IQ007 Learning Platform Product Development

IQ007 is an international network of schools of speed reading and intellectual development, and one of JetStyle’s long term partners. The education center is aimed at developing kids’ intellectual abilities (memory, speech, attention, thinking, reading). Over the course of work in 500 schools, IQ007 has worked with over 230K students.?

Challenge?

Before Covid-19 quarantine, the business had been conducted offline. The lockdown changed it all, so IQ007 has to switch online and do it within a short deadline. There are many online platforms to embark on, however none of them would preserve all the features of the IQ007’s unique teaching methodology.?

For instance, Zoom and other messengers do not provide the ability to monitor individual student progress and give individual assignments. All messengers are solely designed for one-to-one or conference calls.?

So together with IQ007’s team, we started developing a platform to fit the tech re requirements of the methodology and ensure children’s education remains as effective as in the offline mode. Specifically, we needed the platform to host 4+ participants and allow giving individual tasks and feedback to each student.

Solution?

We suggested implementing the product development approach to solve the task. Generally, the idea is the following: we make a hypothesis —> we develop the platform MVP —> we test it on real users —> we collect feedback, reflect on it and move on. After one month of work, we were able to launch the first product interface and test it together with the school’s teachers, methodologists, and students.

To tell more about the functionality of the product, let’s take a look at how a usual lesson in IQ007 is organized:

1. A teacher creates a lesson and sends a link to the lesson to a child.

2. The child opens the link (from a phone or desktop) and enters the lesson.

3. During the lesson, the child interacts with the teacher, does exercises and follows the teacher's notes.

4. At the end of the lesson the teacher discusses the results of the lesson with the child.

What are the features of the system?

In the teacher's interface you can:

- select the mode “all hear all”, which is necessary for group work. The tasks can be distributed individually to each student according to their learning speed and goals;

- choose a student to speak with for individual work;

- to divide the group into isolated subgroups. The teacher can easily switch from one to another;

- set a certain amount of time for each task for each student;

- use interactive tools:

• a pencil to highlight the important stuff; can be used by both the teacher and the student;
• a pointer to point the student's attention in the right direction or to accentuate;
• a curtain to cover a part of a table or text so that the student works on only the selected part of the assignment.

In the student interface, you can:

- see and hear the teacher and other students,

- receive and complete assignments,

- see the timer,

- raise your hand and ask questions.

Content?

All content, as well as teaching methodology, is copyright protected. To transfer the content to the new CMS in a quick and painless way, we put together a CMS in Word. So, a methodist simply adds the content into a template marked with styles, creates a new lesson in the admin panel, and downloads the Word document. The system divides everything down into individual slides, which turn into individual tasks for students. All multimedia formats are available.?

Result?

The work has been done in two-week sprints; with new functions added at the end of each. The initial product was launched after 2.5 sprints from the start of the process, in May 2020.?

- With the current version of the system teachers can easily upload new educational material, stream different types of content in class, and also combine group and individual work.?

- The teacher's interface was originally developed for the desktop, while the interface for students is mobile-first. Now we’re working on a design for the desktop version.

- Research shows that all teachers who have conducted test classes on the new platform want to continue using it.

- Video recordings of online lessons show that children really don't lose concentration and stay engaged in the lesson. At the same time, teachers can work with each child individually considering their learning styles.?

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We are still working on the service; it's just the MVP so there’s a lot to come. Together with the IQ007 we are planning to continue working on the platform’s new features - both functional and visual - and see if they improve the students’ and teachers’ experiences. This is an exciting process, and, most importantly, it allows us to see the effects of our work at the very early stages.?