Solution on introduction of trilingualism and intellectual innovations into school education developed - Kudaibergenuly
Then, they changed the conditions of ‘the experiment' and asked the viewers to think would they do the same thing if all children will be chipped and demonstrate excellent performance at school and only their child will remain ‘normal' and lag behind his or her peers.
It is surprising how quickly the viewers changed their mind in the course of the experiment. Of, course, it is a difficult choice, but one has to realize that the humankind moved past this psychological barrier 20 years ago and the education of the future is necessary and inevitable. We don't have to implant a chip inside our heads, but we will have to accept new technologies. You won't prejudice interests of your own child, will you?
We are often told that Kazakhstan needs an intellectual nation to make a breakthrough and implement the National Plan "100 specific steps". Many power players admit that President Nazarbayev feels future changes. In reality, he has been generating for a long time the ideas on development of national education that can lay the foundation for success. It may seem that only few can hear him, however, a network of the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools and the most innovative university in Central Asia - Nazarbayev University - have been opened in Kazakhstan over these years.
There were a number of other attempts - some of them work effectively, others turned into negative experience that we want to forget. What we are talking about is the attempt to introduce the system of e-journals and online grade books within the framework of the well-known e-Learning program.
But, the only one who doesn't make mistakes is the one who doesn't do anything. In other words, it's not how hard you fall it's about how fast you get up. A reasonable person doesn't see failure as the reason to stop.
It is also widely thought that by its reforms and introducing new technologies the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan destroys the fundamental science and education that were formed during the Soviet period and replaces them with ‘the western fake'. In fact, it is not so. And here is why: the model of the education of the future stems from the latest global achievements of science and progress mainstreamed by western companies. We often exclusively associate these new things with the West. It goes without saying that our ministry [of education and science] doesn't waste its time on inventing a wheel and uses as a basis the global achievements tested by time. Here is how this illusion is created. Though, the content of the model of the education of the future in the West and in Kazakhstan may differ.
Meanwhile, one can already ‘touch' the future today. A unique educational platform that can fully respond to the present-day challenges, considerably expand and improve the educational process at our schools has been recently presented at the international educational exhibitions. The platform has already been developed and successfully tested.
WHAT IS IT?
We are talking about the "Intellectual School System". 40 years of hard work of scientists, software specialists and the best teachers are behind this humble name. As a result, we have ended up with something which has never been proposed before - the most advanced product with 100% guarantee of effectiveness and success. The opportunities of the Intellectual School are astonishing to the point they seem fantastic. However, we remember that iPhone back in 2007 seemed to be out of this world. This is exactly what Steve Jobs said at the presentation. And today it is a common thing and iPhone 4 is quite outdated.
WHO INVENTED THE PLATFORM?
How would you react if we told you that the innovation was developed by Kazakhstani and Russian scientists? No, don't be too quick to answer! You run the risk of falling into the same trap that Discovery Channel prepared for its viewers! The developers of the Intellectual School justly believe that their platform outrivals its global analogues, some of its features considerably outcompete the ideas of British and American developers and to some extent it is unique.
Representatives of the developer - head of research at Interactive Kazakhstan LLP Nuraly Kudaibergenuly and deputy director of Innovative Technologies Institute LLC Kirill Mukhin told Kazinform International News Agency about the people who solved the most pressing challenges of the educational sector and implemented the boldest ideas of automation in the sphere of education.
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- Project "Intellectual School" appeared as a result of long-standing Russian-Kazakhstani partnership. This cooperation was based on common ideas in the sphere of artificial intelligence of two eminent scientists Bayangali Koishibayev (Kazakhstan) and Oleg Mukhin (Russia) who worked independently. The component of the system which makes it absolutely unique was built on the basis of the data they received.
Additionally, this cooperation is continued in terms of creation of models of learning objects for the Intellectual School. In order to develop interactive software packages of subjects included into curricula, we attract the best teachers from Russia and Kazakhstan who are fully responsible for the content of the subject and the scenario of a child's interaction with the objects of study.
