The UK Education Blog was excited to meet with the chief growth officer of online tutoring platform GoStudent, Ms. Laura Warnier, who also held a talk at the summit titled ‘Scaling Internationally: Shared Experiences from EdTech Leaders’ and here are some of our curious questions she answered.
1. What are the key points in education requiring change that you focus on?
“I will give you an example: If you close your eyes and you think about a classroom what do you see? (I answer children at desks in room). If I ask your mum, the same question she will give me the same answer as she will have the same picture in mind. This shows that for years education has not really changed, and it is difficult to bring change about in education as many things remain as they were. A particular problem is that even today the individual student does not come first. Because it’s mandatory for children to attend school, there’s no need to change certain aspects.”
“The second focus is digitization in education and we’re working on making a hybrid model of online and in-person teaching and learning a reality. Through our GoStudent Education Report in 2021 we understood the challenges that arose during the pandemic and the feedback from many students and parents was that they missed the social interactions at school. We also learned that online learning needs improvements in terms of how we work with data to make the experience more customized and that governments differ in terms of their openness towards online learning. Spain had the lowest scores for learning gaps and the highest parental wellbeing index. In comparison countries like Germany scored highly for learning gaps and parental wellbeing was at the bottom. So, the key lies in using the education technology with caution, but effectively to ensure that teachers can do what they do best, which is to better understand and support their students.”
2. How can students worldwide access education to develop their full potential?
“Again, customisation is key here as the focus should be on the individual student and their choice of the learning intensity and the purpose depending on what they want to do later in life. At GoStudent we don’t dictate what students should learn, but the main focus is that they excel at what they learn to develop their full potential. Experimenting with Artificial intelligence helps us with testing and monitoring students’ performance to match them with the ideal learning interests such as hobbies and their learning style. Once we have a good understanding of their profile, we can match them with the most suitable tutor.”
“Because we realised how beneficial it is for the students to study with an online tutor they can connect with and that matches their profile in terms of common interests, personalities etc. Measuring success remains a challenge as this has been mainly established through testing with exams. But what if we can also include measuring happiness? Is it only about getting good grades or actually enjoying the learning experience? When we hear the feedback from parents after a trial online session, saying that for the first time they saw their child smiling after a Mathematics session, we know it truly matters as children don’t lie.”
3. How can digital education contribute to female students across the world developing entrepreneur and leadership skills?
“I think it is down to confidence. Being an entrepreneur is not a skill, but rather a competence and state of mind. It’s about being comfortable with taking risks and being ambitious, which is directly linked to confidence. Especially during the teenage years developing confidence is crucial as social media pressures and learning difficulties can cause certain insecurities and especially among girls this can be seen as they often don’t like to ask questions. So, in the classroom failure should be accepted as learning hence why it’s more about working on competencies than skills. And often female professionals don’t get the recognition as they may be more in the background doing really good work, but not putting themselves out there because they analyse every detail and feel they must be perfect.”
4. How has technology or EdTech helped you to develop your career?
“To be honest I don’t think EdTech has helped me as I don’t remember using it much at school, only at university mainly. I think what really mattered was my environment and that I was told that education was important. I was expected to succeed at school and pass my exams even though I was able to follow my hobbies in exchange for good school results. Most of the learning at school is closely linked to the relationships and social interactions. I remember playing with older children and acting as their teacher, giving them exercises and I was correcting them. So, I was already showing some leadership and entrepreneurship competencies in those interactions. But the classroom of course gives you the basics in a structured manner.”
5. How do students, education systems and cultures differ around the world and how does GoStudent take this into consideration?
“We see similarities and differences in every country. Online tutoring is something everyone needs worldwide. But markets differ. In Germany for example tutoring is about solving a problem, namely getting better grades at school and this the so-called painkiller approach. So, parents will search for learning support for specific subjects hence why we get a lot of search traffic from Germany throughout the whole year, but even more towards the final exams.”
“In Greece tutoring is considered a normal part of schooling for just a few hours weekly to ensure the students are on the right track and thoroughly understand what is taught at school. So, here the demand is usually higher at the beginning of the academic year and then it decreases. It could therefore be considered more like an added vitamin approach. In Greece many schoolteachers also offer private tutoring. Overall, our message is that online tutoring is something positive and that nobody should be ashamed for using online tutoring. It should be used as a tool to improve a student’s confidence and considered a partner on the learning journey.”
6. What are the challenges of making education globally accessible?
“Obviously being able to teach online improves accessibility globally and makes learning more affordable. But of course, there are still accessibility challenges for the more disadvantaged children, and we don’t have all the answers for this yet as we’re still a young company. We must be profitable, but we are looking into how we can work with other companies or private foundations to get them to invest in the future generations and future leaders. We have acquired Seneca Learning, which is a tool that provides content for teachers and students. With the help of basic AI we experiment with users can go through questions related to their topics of study. It’s a freemium so users can access the free version and then if they pay 5 Euros a month, they have access to the full service. This is much more affordable while still offering high-quality education.”
Ms. Laura Warnier referred to the GoStudent Education Report in 2021 in this interview and some interesting key findings can be found here that we touched on.
This year’s workshop has been made possible thanks to generous grants from ABF The Soldier’s Charity, The Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity, and The Grocers Charity.
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Music is an alternative to memorization. Try to introduce your child to singing educational English songs early enough. That will create a fun-filled environment for learning. You can even sing along with them and make them write out the songs to check their spelling. For younger ones, pronounce and repeat the words of the songs for improved memorization.
Expose them to higher levels of English learning like YouTube tutorials or television programs. Studies revealed that children do better when they are exposed to learning standards above their ages. Show them how to read according to the English phonetic sounds. School teachers will also add phonetics to the English language structure following the school syllabus.
If your child is struggling with vocabulary, introduce English games like scrabble or word puzzles. Let them play with you or watch them play with their friends. It will help them learn to spell new words easily and improve their vocabulary and grammar. Encourage such play during their spare time to further enhance the learning experience.
This is an extra opportunity to add more English language to the learning process. Make every night another memorable period for your child to look forward to. Read stories that are informative and entertaining so that they will be interested in asking about the characters and plot afterward.
Organize activities like painting, cutting, and gluing. You can also try baking pastries with your kids. All you need to do is communicate with them in English during such tasks, follow English recipes, and so forth. Let them pass you objects or ingredients by asking for them in English. Ensure they also reply in English. Children love to participate in such activities, so it is a great way to make them learn more.
Nowadays, children are used to operating their parents’ phones and iPads without help. Most of these gadgets are set in their native language. To improve their proficiency, keep your devices set to English. Their game consoles should also be set to English.
If your child is learning English as their second language, then you should provide opportunities to communicate in English ideally with native speakers. Research has revealed that children who communicate in daily activities in English find it easier to understand the language faster. Ask your friends who speak English fluently to visit your home with their kids to make learning more fun.
Whenever you engage in a discussion with your child, let them take the lead by telling you what they want to say. As they talk, listen to them, and take note of their grammar. If you notice any errors, you can gently correct them by repeating what they have incorrectly said in the correct way. Children learn faster through repetition and consistency.
Encourage the ability to recount details of events or activities around them. Allow them to narrate their daily encounters using the English language. Rephrase their mistakes by constructing correct sentences with them and make them understand the underlying principles.
There are good family movies which you can enjoy watching with your children. But if they prefer kid’s movies, then pick up educational ones. Encourage them to role-play favorite scenes. Children are fond of emulating what they see.
Make it a duty to check their schoolbooks daily when they return from school. Take the time to go through their English language texts and tasks with them. It will improve their ability to write better. It will also stir their interest more since there will not be any pressure doing that at home.
