move towards drafting out remedial steps to assist the students who need help on specific subjects and topics. In this way, we can improve students' learning outcomes while providing a personalized learning experience.

Moving ahead, the student will also have access to Class Saathi app, where the individual can practice unlimited questions. We power the platform with AI and Deep Learning technology, enabling adaptive question generation. The questions adjust themselves as per the student’s ability which helps the individual get a stronger hold of his /her basics.

3. Connect stakeholders and bringing them on a single platform

As discussed earlier, the information flow is asymmetric between school, students, teacher and the authorities. While the above two steps highlight how Class Saathi can bring the school and students on the same platform, here, we wish to educate you on how it onboards the remaining two stakeholders also.

Class Saathi also comes with a parent’s interface feature where the parents can keep track of how their child has been performing. Parents will also have access to scores from all class quizzes on their interface. This allows parents to understand their child's strengths and weaknesses, enabling better assistance.

All the classroom and learning data can also be provided to the authorities such as the education department where they can also understand the nuances of student learning and help them modify and update the curriculum and training materials as per changing times and set the difficulty, etc.

While all of this sounds pretty amazing, we’re sure that you must be thinking about the cost of such a program, not only to us in purchase but also in terms of setting up infrastructure in schools!

We have taken care of this aspect too. Our product doesn’t need the internet, electricity, PCs, etc. to function. We use Bluetooth beacon technology meaning that a teacher’s smartphone is enough. This approach empowers not only schools with deep pockets but also schools in Tier-II and Tier-III.

And, when we talk about the product cost, it’s very affordable. The product comes in a black bag, and trust us when we say this, to make your whole school smart at an affordable cost - all you need is one black bag of Class Saathi Clickers.

By the way, Class Saathi is also the world-first clicker solution to work on smartphones.

For more information, visit us www.tag-hive.com or write to us at [email protected]

Authors: Pankaj Agarwal & Arijit Manna