It is worth mentioning that methodical component of the Chemistry textbook for the Intellectual School was developed with the participation of Candidate of Science (Education) and Chemistry teacher of school №161 of Almaty city Aliya Temirbulatova and translated into three languages - Kazakh, Russia and English. The Physics module was translated into Kazakh and English. The translation of the Geometry module is underway.
Kirill Mukhin:
-It is worth mentioning that Oleg Mukhin also happens to be the developer of modeling environment and design of complex systems of Stratum, the programming language that ensures flexibility of the Intellectual School.
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
-Kirill is right, the programming language is of paramount importance. The thing is that software used by all spheres of economy does not properly meet the new challenges. Automation of whole sectors lags because their software was written using low-level programming language. To make it all work better, it is necessary to rise to a new level. That means we need a new programming language. That kind of language was theoretically described in 1970s by our compatriot, Candidate of Science (Technology) Bayangali Koishibayev (Nuraly Kudaibergenuly is the only student of Bayangali Koishibayev). He described the basic principle of that language and methodology. Professor Oleg Mukhin was working on the analogous language in Russia at the same time. In fact, he created the first and the only high-level programming language -Stratum. It is now used not for programming, but for design of systems. To better understand it, let's draw parallels with the construction of a house. At first, the house is designed and, then, the works are described in details at a lower level. The same principle works here. The system needs to be designed at first and, then, programmed and coded at a lower level using machine language. In other words, we created intellectually advanced programming language.
Nowadays one can create the things that were considered impossible in the past. The things that required years to create are made in a month's time. Moreover, this language allows to easily and quickly restructure the system and redirect its functions. In simple terms, you don't need to call the programmer to do the job, from now on you can do it yourself in few clicks.
HOW IT WORKS?
Kirill Mukhin:
-In simplified form, it is an educational intellectual network or a multiuser app used by schoolchildren, teachers, parents and the ministry of education on behalf of the government. They are connected to the network through components installed on a computer, a notebook or a tablet and can interact.
With the help of preinstalled elements - modules - teachers can in a matter of seconds plan lessons at their own convenience. At the same time, parents can monitor their children's progress or difficulties their face when doing homework online.
The state can monitor the effectiveness of educational process at a school, in a certain city or countrywide. Ideally, the first grader receives the USB-flash key that he or she will use until graduation. It will store his homework formed in accordance with his or her personal trajectory of learning, extra lessons, marks and transcript of progress. Thus, schoolchildren will study part of the learning material individually via PCs or tablets and part of it - at classroom. Our teachers point out that quickness of the system, its flexibility and clearness as well as interactive game elements enable children to digest the material better and ten times faster.
Hence it follows that children can digest the same volume of knowledge making less efforts or greater volume of knowledge if they exert more efforts.
WHAT IS THE ADVANTAGE?
Kirill Mukhin:
-The greatest thing about this system is that it already contains the models composed by the best teachers in accordance with a curriculum. They are contained in the single virtual library (Album).
A schoolchild can do any exercise from the collection at any time. Teachers can compile lessons from these exercises right before the classes taking into account individual peculiarities of the schoolchildren and day-to-day situation. Our teachers usually spend 1-2 minutes planning the lesson. Elements from the collections of other school subjects can be mixed to establish inter-subject connections. As a result, the lesson turns into an interactive book - scenario.
This book can be saved or compiled individually for every child on a USB stick: here you go, this is your homework. Such scenarios can be saved and used in the future as individual best practices. The interactive character of the modules allows to carry out experiments during the lessons. Basically, teachers can easily ‘juggle' components of the lesson so that children digest the material in the best way possible. Therein lies the flexibility of the educational content of the Intellectual School. The system has three cores:
- collection of the educational content in the form of 17,000 educational interactive models and exercises in all subjects;
- expert system (records progress and errors made by schoolchildren, gives cues, immediately assess potential of each student, determines whether the student got the hang of the main theme of the lesson, and depending on the result, either corrects mistakes or offers students more complex tasks automatically compiling and correcting the individual route of studying);
- management system of learning process (collection of statistical data on progress at schools, in cities, districts, regions, allows to assess whether a schoolchild or a class fulfill the standard of a subject at any point, automatically puts marks and fills in a school diary and a journal).
