Mindspark Service Updates

August 2013

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Mindspark

Mindspark is an adaptive learning program that helps: Students learn Maths and language by employing a constructivist theory of learning

by answering questions that are appropriate to their current understanding

Remediates misconceptions identified through 10 years of ASSET tests with more

than 2 million data points

Supports teachers in schools to teach to where the need is as opposed to a regular

rehearsal based on his/her own intuition on what kids don’t know

For more information visit www.mindspark.in or write to us at mindspark@ei-india.com

What’s New

New Student Interface A totally brand new interface is ready with modern looks and several other effects have been added which makes the experience of using Mindspark a fun experience. FOR LOWER GRADES

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FOR MIDDLE GRADES

FOR HIGHER GRADES

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Games in Mindspark

Educational games in Mindspark serve two purposes.

1. Help a student understand and internalize a concept

2. Enables a student to have fun while doing this.

The reason we have introduced Games in Mindspark is because children tend to do

something if they are having fun doing it. When making these games, in addition to creating

fun, we make sure that the child learns something or overcomes a misconception or gets a

lot of practice. These games would be related to a specific topic that they are doing or

would be available to do as an activity even after completing this topic.

Enrichment modules

Enrichment modules are specifically designed for those children in the class who complete

their part of Mindspark quickly. They are the brighter ones in the class who are craving for

more. So these modules are generally something that could be outside the core curriculum

for that class, but something that would be adding value to the child. These would help the

child learn something new and interesting or pose an interesting challenge to grapple with.

These modules appear only after the child has completed their allocated topics, so that only

the ones who really have time would do these.

Remedials

Remedials on the other hand are meant for children who are struggling with a particular

concept or have a known misconception. Mindspark identifies such children based on their

performance and offers these interactive remedials to help the child. These remedials

provide basic scaffolding for children to make sure they learn in a non-threatening

environment. The remedial would typically respond to every minor error the child makes

and provides conceptual reasoning and help at every step.

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New Games added

Play with Transformations

In this activity, students are given shapes at a

starting position, which need to be moved to

the 'end positions' using available

transformations. In this activity there are 3

stages with increasing difficulty level.

For Classes – 9, 10

Reading Time (reading the hour and half past)

This module teaches children to read time to

the hour and half past the hour and gives

practice on this.

For Classes – 2, 3

Toy Claw

Toy claw is a game on identification of solid

shapes. The objective of the game is to make

students visualize and identify shapes when a

part of the shape is hidden. The shapes to

identify in the game are Sphere, Cube, Cuboid,

Cone, Cylinder and Pyramid.

For Classes – 5, 6

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Honey bees

This is a fun game to challenge mental addition and subtraction skills of students.

For Classes – 1, 2, 3

Magic Colours

This game will allow students to practice area calculation concepts. In this game students will have to calculate area of Square, rectangle, triangle, circle and parallelogram.

For Class – 7

Crack the code

This is a game which will familiarize students to essential pre-algebra game is for students from grades 2, 3 and 4. This game is based on visual identification of shapes from different sequences. In the game, students will have to predict the pattern, build the pattern, identify similar patterns and build similar patterns.

For Class – 2, 3, 4, 5

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New Remedials added

Remedial on SAS Congruence criterion Zero Exponent-1

Finding the roots of the quadratic equation Understanding basic expressions

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New Enrichment modules added

Digital Roots

This will teach students what digital roots

are, how to calculate them and how they

are useful. It also shows them some

beautiful number patterns using digital

roots and a fun activity using the same.

For Class – 4, 5, 6

Non-Euclidean Geometry

This will teach students about Non

Euclidean Geometry, its applications,

How Non Euclidean geometry is

different from the Euclidean geometry

etc.

For Class – 9, 10

Builder Brothers!

This activity will help in developing visual

and spacial understanding of students.

Students will understand the meaning of

top/front/right/left views of a 3D shape

which in turn will be a foundation for

engineering drawing.

For Class – 8, 9, 10

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Cycloids - Properties and Related Curves

In this module, students come to know about

the properties of cycloid and its applications.

