The value of a complete education should never be underestimated. High quality education directly results in benefits to the community and an enhanced quality of life for those who are fortunate enough to go to school and critically, stay in school.
In developing countries around the world however, millions of children are not able to stay in school to complete their education. The reasons for students dropping out are numerous. Poverty, lack of infrastructure, gender discrimination and poor academic progression are some of the forces that prevent young kids from continuing their education at key stages, negatively impacting their future prospects.
In East Africa, millions of adolescents face socio-economic and cultural barriers to education. Our friends at PiXL International came to us with a noble intention at heart; to divert this trend and help students remain where they belong - in school.
Many developing countries lack infrastructure and resources but enjoy the availability of fast and cheap internet. That, plus the widespread use of smartphones, allows for a mobile education product that can individually cater to both teacher and student, helping them track academic progress both in and out the classroom. Such a product makes sure no child is overlooked and that each student gets a fair chance to graduate with qualifications that can lead to better-paying jobs.
Reimagining the way grades and performances are evaluated, PiXL International uses data and teamwork to apply a unique approach to help students achieve the best results they are capable of in national exams. Their new PiXL International app helps increase teacher efficiency; allows schools to monitor student progress and track interventions; gives quick access to ample teaching resources; and tracks exam results against school goals.
Creating, maintaining and updating paper data sheets and excel documents is a thing of the past for PiXL International schools; the app is all they now need to store details of a student’s previous and current performance, with filters that help teachers view data by school, year group,subject, class and predicted performance grade.
The PiXL International app manages student performance data and gives access to users based on their roles. The Head Teacher (HT) and nominated Raising Standards Leader (RSL) can get a view of the school's examination results for the past two years, using them to think about and enter school goals, then track predicted grades and mock exam results against those goals in the coming year.
This preemptive goal setting allows a laser sharp focus on every child’s academic development throughout the year. It helps a teacher mould lessons and assignments according to the abilities and grasping power of a student.
By tapping on the exam icon, you can see everything you need to know about exams including past results. The top section displays dates of the upcoming exams, fed into the system as and when they are announced.
Throughout the academic year, teachers receive virtual “badges” for their achievements. Badges (or ribbons, tokens, stars) provide a gamified experience that encourages users to keep them engaged and seek continuous improvement.
If for any reason the teacher notices that a student or group of students are finding it difficult to grasp a topic, they can schedule an Intervention Event in the Calendar feature to help get students up to speed.
A personalised learning checklist enables teachers to be cognizant of the subjects they teach with each topic in the syllabus listed. Teachers can rate each subtopic for each student as Red, Amber or Green, indicating each student’s understanding.
In the School Profile, the Head Teacher and the Raising Standards Leader are authorised to set the School Goals for the coming year. The RSL and the entire teaching staff can access student profiles individually to know their past and present performance ratings. A tap on the ‘expand column’ (>) icon is all you need to show or hide their grades from the last two years.
A Teacher Dashboard is unique to every teacher because it shows the predicted grades and target grades for students in all their subjects in each year group. It helps teachers to keep their goals in sight and encourages them to look at each child’s performance with keen interest.
Predicted Grades (PG): A teacher evaluates and analyses each of their students individually and “professionally predicts” the grade they think the student will achieve in that subject's national end-of-year exam.
Target Grades (TG): Once the predicted grades have been saved on the app, a proprietary algorithm takes that as input and assigns Target Grades for each student to achieve at the end of the year. The PG and TG may or may not be the same for a student.
An extensive database of students with multiple filters allows teachers and school leaders to segregate students according to their year group, subject, class and gender. Predicted grades and target grades also appear next to this information so it becomes easy to check up on a single student and his/her performance.
For a teacher user, teaching materials need to be available in the least maneuvers. In the PiXL International app, a teacher can quickly access all they need to teach a class and prepare their students for exams.