It would like to note that all components of the system work as a whole and embrace the entire educational process. All abovementioned features make the Intellectual School a far cry from other systems offered at the educational market. Automation, integrity and level of readiness of the Intellectual School set it apart from other projects.
-Please, tell us about each component of the system in more detail.
Kirill Mukhin:
-Let me explain by using one of the exercises from a lesson. Here we have the solar system model used in Physics, Geography and Astronomy. This exercise contains a detailed 3D picture of space provided by a space agency for illustration purposes. It allows us ‘to travel' to every planet in the solar system and explore it. Let's travel to our planet the Earth. Here we can observe sunrise and sunset, how day turns into night, the change of seasons, eclipses, movement of satellites, planets and space vehicles.
We can use the model to carry out a geographic experiment that cannot be done in nature, on the globe or map. For instance, to change the total volume of water on the Earth. If we decrease the volume of water the Earth will turn into a stone. Children really enjoyed increasing the volume of water and ‘orchestrating a flood'. We can conduct another experiment by moving the Earth away from the Sun. In order to do that we just have to use the mouse, touch screen, interactive board or tablet. Thus, we will turn the Earth into a piece of ice. If we increase the temperature of the Sun, we can gradually melt the ice and return the life on the planet back to normal. By watching how the model reacts to his or her actions a student will notice the connection between the temperature of the Sun and distance between the Sun and the Earth. Thus, he or she will discover the incredible law of insolation by spending only 3-4 minutes on the task. Model approach is the only way to achieve such effect.
A student can solve a geographic task and we think it is kind of a breakthrough since geographic tasks of such level have never been done before the Intellectual School. If the model unbalances the climate on the Earth, the task of the student will be to ensure comfortable conditions for life on the planet. In addition, all processes are absolutely adequate and are governed by the laws of Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy and Chemistry! The student has to make the decision by relying on his or her knowledge and logic. For example, the system gives a cue that the planet is covered by ice, there is no food and fuel, the population is decreasing dramatically. He or she makes a step and the situation changes - there is a lot of water, but there is no place suited for life. And the student has to look for another solution to the problem.
There is no right solution, this task is creative. The child is not limited and can make steps he or she thinks are the most suitable in that situation. The expert system will assess the effectiveness of the decisions made by the students. As a result, we have an individually formed tasks or individual route. Please, pay attention to the fact that this model enables the students to gain knowledge by exploring the solar system. This is the regime of search and demonstration. The gifted children can disclose the laws of Physics or solve a complex geographical task.
Thus, we improve the project-oriented thinking, create a true research and, as a result, teach the children in a completely different way.
In practice, the model approach implements the high level of interactivity and variability of learning. That is why we made sure that students use corresponding constructor in each section and various forms of interactive learning activity. For example, the system includes interactive presentations, animation, models, tasks, tutors, simulators, lessons, generators and problem solvers, exercises containing problems, tests, laboratory works, constructors, home tasks and research 3D exercises!
This is only a part of the system - the collection of intellectual interactive models. The second component is the expert system which constantly monitors the child and records his or her actions. It automatically assesses the child eventually. The mark will appear on the individual map of knowledge and competences - another know-how we have developed. We did a tremendous work to systemize them - each knowledge and competence has their own place on the map. The visual map of the subject matter enables to assess whether the child mastered the subject. Based on that, we can form further individual trajectory of learning and correction of mistakes.
Incorporated in each model, a computer-generated educational agent ‘keeps an eye’ on a student and automatically complicates his/her work with the models and if any obstacles arise, the agent offers its help and advice. Thus, the agent teaches and makes each student fulfill the tasks set and guarantees that they obtain new knowledge. It is impossible to miss students’ gaps by using such technology, since any retardation is liquidated immediately. The Intellectual School guarantees positive results of teaching.
