Introducing new POINTS based Daily Goals

The way we calculate Daily Goals is changing, they’re going to be built around POINTS, not correct answers, giving students more incentive to think before they answer and aim for high accuracy.

New POINTS based Daily Goals…

From the start of April, students logging in to Tassomai will see something has changed. Instead of being asked to complete a daily goal of correct questions, they will instead be asked to complete a daily goal of points.

The first thing that they’ll notice is that the points target is bigger than the question target was - which may cause alarm…. The most important news is that we are not increasing the workload - because correct answers count as 3 points each.

Students will also win extra points for completing quizzes, but on the downside, errors cost a penalty point. The result is that the work to complete a daily goal will remain broadly the same, but students have more incentive to think before they answer and aim for high accuracy.

Why change it?

After consultation with schools and parents and a great deal of data analysis, we found that there were some students who were engaging with Tassomai as a homework, but not answering as well as they might. Accuracy was below the level we would expect - and while that in itself is a reason to nudge towards higher accuracy, we were worried that many students with lower-than-expected accuracy were also progressing through the course far slower than they might do otherwise.

Analysis showed us that, by increasing accuracy of answering by 10%, students could double the pace at which they completed Tassomai courses. We felt, as educators and as software designers, that it was essential to drive students to care more about their accuracy, hence the move to points.

This change increases the value of students’ practice on Tassomai.

What does this mean for learners?

The most obvious change is that we expect students to be more invested in avoiding errors where they can. This means that the program will do better at identifying areas where they are genuinely struggling and help focus on improving those areas. Meanwhile, it can advance and stretch students in topics where they are improving.

We expect to see global accuracy increase significantly and, as a result, students will feel more learning reward for their efforts.

The system also avoids penalising learners of lower ability - because of the way Tassomai differentiates content and adjusts spacing, these students will be given quizzes where they can still achieve good points scores, and they also score more for completing their quizzes relative to higher ability students.

What does this mean for teachers?

Aside from being aware of the change, it doesn’t actually alter anything in the way teachers use Tassomai. Daily Goals are still the target you set and the achievement you measure. Teachers still see - on dashboards and datadrops - the same information: questions attempted, accuracy, progress etc, so nothing changes with regard to implementation.

However, we are confident that you will see that your classes’ average accuracy and weekly course progress jump - and the data we show you about where students are struggling will speak more truthfully to areas of need.

What does this mean for parents?

Again, the change for students to focus on points, rather than questions makes little difference: you will still see information about how much work was done each day, and how your child’s knowledge is growing… but we expect that it will be a more accurate picture. 

There will also be a stronger perception in your child’s mind of the value of the practice they are doing on Tassomai when they care more about getting things right.

What’s in store?

Tassomai’s points system as you see it now is only the first step - what we have designed is a parameterised system that will drive much of our research and development over the next year.

We intend to continually analyse our data to see what combinations of points get the best results for students. So you may see correct answers score more points or fewer; error penalties may become more nuanced, there may be bonus points awarded for logging in on weekend days, or points multipliers given after engaging with teaching videos.

We think that this can become a system that genuinely drives behaviour change and engages students in healthy, fun and rewarding learning habits.

N.B. We’re releasing this change during the week commencing 29th March. When we have completed testing we’ll announce the change on social media, and we will also alert students and teachers via pop-up notifications in the app and on the teacher dashboard.