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Education

Giving
teaching an
upgrade
34 OTM|10.01.16 | The Observer

In Brazil, a shortage of
funding and staff has
blighted the education
system for decades.
Now machine-learning
software is helping
teachers to deliver a
complete school
syllabus tailored to
each pupil. And it
learns as it goes along,
writes Claire Rigby

Claudio Sassaki,
co-founder of Geekie, a
digital startup that has
revolutionised education
in Brazil. Photograph by
Germano Lders/Abril
Comunications

ts 10am on a sunny November


day in Rio de Janeiro, and the
scene inside the classroom is one
of quiet application. At a dozen or
so hexagonal tables, pupils work on
laptops or in exercise books. At one
of the clusters, a teacher sits to help a
pupil, while another talks to a group of
students at the far end of the room a
large salon in which almost half of the
pupils at the school are seated. The
rest of the schools 213 students, aged
between 11 and 14, are busy elsewhere in
the building, which includes six small,
more traditional classrooms.
Through the windows that run the
length of the classroom, dark blue sea is
visible in the distance, past green hills,
while above the school Rocinha favela
surges up the mountain in a clutter of
concrete and peach-coloured brick.
This is Andr Urani Municipal
School, a technology-focused
experimental academy at the foot
of Rocinha in Rio de Janiero, which
with 70,000 inhabitants is Brazils
largest favela. With almost all of its
students drawn from the community,
Andr Urani is a flagship adopter of
an innovative educational software
developed by a So Paulo startup,
Geekie. Launched in 2011, Geekie
Labs delivers the entire high-school
syllabus in hundreds of digital lessons
incorporating text, images, videos
and exercises, and also evaluates the
students performance at every step,
feeding real-time data to teachers
and the school. A separate, widely
accessible app, Geekie Games, has the
same components, bar the institutional
integration.
Geekies content and study plans are
aimed at equipping students for Brazils
national ENEM exams, held annually
for final-year high-school students and
doubling as an entrance exam for many
universities, as well as providing proof
of achievement for school-leavers.
The Observer |10.01.16|OTM

35

Education

In the classroom at Andr Urani,


Yago dos Santos Lahas, 14, is taking
a history test on Geekie using an HP
laptop, one of 220 in the school, which
has a five-year sponsorship from
companies including Natura cosmetics
and Fundao Telefnica. A question
part of Geekies bespoke software
for the pre-high-school institution
reads: In world commerce there are
rich countries with more purchasing
power, and others with less. The
search for better commercial relations
between those countries, increasing
their profits, is called: (a) competition;
(b) integration; (c) association; or (d)
financing.
Yago reads the question twice,
selecting (a), and a green tick appears.
At the end of the 120-minute test, Yago
receives his results instantly: 262,
displayed beside the average for all
students taking the test: 230. How does
it feel to see that you are doing better
than most? Its OK, he says. I dont
really think about it. I sometimes do
worse than the others, but then you can
try again. The software has machine
learning at its core so the machine, like
the students, is also learning, adapting
and analysing responses, as more and
more data is fed in.
Its pedagogical content is created
by a team of teachers and education
professionals, also in-house, while the
online lessons are given by teachers
from private tutorial colleges, who
appear in the videos as disembodied
voices, speaking over handwritten
notes on black backgrounds, and using
cursors to emphasise points, or indicate
aspects of images. The format of the
video segments is inspired by the
Khan Academys free video classes on
YouTube.
In a Geekie biology lesson on the
respiratory system, text describing
how respiration works is interspersed
with exercises and videos. In one video,
a teacher speaks engagingly over a
diagram showing the transfer of oxygen
and carbon dioxide inside the lung. O2
and CO2 take opposite routes, but both
move by a process of diffusion, OK?
OK. At the end of the lesson, an In
this lesson you saw page reprises the
content as a list of bullet points.
The transmission of content is one
of the platforms main benefits, says
Andr Uranis headteacher, Marcela
de Oliveira. You simply dont need a
teacher to carry out this part. Instead
of being lectured en masse on subjects
in which they may fail to understand
a given element, students, she says, do
better when they can set their own pace,
return to difficult components in their
own time and get things wrong without
fear of being shown up in front of their
36 OTM|10.01.16 | The Observer