The third component is the management system which constantly monitors the process of teaching, analyses and accumulates all the results of a child’s work with the learning objects in each school subject. It allows to monitor online the changes in volumetric, average, time, peak indicators reflecting the achievements and complications of a student. It enables also to form statistical information for further analysis of deviation from targeted indicators and analysis of productivity of activities by means of comparison of costs and outcomes as well as for search for causes of success and failures by tracking cause-and-effect relation in teaching process.
Noteworthy to say while working in the “Intellectual School,” a student gets around 300 marks in a term, because the expert system checks him/her every day, but not only during assignments or answering in a class. The student may be marked more than once at one lesson. And, as you understand, the denser statistics is the more precise results we get. The mark given to the student is an accurate, unbiased, daily and statistically reliable one which determines any shortages in understanding new material and allows to remedy the situation promptly.
One more important point is personal data protection. As you know, the law on personal data protection has come into effect in Russia, and we have no right to process any data about the users. Therefore, we hand over a set of codes to a school or a ministry and they assign codes to the children themselves. So, neither developers nor third persons will be able to access to the students’ personal data.
WHO NEEDS IT?
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- Now let’s talk about how the system simplifies the teachers’ life. The system gives an evaluation to a student’s activity, based on his/her analyzed actions. Class-register is formed automatically as a result of such monitoring. Thus, a teacher can ‘breathe freely’ without routine daily work - giving marks, checking exercise books, keeping a register, compiling lesson plans etc. The system does it easily and quickly.
The opportunities of the system enable to solve one more important problem – to ensure unbiased assessment of a student’s progress. Today we can observe such situations, when a teacher gives a ‘satisfactory’ mark to a student, although the latter shows ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ knowledge, but the teacher does not like him/her. The teacher decides himself. At the end of a term, the parents usually ask the reason of their children’s poor marks. Neither children nor teachers can remember it. The system keeps full history of the student’ progress and can provide detailed information even for a five-year period. This is one more advantage of the system
- You say that the system does everything itself. And what will the teachers do? Will there be any need in teachers? It seems, if we obtain the whole package of the Intellectual School system from the 1st through the 11th grade, our children may easily learn at home…
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- Our principal position is as following: nothing can replace personal communication between a good teacher and a student – neither computers nor internet. It is evident that communication with a genius teacher gives more qualitative development. But what shall we do with the remaining numerous audience, inexorable market demands and economic realities of today? There are 8,000 schools and 200,000 teachers. Each of them outperforms his/her colleagues to some extent.
The Intellectual School will allow to form a unified teaching space in Kazakhstan, to select the best examples of pedagogical thoughts and make them broadly available as well as to update and disseminate them. We won’t need to additionally train the new entrants into the teaching profession – they will learn the new standards on-site! Thus, we automatically activate the tutorship system. Therefore, we believe that the Intellectual School will not put the teacher in a disadvantage, but will unveil his/her potential and will place him/her upon a pedestal…
Kirill Mukhin:
- Guiding a child is an important component of the work with such models. Without a teacher, it will turn into a simple and aimless game. But if a teacher sets a trajectory of objectives to the child and offers interesting tools, the child will gradually master them [the models - editor].We are not trying to replace the teacher. We give him modern innovative instruments of organization of the learning process, which will open new, earlier unachievable opportunities on carrying out real individual learning, organization of a project-based research activity of the students in full compliance with the requirements of the education ministry.
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- As for the second part of the question, you probably know that there is a group of children that cannot attend school for health problems, or for living in remote areas. The problem of small schools is also relevant. As per the Constitution, secondary education in Kazakhstan is free and compulsory. For this reason, the schools have to send teachers to such students’ home, that is a time- and money-consuming decision. The quality of home-learning does not always conform to the targets set. The Intellectual School system may help the government to solve these problems too.
- Ok, now we know that this is a really advanced system. Another question is related to the risks – how does it analyze the children’s actions? By the time of responding or by correct answers, or there is more to this…
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- The Intellectual School has an artificial intellect system incorporated into it which was developed based on modeling environment and designing complex Stratum systems. It is used, for instance, for analyzing a user’s response to the models.
