Mindspark

Mindspark- Online Adaptive Maths
Founded July 2009 (2009-07)
Founder Sridhar Rajagopalan
Location
Services E-learning, Education
Method Constructivism, Behaviourism, Misconception based remediation
Official languages
English, Hindi, Gujarati
Owner Sridhar Rajagopalan, founder and Managing Director
Parent organisation
 Educational Initiatives
Employees
120
Mission A world where children everywhere are learning with understanding
Website www.mindspark.in

Mindspark is an adaptive-learning program (ITS) built by Educational Initiatives (EI). It is a cloud-based application that can run on computers, tablets, mobile phones and allows users to connect to Mindspark servers via a web browser.[1] It is currently available in Gujarati, Hindi and English languages. It is majorly online, though there are schools that exercise the option of offline-Mindspark due to recurrent loading problems and slow internet connections. Mindspark is getting used by children across India, UAE and USA.[2] Besides schools, Mindspark is also available for individuals as part of Mindspark Retail.

History

The development of Mindspark started in 2009. During these years experts from different parts of the country pitched in to share pedagogical techniques and develop content. Bangalore, Mumbai and Ahmedabad were the major hubs of product development. Mindspark in its early years was sold to some private schools. Later, Mindspark services were extended to Delhi slums as part of Mindspark Centers Project.[3] A solution developed in Gujarati has been under implementation in government-run schools.

Philosophy

Mindspark was envisaged as a self-learning tool which would not require constant supervision of a teacher.[4] It was gradually accepted as a cost-effective, scalable solution that reduces the cost on teachers and helps getting better quality of instruction from them, mostly from within the local community.[5] While using Mindspark, students learn Maths and language by employing a constructivist theory of learning by answering questions that are appropriate to their current understanding. Mindspark also catches misconceptions using its educational database. It then remedies those misconceptions through tried and tested pedagogical techniques. The questions are ‘finely-graded’, there are a very large number of questions of gradually increasing levels of difficulty. Questions are specially designed to test understanding and to help students clear misconceptions.[6] Increasingly, Mindspark student usage data is itself throwing up prevalent misconceptions. There is very little emphasis on instruction due to the belief that students learn when they have to think – either to answer a question, or do an activity on the computer. Besides constructivism, Mindspark also employs strategies like gamification[7] and behaviourism to improve results.

Towards Teachers

As opposed to its early years, Mindspark gradually evolved as a teacher friendly product. A teacher interface was made to support teachers in schools to teach to where the need is as opposed to a regular rehearsal based on his/her own intuition on what kids don’t know.

Success

Mindspark currently has an annual coverage of 80,000 students across India (around 172,000 students have been covered since 2009).[8][9] One of the main reasons behind the success of Mindspark is that it re-mediates misconceptions identified through 10 years of ASSET tests with more than 2 million data points.[10]
An independent impact evaluation of Mindspark by a third party (IDinsight) was done for two consecutive years (2012 and 2013) which showed an impact of 0.19 s.d[11][12]

Criticism

Mindspark is generally regarded as expensive, especially as a retail version. Mindspark has also seen a lot of loading problems. Mindspark has also been criticized for a low-quality UI (user interface). However, in 2013, the UI of Mindspark was revamped, pertinent security issues in the older interface were resolved, which had earlier resulted in occasional hacking.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.indiainfoline.com/article/news/mindspark-innovative-computer-based-self-learning-programme-for-maths-5551245931_1.html
  2. ↑ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Indian-Mindspark-to-help-US-students-learn-maths/articleshow/7984418.cms
  3. ↑ http://www.centralsquarefoundation.org/blog/mindspark-learning-centres-blending-technology-with-tradition-to-remedy-learning-gaps
  4. ↑ http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/nshc6GTMTu6gf2iOp9CyhN/From-textbooks-to-tablets.html
  5. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/07/technology-transform-india-education-system/print
  6. ↑ http://www.ei-india.com/principles-in-mindspark/
  7. ↑ http://www.indianmomsconnect.com/2013/12/15/interesting-find-mindspark/
  8. ↑ http://www.tehelka.com/2013/08/sparking-a-change-mindspark/
  9. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcGbugUR5Ko
  10. ↑ http://www.livemint.com/Companies/5RX8s6bO3MRM5JTE7OmxZI/Making-a-difference-in-education-through-personalized-learni.html
  11. ↑ http://idinsight.org/project/software-to-tailor-student-learning/
  12. ↑ http://www.ei-india.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IDinsight-EI-Mindspark-evaluation.pdf
  13. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4PmImEURmc
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