An increasing number of students across India are opting for adaptive learning platforms to prepare for various entrance examinations. Lakhs of students appear for medical, MBA and IIT entrance exams every year and this has led to a burgeoning demand for coaching centers that promise outstanding success rates.
“But the next big thing now are adaptive learning platforms that ensure the ‘last-mile preparation’ of aspiring students,” said Abhishek Patil, founder, Oliveboard.
“Adaptive learning is exclusively student-oriented…It customises itself according to the student,” said Joe Cochitty, vice-president, Product Team, Toppr.
“An Adaptive Learning Platform responds according to the number of questions a student got right or wrong in a particular chapter. The algorithm understands which concepts he/she is weak in and will accordingly pose them with the next question. Students no longer have to keep solving a set number of questions. The questions adapt according to how prepared a student,” Joe said.
M.S. Rao signed up for Toppr recently to help his grand-daughter, a class 11th student, prepare for IIT-JEE exam. Himself an IIT-Bombay alumni, he said, “Exams like IIT-JEE need strong basics. Technology is dynamic and you can invent something new only when your concepts are strong. An adaptive learning platform like helps a student to do exactly that.”
Joe said, “Adaptive learning is revolutionizing self-study. A student will still have to go to school and take classes, but the amount of time they spend on self-study can lead to far better results if they use adaptive learning.”
“Adaptive learning platforms won’t replace the need for teachers. But it definitely improves the quality of preparation. To inculcate Adaptive Learning within the primary education system would require some massive changes. But this is where the future of Adaptive Learning will eventually lead,” said Abhishek.
Atul Gandhi, who scored 98.85 percentile in CAT 2015, said, “Oliveboard helped me a lot with my preparation. It helped me to evaluate what sections I needed to improve in and provided practice tests accordingly. They provided me with a schedule that was effective. Their adaptive learning helped me improve my speed and accuracy in answering questions. They are technically a must for anyone aspiring to crack various entrance exams.” Atul currently works in a German-based IT company in Gurgaon.
Both the Ed-tech start ups, Oliveboard and Toppr, are almost three years old now and boast of a significant rise in their demand. Joe said: “We now have 6,00,000 registered users at Toppr from across the country. Our vast number of users helps us generate more user data that makes our algorithms more efficient. We currently provide study modules from class 8th-12th as well as for MBA, Medical and IIT entrance preparation.”
On the other hand, Oliveboard specialises in banking, MBA, government and insurance exams. “We have over 2,10,000 registered users on our platform.”