- So, the Intellectual School does not mean only interactivity?
- The quality of intellectuality of the Intellectual School is guaranteed by: 1) an individual response of the expert system to each movement of the child; 2) measurability of fulfillment of each exercise by each student; 3) monitoring and keeping individual learning trajectory of each student, the response to individual difficulties of the student, contextual help; 4) presence of problem generators and problem solvers on the models of subjects which offer variations of problem solution and unlimited tasks for training; 5) a mechanism of regulation of the learning trajectory: deviation of real trajectory from the planned one is identified and compensated by correcting a student’s actins to let him achieve the goal set; 6) the content of intellectual problems, with the development of heuristic and creative components of the learning process; 7) automatic, statistically unbiased, non-stop comprehensive evaluation of a student’s actions as per “I want – I can – I need it” system which helps identify talented and gifted children.
- Do you want to say that the system itself identifies it?
Nuraly Kudaibergenuly:
- As we have said before, the analysis of knowledge and competences map data allows us to see what a student knows and can. Comparing the maps with professiograms, which are compiled by employers for each profession and each enterprise, we can understand how much each student meets the requirements of the chosen profession and society.
It is not statistics. It is a serious psychophysical analysis. With its help we can understand what psychophysical parameters are required by certain professions. This helps us introduce career-guidance programmes at early stages.
- Your website https://stratum.ac.ru/ru/ says that this system has already been implemented in several regions of Russia. What are the results of this experience?
Kirill Mukhin:
- We are working in 34 regions of Russia, as well as in Great Britain and in Germany. Perm Krai can be one of the bright examples of the Intellectual School system’s successful implementation. Three years ago we delivered one of the Intellectual School modules (Interactive Physics) to 92% of all the schools of the region or 709 educational institutions. The project was implemented together with the ministry of education. As a result, the average score of the school leavers at the Unified State Examinations in the region exceeded the national score by 3.5 points (7%). Within two and a half of years of applying the Interactive Physics module, the average USE score in physics among the region’s school leavers increased by 15%. By the way, the number of school leavers who chose physics in their USE rose almost by 15%. It means that the students are not feared of physics class. The subject became more interesting and understandable to them!
- What can you say about parents’ and federal education ministry’s reaction to such a novelty?
Kiril Mukhin:
- Let us consider all those involved in current education system. Is a student eager in getting quality education? Yes, he/she is, but not really consciously. The student has got parents. Are they interested in quality education of their child? As a rule, they want their child to successfully pass the USE and be admitted to a university. That is why we are often asked one question: how does your system help pass the USE and SFE (State Final Examination)? It really helps! The data which I have disclosed prove it. However, the examinations are not the only goal of this product. If we intended to drill the students in tests only, then we would offer only simulators and tutors. Is a teacher keen on sharing high-quality knowledge? Yes, he/she is. Is the Intellectual School system affordable for the teacher? This is a very good question. We can conclude that government remains a sole interested side in providing quality education to the people. We have conducted a research on how government investment in education impacts a country’s well-being. South Korea’s experience turned out to be very convincing. 15 years ago, the Korean government launched ‘e-learning’ project. The country ranked the 126th in the number of patent inventions at that time Now, South Korea is the third biggest ‘inventor’ in the world! Its GDP has jumped multi-fold. Meantime, they figured out in advance that 1% increase in spending on education results in 0.5% increase in GDP. In fact, this is a great index.
We can and we will work a lot with Russian schools, regions and we will promote this product. However, its efficiency will be achieved only when the Intellectual School system is implemented comprehensively. That is why, we are keen on working in Kazakhstan, because: 1) this product was developed together with Kazakhstani scholars; 2) due to its smaller territory, Kazakhstan seems to be more mobile; 3) people here already realize that intellectual schools form the future of the country. We hope that Kazakhstan will become the first country where education will be both “electronic” and really “intellectual”.
- Do you have any competitors? What are the advantages of your product?
