1. Project Phoenix
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Confucius
Wednesday, 7 November, 12
2. Background
• Project Phoenix arose out of the team’s vested interest in changing
the education system in India.
• Current education system is dead - rote-based and didactic.
• Schools follow a one-size fits all approach to education, without
nurturing the unique capabilities of the individual. Children are not
explicitly developed to think for themselves and to question
information.
• The entire system boils down to performance on a standardized test
which heavily influences future of individual.
• We believe technology, backed by the right conceptual thinking can
play a major role in improving the quality & “stickiness” of education.
• The advantage of technology is that it is easier to personalize the
system - to develop certain core skills so that children may diversify
and set forth on their individual journeys.
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3. Project Phoenix
• A social learning platform, that is both interactive & inclusive - It
closely monitors student activity throughout the year providing customized
and direct metrics to teachers and parents.
• Students can partake in various activities such as watching online lectures,
discussing important topics, collaborating on projects and answering
quizzes.
• Flipped Classroom Model: Students review lectures at home and the
classroom is used for more collaborative and interactive learning.
• Teachers are able to assess student/class performance through our student
performance assessor obtained from analyzing student activity.
• We act as an assistant to the teacher providing him/her with unique metrics
to gain a more holistic understanding of student knowledge and skills.
• Parents are provided with a roadmap/outline of children's courses, analyze
performances, and communicate with teachers.
• Unlike our competitors, who focus on providing content, we focus on user
activity and interactive experience.
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4. Our Philosophy
• There are three major processes in education:
• Curriculum: What the school system expects students to learn.
• Pedagogy: The process by which the system helps students to learn
• Assessment: The process of judging how well they are doing
• Most education systems focus on the curriculum and assessment. Project Phoenix will
invest heavily in pedagogy - learning and teaching.
• Guru-Shishya Parampara (Teacher-Student Symbiosis): Teachers will assume mentorship
roles with their students.
• Current system uses the banking model: information transfer is unidirectional.
• We will have a 360 degree model where teacher guides student and learns from
their ideas to further develop teaching methodology. Teacher is not a dictator but
a facilitator. Enables students to find their true passion.
• "There isn’t a great school anywhere that doesn’t have great teachers working in it. But
there are plenty of poor schools with shelves of curriculum standards and reams of
standardized tests."
Wednesday, 7 November, 12
5. Low-Fi Prototype
• Created wireframes for 3 major dashboards:
- Students
- Teachers
- Parents
• Dashboard consists of 3 main views:
- Navigation Column
- Student/Parent/Teacher Feed
- Customizable Widgets
• Need-Finding: Conducted face-face and phone interviews with users
from the above categories.
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6. Authentication Form
- User Sign-In Page
- Can connect with
social networks like
Facebook, Google+
- Registration
requires verification
from school
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8. Student Dashboard
• Student Feed is an aggregated news-feed from all the student’s
courses showing latest activity on the site.
• The Phoenix Engine provides student with statistics about usage and
performance.
• Student Clubs page is home to all the extra-curricular activities such
as sports, debate, art, music etc.
• My Rewards is a means to incentivize students to use the platform
by providing points for activity.
• Customizable widgets can be added by the student Eg.
Announcements, Calendar, Quick Stats widget.
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10. Teacher Dashboard
• Teacher dashboard is best-suited for consuming content
- logging in displays the student performance assessor
providing advanced statistics to aid the teacher.
• Teacher feed provides him/her with information about
what other teachers are posting, areas of heavy student
activity and feeds from the Phoenix Engine.
• Report Generator allows the teacher to generate custom
reports.
• Lesson Plan allows the teacher to view/modify her
course outline.
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12. Parent Dashboard
• Dashboard gives a snapshot of child’s
recent activity.
• Parent-Teacher Forum provides a medium for
parents and teachers to interact.
• Parent Feed allows parents to communicate
with each other.
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13. Value Proposition Testing
• Conducted interviews with three target
customers:
- A co-founder of a Math-skills education
startup in Bangalore, India.
- A school parent
- A user of an online learning platform
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14. Notes from Interviews
• Internet access is mostly available to upper middle-class families in urban
areas. This still comprises a significant population.
• Market is crowded with multiple solutions for the classroom with
overlapping value propositions.
• Most startups in this space offer content tailored to the curriculum, such
as audio/visual based presentations, or tutorials.
• Marketing of the platform will be very important to differentiate from
competition.
• Recommendation that as part of our needfinding work, we conduct some
user trials where we put the student through the system to see how
intuitive they find it.
• A lot of parents give children access to the internet for only part of the
day or under regulation.
• Co-founder of math learning startup found a large number of established
schools were resistant to adopting new teaching aids. The suggestion was
to focus on new schools which are open to innovative ideas and
technologies.
Wednesday, 7 November, 12
