Optimising Learning

Inspiration

What it does

The software will have the student take short quizzes (input by the teacher or selected from an existing database) to assess their understanding of the content. This will then generate the ideal date to review this content again to maintain maximum retention whilst assuring the student's time is put to best use. The core idea is to respect the time of students, and bring out the best of their capabaility without compromising on their youthful freedom by simply suggesting they "study hard every day". We believe there is a better way!

How we built it

We made use of existing theory for modeling the forgetting of information. From there, we have a base-level expectation value for the student's understanding of the content after a set initial period. After this initial period, the student will take another short test, which we will use to gauge how they are performing compared to expectations and update our model of the student's understanding. This will inform when the student should next review the content. After taking the representative test, the student should spend enough time refamiliarising themselves with the content to a level that they are happy with.

Challenges we ran into

There were two main obstacles between us and progress: Tkinter and karaoke.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Eventually overcoming Tkinter (a long and arduous battle), and producing a sufficient proof-of-concept program while not missing out on any sponsored talks or events.

What we learned

There is never enough time in a hackathon to do everything you want, but we will have an amazing time despite that.

What's next for Optimising Learning

Integrating the software straight into a calendar (Outlook, for example) would simplify the process on the user end. If we are able to make use of emerging machine learning techniques, we may be able to further personalise the experience for each student by fully understanding through data how each student learns best. This could take the form of alternative learning styles (visual, auditory, etc.) being presented to the student as appropriate, or by psuggesting more specific tweaks such as what time of day the student performs best.