Kirill Mukhin:
- Of course, there are competitors. There is a plenty of educational content –from simple tests to virtual laboratories. The problem is that they are not synchronized with each other. Our teachers have to keep regular class registers and electronic versions simultaneously. Does this novelty simplify their work? No, it doesn’t. On the contrary, they complicate the teachers’ life. In our system, marks are assigned automatically, and class registers are kept by the system.
The second peculiarity is that we, like other companies, apply tests and simulators. We do not deny any forms of learning activity, as any form can be useful and produce some result. But namely those models with planets, molecular diffusion and ight refraction – these are unique developments. There are only four companies – by one in the U.S., Great Britain, India and our joint project with Kazakhstan – specializing in development of such educational models.
However, none of our competitors is able to fully cover the learning material of the schools’ academic programmes. They cannot provide systemic and systematized measurement, precise and reliable information on the process and results of teaching at all levels of educational system. They cannot automatically record and evaluate children’s actions or individually help each student conformably to his/her complications.
Nuraly Kudaiberdiuly:
- We have a really working and tested Intellectual School system which solves pedagogical problems of today’s crisis period, making a breakthrough in education. We would like the leadership of the country to hear this call.
Our President wants to form an intellectual nation. He realizes that future belongs to the intellectual nation. The more intellectualized the nation is, the wealthier the country will be. To make the nation more intellectually developed, we should start this work at schools. For this reason, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools were opened countrywide. These schools need an intellectual content. The schools are known for gifted students and talented teaching staff, but where is the content? Their programmes are developed together with the Cambridge University.
Our product contains not only excerpts from textbooks, but also a fully systematized content. The intellectual content combines three things: 1) achievements of contemporary pedagogics and psychology; 2) infocommunication technologies and achievements in this sphere; 3) the system is a methodologically wise and understandable tool which can be used by teachers, students, parents and school administration.
We would like to address the ministry and say that such a comprehensive educational technology exists and it is unique, as it combines all three components!
- Meanwhile, ordinary people, parents are concerned over another issue. The system that you offer and what our ministry does – is it a symbiosis of the western and soviet education systems, or is it a unique way?
Kirill Mukhin:
- The ideology which the Intellectual School is based on is a correlation of the content, knowledge map and internet. This is the ideology of education of future. This is the education which we will shift to within 5-6 years. It is the inevitability which is determined by rapid processes of computerization and informatization of society. The Intellectual School system is clear for the citizens of our regions both in virtue of their ideology and mentality. Kazakhstan, like any other CIS country, may become the first one which fairly and fully implements the intellectual school system. If it does not happen, then an American giant may occupy this market in 5-10 years and will come here with its own product that is not adapted to the peculiarities of the local education system. It is quite difficult to predict the ideology of such product.
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P.S. Presently, the Kazakh society is actively debating the almost finished transition to a trilingual system of education. The opinions vary. The idea which belongs to recently appointed Minister of Education and Science Erlan Sagadiyev announced by him at TEDxAlmaty in 2013 carries quite right aspirations. The society understands and accepts them. However, people express concern over the questions which cannot be easily answered. Theoretically, if we want our children to speak Kazakh, Russian and English fluently, they need three moms – Kazakh, Russian and English ones. I can’t help but remember the nannies (nurses) and governesses which were widely popular in Tsarist Russia in XVIII-XIX centuries.
When the developers were explaining their idea, I thought that the Intellectual School system is capable of “speaking” to children in three languages as easily as it keeps class register. Indeed, at the beginning of the conversation, the guests said that the Kazakh scholars had translated physics and chemistry modules into three languages. A geometry module is being translated now. Why not to translate other modules into Kazakh and Russian?
Since a teacher has to play a tutor’s role in the system, it will be enough for him/her to know only one language to cope with the functions he is imposed on. At the least, this could be an amazing and simple decision at the first stage. Certainly, the company developing the system may incur enormous financial expenses, but it is worth doing. In this regard, the ministry of education should pay more attention to the Intellectual School system. And I wish success and recognition to Interactiv Kazakhstan LLP and Institute of Innovative Technologies!