They also explore the different types of

curves that can be generated by rolling one

circle on or inside another, by appropriately

varying the ratio of radii.

For Class – 8, 9, 10

New Activities added

Data handling with Cricket

The activity would demonstrate how data handling can be useful in Cricket. The activity touches upon the concepts - 'sorting of data', 'representing data through graphs' and shows how data helps in taking decisions.

For Class – 7, 8, 9

Congruence on Cards

Congruence on Cards is a game for understanding the congruence of shapes. The player has to compare shapes drawn on his cards with that on the computer’s card. The player can turn the cards and compare the congruency by superimposing his card with the computer’s card. The three levels of the game cover the shape, size and orientation elements of congruence.

For Class - 7

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Feature updates

1. EQUATION EDITOR

Equation editor is a tool where kids will be able to write as if they are writing on paper. The tool will intelligently convert symbols like x3 to x3, write 1/2 as a fraction and will give symbols and images to be added in the text. This will be appearing as a part of normal as well as NCERT questions.

2. NUMERIC PARSER

Mindspark becomes more intelligent! Whether students write '1/3' or '0.333' or '.333' or 'one-third' or 'third' or '1 by 3' or '1 upon 3' or 'one upon three' - everything will be "understood" by Mindspark as 1/3! This feature is called the 'numeric parser' and it basically makes sure that all 'valid' forms or ways of writing a numeric answer are accepted as a correct answer for blank type questions. We hope that this will be beneficial for the students and reduce developer's work/effort as he/she no longer needs to list down all possible acceptable answer form.

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3. HINTS

“Hints” to questions are being added to help students who are finding it difficult to

answer questions or answer them incorrectly. These hints will be available to the

students for viewing after his/her first incorrect attempt in answering the question. This

is done so that the student does not get too used to taking help to answer a question.

There will also be an option where the student can give his/her feedback on the hint

provided. In a long term, the data will help us get a sense of how much help should be

automatically provided by the system to the student and how much can be given on

student request.

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4. Conditional Alerts

The problem – Sometimes students make typos or genuine mistakes which we want to point out instead of just marking the students wrong. For e.g., if we are teaching naming of angles and we want the student to use three letters to name an angle to avoid confusion and the student is just using one letter to name the angle – we might want to give him a second attempt on the question and explicitly point out his error. The solution – Conditional alerts – if the user answer is meeting some “condition”, then alert the student before marking him right or wrong or just alert the student and give a second attempt on the question.

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5. 3D shape visualization tools

This tool will help in developing student's visual and spatial reasoning. It is a fully interactive tools, where child can play around with the available shapes to understand complicated things like volume and surface area. Most important shapes like cube, cuboid, cone, cylinder, frustum etc. have been added. Now it will be easier for higher class students to correlate the shape with its dimensions and the calculations involved.

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6. Exam corner

Exam corner is place where students can do individualized practice and can prepare themselves for upcoming exams and quizzes.

Exam tips: Exam tips are general guidelines about how one should prepare for exam with least stress.

Motivational quotes: A motivational will always be there on the Exam Corner landing page. Everyday there will be a new motivational quote on Exam Corner login page.

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Mindspark Hindi Centre

Educational Initiatives (EI) is expanding its focus to marginalised communities by piloting Mindspark Learning Centres in slum neighbourhoods in Delhi. The programme is primarily targeted at children from Classes 1-7 at government schools. Mindspark is provided in Hindi and implemented in dedicated learning centres located in vulnerable communities. In addition to Mindspark, students also benefit from small group instructions designed to bring them up to grade-level learning at these centres. Each child spends three hours a week at the Mindspark Centre. Half this time is spent on Math and the other half on literacy. For Math, 75% of the child’s time is spent on Mindspark software that pitches learning at the level of the particular child. The remaining 25% time is spent on focused remedial instruction. For Language, the breakup is 50% computer-time and 50% small group instruction. EI has opened 5 centres in Delhi with 20-30 computers each. 2 of these have opened in July 2012 and 3 more opened in March 2013 in partnership with the Central Square Foundation.