Mindspark—Maths and English Education Vitalized

Vinod Kakumanu
Oct. 28, 2019, 5:36 p.m.

Often, students are get accustomed to dislike English and Maths due to their confusing grammar lessons and tricky problems respectively. The traditional method of learning has made it complicated for most students to develop an interest in these subjects. However, in the contemporary times, it looks like education is gradually taking steps to change its roots from rote learning and progress towards a more cognition-intensive and personalized learning experience.

Nowadays, technologies are used on a very large scale in every field and education sector is not shying away from adopting modern tools for an enhanced educational environment.

Educational Initiative (EI) is an edtech organization which has technology-based solutions for k-12 students to learn and engage constantly. It provides a personalized learning experience.

EI kicked off its journey in 1996 when three graduates from IIM Ahmedabad named Sridhar, Sudhir and Venkat decided to quit their high paying jobs at Tata IBM, ITW and Sony Entertainment and venture into setting up a school in Ahmedabad itself with a vison to assist children in learning. However, later they realised a school would not help millions of children in India to shift their focus from machine-based learning and uplift their skills. In 2001, three of them co-founded EI to offer students with products based on research and assessment. It is a cloud-based application which runs on mobile phones, tablets and computers

As a matter of fact, technologies definitely hold a promise to help improve education. EI also has great offerings and Mindspark is one among them. It makes Maths and English less complicated for a child to learn and allows students to follow based on his level of understanding.

Mindspark which is created by EI is a computer based adaptive learning program which has all the necessary things to provide a better learning experience for students in English and Maths. They designed Mindspark after an intensive research from the data collected from ASSET tests conducted over many years in order to check the different learning patterns of children.

Recently, after a random evaluation on the impact of Mindspark in India showed an impressive learning on children has caused excitement among them.

Srini Raghavan is the CEO and was one of the first investors of the company. Sridhar Rajagopalan is the President and Chief Learning Officer who has changed the way student learning outcomes by co-founding Eklavya School in Ahmedabad.>

Mindspark is available in numerous languages like Gujarati, Hindi and English which is used by students in India, UAE, and US. It came into force in 2009 and Bangalore, Mumbai and Ahmedabad were the major areas of product development. It is a self- learning tool which does not need teacher’s supervision. It has been adopted by many schools in India because it is cost-effective which reduces the workload of teachers and at the same time impart qualitative education. Mindspark consists of about 45,000 questions and it is designed specifically to test each student’s understanding level and it employs the strategy of gamification to improve the results. In India there are around 80,000 students who are using Mindspark.

How does Mindspark English and Maths Work?

Mindspark English engages students with all aspects of language learning like reading, writing and speaking. It is for grades from 4 to 9 and there will be login credentials for each student. It consists of games and activities and teachers can also provide valuable feedback based on the student’s performance.

Techniques to improve listening, reading and writing/p>

Listening:

Wide range of topics from politics and history to science and environment./p>
Interviews, speeches and debates are also included in this.
There are listening exercises based on conversation from day-to-day life

Reading:

Folktales, articles, modern fiction etc
Narrative and descriptive writing styles

Writing:

Students can write on any topic of their choice
Teachers can also assign different topics
Mobile interface available for the teachers to give feedback

It also focuses on grammar and vocabulary to teach children how to string words together applying rules. It also stresses on prefix, suffix, spellings, word meanings phrases to get a hold of vocabulary.

Mindspark Maths is specially to tone down the level of challenging problems for their understanding. There are worksheets prepared by teachers and also has ‘Timed Tests’ which basically is to develop time management. In the end, there are rewards to motivate them. There is a ‘Common Wrong Answer Report’ for teachers to monitor which student needs greater attention.

There are many who dreams about carving a niche in the society but only few are there who gathers up the courage and convert their dream and put it into practice.