Brazil is so
diverse. Its
crucially
important
to have
information
coming in
from pupils
all over the
country

classmates. The idea at Andr Urani,


says Oliveira, is that teachers become
mentors rather than lecturers, while the
children take a more active role in the
study process: They stop being pupils,
and become students.
Beginning with a brief test and a
survey on the goal of each user the
purpose of study, and which subject
and university, if any, the student is
aiming for Geekie creates study plans,
selecting content according to each
students needs: more economics for
aspiring maths candidates, for example.
Then, as a student uses the software,
it gauges their abilities and presents
lessons in personalised sequences,
adapted over time as each students
aptitude evolves, and as the algorithm
understands it.
In practice, its relatively simple: if
a user responds well to certain types

of content, it will resurface in similar


lessons; and as it gauges students
performances based on levels of
difficulty, it will select lessons pitched
at similar levels in other areas of study,
too. If a student tends to study best at
a particular time of day, the app can
send push notifications reminding
them whats next in the study plan.
As well as providing structured study
plans, Geekie can also, says Claudio
Sassaki, who, with Eduardo Bontempo
is Geekies co-founder and co-director,
detect some of the obstacles hindering
students. Those might include poor
reading comprehension leading to
difficulty in understanding maths
problems, for example; or missed classes
and misunderstood lessons causing
knock-on, diagnosable problems later
on. Geekie also compiles data to identify,
for example, specific areas of knowledge

information coming in from students


all over the country, because they are
so completely different. Having that
range of data helps to create a product
capable of catering for an ever greater
number of people.
Sassaki is quick to note that
achieving scale is also a major factor
in the companys reaching its business
goals. Finding its way into Brazils
public-school system is at the heart of
Geekies ambition. We want to position
ourselves as the default digital platform
in Brazilian education, he says. I dont
think this a market in which youll end
up with five platforms like Geekie.
There might be one, maybe two, but
not multiple. So theres an element of
timing: you either go for it, or youre
not going to make it. And someone else
will.
Geekie made huge strides in its
reach in 2013-14, when promotional
partnerships with G1, the news portal
for Globo, Brazils largest media
conglomerate, racked up millions of
registrations for its Geekie Games
app. It has so far reached a total of five
million users, it says, with 30% of those
adults working towards high-school
certificates that they missed out on
as teenagers. With a presence in 650
private schools, Geekie is also in use in
more than 4,000 public schools, a huge
proportion in So Paulo state, where the
state government reached an agreement
with the company this year to give free
access to students in their third and final
years, a total of 415,000 students.

F
that are prerequisites for more complex
subjects, producing material that can be
analysed and incorporated by Geekies
human education professionals.
The more the student uses the
software, the more successfully
targeted its teaching can become,
says Sassaki, and the same is true, he
says, of the entire platform: the more
students use it, the better it becomes
for everyone. Scale is everything, he
says. Speaking at the companys So
Paulo headquarters, Sassaki explains
that operating with as many people as
possible using Geekie is essential to
capitalise on the exponential properties
of the algorithms. The machine
is making correlations all the time,
discerning and understanding patterns,
he says. The more data we have, the
better it can do that.
Its partly for that reason that

The Andr Urani


school in Rio, where
students learn with
the help of Geekie,
shown by history
teacher Gilberto
Amorim, left.
Photographs by
Lianne Milton for
the Observer

Geekie has an unusual buy-oneget-one-free policy: for each licence


purchased by a private school, a public
school student is given free access.
Sassaki says he is someone who has
benefited from the transformative
effect of education, and got into the
business to make a difference. When
his grandparents arrived in Brazil
from Japan, they became indentured
agricultural servants, before escaping
to So Paulo. Sassaki earned a degree
at the prestigious public University of
So Paulo, then an MBA and an MA in
Education at Stanford, before going to
work on Wall Street where he spent 10
years in finance.
Providing the platform free to
some public-school students is partly
an altruistic gesture, he says but
also good business. Brazil is very
diverse. Its crucially important to have

ludio Azevedo Limas, director


of the 196,000-strong State of So
Paulo Teachers Union, says teachers
also need to be given a chance to
learn to use the new technological tools.
They can be extremely productive if
teachers are included in the process,
rather than simply being confronted
with the new technology, he says. There
is a danger, he warns, that students
can end up simply parked in front
of computer screens. But it doesnt
work that way they can do that at
home. What they need are decently
renumerated, properly supported
teachers to guide them.
Professor Glaucia da Silva Brito is
research leader for the Technology,
Teachers & Schools study group at the
Federal University of Paran, in the city
of Curitiba. Research carried out by the
group shows strong teacher interest,
she says, in incorporating digital tools
into their teaching. But at the moment
they are leaving university without any
training in the proper use of technology
in the classroom.
In the hallway between classes at
The Observer |10.01.16|OTM

37

Education

Andr Urani, a handful of students


lounge about on beanbags, many
absorbed in their phones. Theres no
point in banning phones at school,
says Oliveira. Theyre part of students
lives, and part of our lives too. Geekie
software is optimised for smartphones,
so students who cant get to school on a
given day can work on their phones or
tablets, if they have them, even if they
have no internet at home. Many Andr
Urani teachers also run Facebook or
WhatsApp groups for their students.
They ask a lot of questions on there,
says teacher Luana Rezende, who runs a
WhatsApp group for her class.

