A new path of learning

Marks dont translate to anything significant, nor do they define a childs potential. While the cycle of examination and grades has been rewarding for some, many are overwhelmed by this pressure. There is something trivial about this grade system, and academics voice the need to explore more to analyse a childs ability. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Chrysalis, a research and development organisation working with schools, came up with a digital platform called ChrysalisAI, which has been an assistant to the teachers in shaping the childs academic growth. Chitra Ravi, founder and CEO, Chrysalis, says, The focus has been enabling a teaching-learning process that allows each child in a class to think better, express better, and learn better. The education system has been evolving, and so are the needs of educators and students. When the unprecedented pandemic hit, the educational sector had to entirely change its structure and functioning. The dependence on the Internet increased drastically, with students seeking insights and instant solutions. Hence, ChrysalisAI was created to integrate such experiences effectively into a childs learning journey, for various stakeholders, the founder says. Meanwhile, the New Education Policy has brought with it a multidisciplinary approach, and the entire onus falls on the mentors. Lakshmi Prabha, principal of Prasan Vidhya Mandir, Chengapattu, who has integrated the app into the schools curriculum, observes that the holistic approach of this new policy was about different criteria and not marks, but its quite a challenge because of the human effort that it demanded. While for the teachers, the assessment and accuracy was a challenge, for the coordinators, the monitoring of diverse students, and ensuring that the curriculum and the students are aligned, was one of the challenges. Lakshmi says that ChrysalisAI has made sure that comprehensive data of a student is delivered to both the child and the parent. The teachers are also given additional inputs as to where the child needs to improve and how. Chitra says, Parents and teachers could get insight-driven summary and recommendations on a lesson or a child, parents could see a longitudinal portfolio of how the childs writing/thinking has evolved with time, teachers could see patterns in students language skills across subjects. The platform has been a collaborative effort of technology experts, an academic team that works on curriculum development, field teams that understand schools ground realities, and a group of teachers who act as pilot researchers. This makes the modules flexible and a result of different perspectives. The platform has been a boon for teachers who otherwise have to spend hours assessing the childs performance. Chitra says, A teacher could record their observations at any time of the day/week; they need not spend more than 10-15 minutes a week in recording their assessment, any inputs they may need during their planning and preparation time is readily available, all suggestions are made using short sentences presented as bullet points, and all data is available on demand reducing wait time. These aspects made the platform seamless for teachers and educators to integrate into their everyday work. Sasirekha Nagarajan, a senior primary teacher, says that the platform explores activities like Look Deep, Look Within, expanding the thinking of the children, and nudging the child to look outside the textbook learning. She adds, Students themselves are able to analyse their level of improvement. Despite AI taking over the work off teachers, she says that the assessment isnt entirely devoid of their involvement. While there are challenges like the apps inability to understand some handwritings, she says, in such cases, the teachers step in. Besides this, she says that the results are also an offshoot of AI-generated solutions and teachers assessment of the child. As Chitra says, the underlying success of the app is the integrated approach to developing the technology solution it plugs into each stage of teaching-learning: Planning, teaching, assessment, and reporting.