Chief Executive Officer, Tata ClassEdge
Nirav Khambhati, Chief Executive Officer, Tata ClassEdge is upbeat about the prospects of digitisation of educational tools. In an interaction with Elets News Network, he says it helps students to learn, retain and perform better
Tell us about Tata ClassEdge
It is an instructional design model – the multiple learning experiences model (M- LExTM)—that assists teachers in preparing effective lesson plans. In addition to topic-specific multimedia and interactive assets, we also provide access to highly engaging group and individual activities such as quizzes, games, labs and projects with a focus on improving learning outcomes. We have differentiated content designed for learners across multiple expertise levels. This ensures equal opportunity for all students to learn according to their abilities and perform in the class. Thus, we aid in creating a more effective teaching-learning environment in the classroom.
How does it improve the academic ecosystem in our schools?
Our instructional framework assists every teacher in preparing unique lesson plans suitable to his or her individual teaching style. The lesson plans include not just interactive multimedia but also other innovative multi-sensory activities that aim to enhance critical thinking, social interaction, communication skills and creativity in students. Also, Tata ClassEdge has differentiated content designed for struggling learners and high achievers. This ensures equal opportunity for all students to learn according to their abilities and perform in the class. Thanks to a large number of modularised teaching points developed for multiple state boards, CBSE and ICSE, the lesson plans can be mapped and sequenced exactly according to each school’s particular text books. This makes the system much easier for the teachers to adopt. Tata ClassEdge is not just about ready-to- use lesson plans and multimedia. It also provides a platform for teachers to con- tribute open resources, create original lesson plans and collaborate with each other. The platform has been designed to develop a collaborative knowledge sharing community of teachers.
How flexible are education institutions across the country in adopting such learning solutions?
Schools are realising that digitisation of teaching methods gives an experiential edge to the students. The chalk and talk method of teaching has been enhanced by the inclusion of digital classrooms that comprise digital boards and cloud technology. Interactive teaching methods draw better participation from students and the learning process becomes more engaging for students. But this is just the beginning. What the future holds for technology in education is far more than what we can all imagine at this point of time.
What is the size of business of smart classes in India and how do you see its growth?
It is not entirely relevant to track the industry in dollar terms. Our focus is on the number of students who can benefit by better learning outcomes. India has about 1.3 million schools and at this point, less than 1 per cent of schools have adopted digitisation effectively.
Can you tell us about the two new products – TestEdge and PlanEdge – that have been launched?
PlanEdge has been designed to reduce the planning and administrative tasks of teachers by automating annual academic planning, time-table creation, grade-book generation, and so on. TestEdge comes with a question bank of more than 65,000 questions and a user interface designed to enable teachers to generate standardised question papers at the click of a few buttons. Both PlanEdge and TestEdge are compliant with CBSE’s continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) parameters.
What are the reasons behind developing these two products? How will these new products help teachers deliver high-quality instruction to students?
Teachers spend a sizeable amount of time on administrative work, which gives them less time for their core activity-teaching. We wanted to give teachers more time to teach. This will allow them to spend more time on student-centric interactions and teaching.
PlanEdge facilitates the school’s and teachers’ work of curriculum planning and assessment for the entire academic year. It also provides a Gradebook that conforms to the CCE requirements of CBSE and allows schools to capture the co-scholastic aspects of students. TestEdge provides a high-quality question bank with varying levels of difficulties and mapped to various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. All the questions are mapped to the chapters and concepts covered in the textbooks followed by the schools. The teacher can create formative and summative test papers using these questions. We expect that these products will save a lot of time for teachers which can be utilised for class preparation and interactions with students.