ust as Geekies systems are tailored


to students, the platform also
provides modules for teachers and
school managers, and in the state
system can feed performance data to
state authorities, too. The information
it gives me is the best part, in terms
of management, says Sueli Cain de
Oliveira, academic director for the
six private schools that, with Mater
Dei, make up the Weducation group.
Where Cain de Oliveira previously
created her own charts and statistics,
Geekie provides them in real time,
evaluating the performance of teachers
and principals, as well as of students,
and allowing her to splice the data in
different ways. I can use it to propose
targets for school directors, she
says, and they can do the same for
co-ordinators and for students.
Is there an issue with privacy, given
that data on student and teacher
performance could become widely
available within organisations both
private and public? Its information
that has always been gathered by
organisations in one form or another,
says Sassaki. Yet the centralised, easily
transmittable nature of electronic
data often cloud-based, unencrypted,
and accessed via bring-your-own
devices belonging to employees could
make it easy for it to find its way into
unforeseen places in future, with similar
implications for student privacy as
those raised for patients by the use of
electronic health records.
Sassaki doesnt appear to have
considered it. He looks thoughtful.
Thats true, he says. But ultimately,
the data belongs to the institutions
themselves.
Despite significant improvements
in school attendance rates in the last
20 years in part as a result of the
means-tested Bolsa Famlia benefit,
and before that, Bolsa Escola only
45% of Brazilian adults aged 25-64
completed high-school, compared to the
international average of 75%, according

38 OTM|10.01.16 | The Observer

Ca n s o f t wa r e t e ac h b e t t e r t h a n t e ac h e r s ?
What is adaptive
learning?
A highly personalised
online learning method
that adapts to users
needs in real time.
Software provides
feedback that helps
learners progress
at their own pace. It
knows who you are,
what youve already
understood (or not) and
decides what youre
going to see next based
on your performance.
In a class using
adaptive learning
software, each student
will be learning the
same syllabus, but at
their own pace, often
using different types of
lessons.
Who are the main
providers?
Knewton, based in New
York, is a big provider
to schools and claims to
have 10 million students
worldwide. It also has
an office in London.
Aleks (Assessment and
Learning in Knowledge
Spaces), owned by
McGraw-Hill Education,

Students
need good
teachers
and for tech
to remain
part of the
process,
rather than
becoming
the process

Adaptive learning
systems often use
multiple choice
questions and some
subjects such as
computer science are
obviously much better
suited to being taught in
this way than others.

US-based Knewton says it has 10 million students.


is also used widely in
US schools. Facebook
is developing adaptive
learning software with
US schools, while the
Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation has funded
research in the area
and given grants to US
colleges and universities
to launch adaptive
courses.
Is it being used in UK
schools?
Not widely, but interest
is growing. Exam
board OCR, Cambridge
University Press and
Raspberry Pi jointly
created adaptive

learning platform
Cogbooks in 2014
to add personalised
learning to computing
GCSE massive online
open course (Mooc).
It was used by 20,000
students in 2015.
CogBooks is also
working with Cambridge
University in 120 UK
schools and is hoping to
expand this year.
What are its limitations?
It can be expensive to
develop and can require
schools to invest in
technology up front.
Classrooms may also
need to be restructured.

to figures from the Organisation


for Economic Co-operation and
Development. International rankings,
based on maths and science test scores
at the age of 15, placed Brazil 60th out of
75 countries in a set of May 2015 results,
also published by the OECD.
There remain deep-seated problems
in Brazils education system, including
low levels of competence in the
management of many public schools
and a lack of accountability, says Sassaki.
He says it is also a result of the failure
of Brazilian society to demand better
education. Its a very complex set of
problems. Without strong pressure from
the population, I doubt many politicians
would be prepared to tackle it.
Yet when Mays OECD report
was published, the organisation also
released calculations suggesting that,
given universal enrolment in high
school and the achievement of basic
skills for all students, Brazils GDP
could increase by 751% by 2095 that
is, over the lifetimes of todays 15-yearolds. If those figures are anywhere

Will teachers lose jobs?


Probably not. Jim
Thompson, CEO of
Cogbooks, says that in
the US teachers have
found them to be useful
tools.
Some systems help
teachers track students
progress in real time,
enabling them to spend
more time with those
who need extra support.
Many systems also
allow teachers to make
their own curriculum.
But there is a long
way to go until adaptive
learning is standard
in schools. Teachers
will probably have to
be trained in how the
systems work to ensure
students receive the
benefits of adaptive
education.
Natalie Gil

near the truth, the question becomes


how much longer Brazil can afford to
fail its schoolchildren. Technological
innovations like Geekie seem to
indicate that at least part of the solution
might be less complicated, expensive
and arduous than it once seemed,
offering a generation of children new
chances to do better.
While recognising the potential,
Fludio Azevedo Limas sounds a note
of caution. Incorporating technology
into education is important, he says,
as long as it isnt intended to substitute
for real teachers. He points to schools
that achieve outstanding results under
difficult circumstances with almost no
technology: They could be out in the
serto, he says, referring to Brazils
impoverished, north-eastern backlands
but still manage to serve their
students better than schools with all the
technological solutions in the world.
What students need most of all, says
Limas, are well-trained teachers and
for tech to stay part of the process,
rather than becoming the process.

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