«Smartick: The trajectory of an adaptive online method within a system that rewards uniformity»

Abstract

In 2009, the idea of ​​creating Smartick was born, an online method for teaching mathematics for children between 4 and 14 years old. There are three main facts that motivate its creation. In the first place, the low performance of Primary Education students in the area of ​​mathematics, according to international student achievement tests. Second, the potential to take advantage of the language of digital natives, that is, ICTs, for educational purposes. And thirdly, the labor demands of the future, along the lines of the STEM area (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which make mathematics an indisputable necessity for today’s children and young people.

Although ICTs are attractive, they are not a guarantee of innovation in themselves, the innovators are the experts in content, technology and pedagogy behind them. For this reason, since 2011, the tool, as well as its team, has been growing in the following fields of educational action: cognitive skills training, stimulation of logical-mathematical talent, verbal comprehension through problem solving and detailed feedback to the child’s guardians. In turn, the intelligent algorithm that adapts in real time to the needs of the student, offers incomparable pedagogical potential, mainly due to the information obtained on their daily progress; this being a level of detail that, currently, would not otherwise be possible.

Bio

Master in Philosophy of Education from the Institute of Education, at University College London. She graduated in Pedagogy from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), with an extraordinary end-of-course award. She has worked at the CSIC in the area of Philosophy Applied to Education; and she has participated in the European project of the Lifelong Learning Program of the MECD. She has also worked in the Quality and Evaluation Department of the Francisco de Vitoria University (UFV). She currently works in the Smartick pedagogical team, is an active member of the Research Group on Supranational Educational Policies (GIPES), and is an associate professor in the Teaching Degrees at the Distance University of Madrid (UDIMA), and in the Department of Didactics and Theory of Education at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM).