Re-engineering Learning Products for Maximum Adoption

00:00.00

Ritesh Chopra

Hello, Everyone! This is Tech In EdTech. In this podcast, we discuss technology that powers education and improves learning for all. Welcome to today's episode, I'm your host Ritesh Chopra from Magic EdTech and our guest for today's podcast is Duriya Aziz, Senior Vice President of Education Publishing at Scholastic. Duriya thanks for joining me and welcome to today's show.

00:19.72

Duriya Aziz

Thank you, Ritesh! Thank you for inviting me to this podcast.

00:24.52

Ritesh Chopra

Absolutely! Thank you. It's a pleasure hosting you here and Duriya, to kind of begin with would like to understand a bit of your background and your journey into edtech. If you could start with that and then we can go deep into the topic.

00:41.19

Duriya Aziz

Right. Um, so I'm Senior Vice President for Education at Scholastics International Business ah in this capacity I partner with all of Scholastics' regional businesses outside of the US to research and identify opportunities in education and develop the suite of products and services and provide the implementation and marketing support. In short, the entire customer journey and product lifecycle. I wake up in the morning thinking about how to better support ah children and teachers in diverse parts of the world in their learning journey. It's a good reason to go to work I think ah when um, so when I set up international education for Scholastic, I did so with 3 questions in mind. How do we provide access to if, effective pedagogy and instructional excellence to all teachers and learners around the world? How can we best use technology for this and how can we evaluate learning such that it continually informs the learning and teaching process so that it creates a virtuous loop? To me, these are not just idealistic goals, this is the need of the hour and it also is the business opportunity.

01:52.61

Ritesh Chopra

Absolutely, I think I kind of completely agree with your viewpoint here and I think it's a larger contribution to the community at large, and how do we bridge that education gap? Ah, and so absolutely kind of um, quite quite happy to kind of see that and hear that from you Duriya, and Duriya before we go into and transition to the topic like to kind of understand and layout that hey we've seen especially after the vestiges of Covid is now finally fading away. We've seen a lot of investment being fueled into their edtech space and now after that after that stabilization, at least the trend that we're seeing is that their tech space is platitude a little this year and the competition is in the space is pretty fierce. So Duriya, how do you, what are your tips based on your wealth of experience and the knowledge that you bring in, what are the points that you see? How do you survive the crucial period? What message do you have for the education providers to do next for this phase?

03:06.30

Duriya Aziz

Um, so we know that the world is learning at an unprecedented rate but education also faced a massive unprecedented setback in the form of the pandemic, some research points to learning loss of at least one-third or half a year for students in different parts of the world. As providers within the education ecosystem, we must continue to focus on the processes that sustain the ecosystem of learning. Today, we have the great benefit of technology to have this energy flow at the most granular level of each teacher for each student in each lesson throughout ah through the ability to customize and personalize learning. I believe that this is where we should continue to focus based on what data tells us about student and teacher behavior and the underlying factors.

03:53.36

Ritesh Chopra

True, absolutely kind of echo and resonate with what you said. Duriya, in fact, even in Magic EdTech with our customers we work with. We are seeing a lot of work around diversity, equity, and inclusion on sustainability and I think those are the new trends that we are seeing and I think as Magic, we can completely relate to what you just said, Duriya. Thanks for that again and if we can transition now to more on the adoption side see the adoption that we see especially for the US-based market and the Non-US based market um, as a publisher and based on where you are Duriya, I’d like to understand what yardstick does a publisher have to kind of measure quantify the success of a product beyond adoption and what insights as a publisher you could give to kind of peek into that planning when you kind of design a product for adoption.

04:56.80

Duriya Aziz

Um, well, you really have to take it on a market-by-market, country-by-country ah basis. There is no one-size-fits-all, in education, particularly in the US you have size and scale. There are also available funds. However, it is a complex or expensive process, right? I mean I remember ah when I was working in the, for the US market, we had submitted a product for adoption in California and, most people told me that we wouldn't succeed, very doubtful of our success. Um, but we did succeed because there was a real need for an effective ah math program and the one that we had was proven and it was different while others were adding bells and whistles to an existing product. We challenged those assumptions and changed the underlying principles with better solutions. So likewise, in other markets also, you have to understand the composition of the markets and then the segments available for you to participate in. Then it also depends on who is paying, is a school adopting and paying, or is the cost being passed on to the parents? Curriculum alignment is a significant factor in approval of course schools will want to know that the solution that you are offering them ah will get them to where they need to go in terms of learning outcomes. You also, need to understand the context of use you know for example, what is a class size? Something that works for a class size of 8 will not work in a class size of 40. right? So that's something that you also have to understand. You have to understand the level of teacher competence in the pedagogy that you are proposing. Are they even aware of it? Is it going to be something alien? Then you have to factor in the education of teachers and the fact that you have to convince them to adopt something that is very new and most of all you have to be clear in understanding and communicating what problem does this solve for the teacher and learner and how is it better than the competition. The best yardstick for me of course is learning outcomes. Did learning happen? How? And with technology, these are all hard facts that can be supported by data.

07:05.24

Ritesh Chopra

Great. I think very well has shared those points here, Duriya. Thanks for that. And in fact, I kind of agree that we have seen rather than having a genetic blanket approach I think it's important because each of the geography have nuances and each one of us are different in terms of how we are taught, how we kind of absorb information and learn. So it's important for us to be adaptive to each geography, and do you also see kind of a relevant topic there Duriya? Do you also see relevance with respect to K12 versus higher ed versus continuous education that we're seeing those trends, and if I can talk a relevant question there in your career, I'm sure you must have had a lot of edtech products take off. What would you say are the common denominators, and success denominators for those successful products?

07:59.78

Duriya Aziz

Ah, now you're asking for my secret source. So actually to me, it seems more like common sense to be honest. In Edtech education comes before technology for a very good reason and we should never forget that education is the objective and technology is the enabler. For me, what has worked, has been focused on pedagogical innovations and where do these innovations come from? They come from observing great teachers and novice teachers at work. What do they do well? How do they solve the problems that they face? How can we make these solutions available to all teachers through instructional design and technology? What are the struggles of novice teachers? How can we support them and so on likewise with learners right? What do they struggle with? What do successful learners do? So design thinking and co-designing with stakeholders are a very significant part of my business and product development process and that's what I would encourage you know, all developers as well as business ah stakeholders to consider.

09:04.30

Ritesh Chopra

No absolutely. I kind of, thanks for those. I think I like the point when you made that technology is more like an enabler, especially with the edtech boom we've seen a lot of tech. But I think the education is missing in that tech. I think it's important to see and perceive technology like you said, more like an enabler then than like doing everything from a technology standpoint and I think it's the content and the pedagogy and how do we see that leveraging the right technology. How do you amplify that content and make the learning more effective for our learners, for students, and for teachers? So very likely said Duriya kind of liked what he said and if I can move on to the next point here um, what we have seen. um, I think, see there has been a change significant change in and I often talk about that the pandemic has really worked like a catalyst to us right? What was working till 2020, I think we've seen a lot of those things, especially in the pandemic people have accelerated the digital ah push in this entire industry has really accelerated because of the pandemic, and if education publishers are used to doing things in one way, especially all the big-big traditional publishing company. How should they be more mindful to change when they're looking ahead and planning for the future, especially around digital disruption? How do you see all that coming into the fold when they're actually planning for the future?

10:37.13

Duriya Aziz

Well, through, through all of this, I think ah, what is most important is learner focus and motivation especially because of the disruptions that that we are seeing. Ah, we have to look at learners not just as receptacles to be filled but we have to look at them as you know, holistically as human beings completely in terms of their social-emotional well-being which also has a huge impact on their learning. So whether it is math or it's reading It isn't just about fractions or about the number of words read. But what is the mindset and attitude of the learner that they are bringing to this learning episode and how does your solution impact it? Those are the things that we should be thinking about today.

11:25.65

Ritesh Chopra

Got it. Great insights there Duriya and ah, how do you see the curriculum market evolving outside the US? We've seen a lot of this new age edtech companies kind of hitting the space and these are traditional kind of challenging the traditional methods of B2C and the more B2B space. How do you see that market B2B and for someone like you Scholastic which is, I think is more B2B, how do you see you creating those strategies? Would it mean strategizing a learning product? Would it mean because in a B2B space? You are more selling to a teacher or a school but in a B2C is more to a parent or to a school. Do you see any change in the strategy for these two different kinds of products and how are you seeing the B2B space emerging in your territory, Duriya?

12:21.65

Duriya Aziz

Right? Um, it's it's very encouraging and exciting to see investor confidence in ed tech as we have witnessed from the many startups and their funding. Um, however, I think that the focus needs to shift from customer acquisition to customer satisfaction as evidenced from usage and achievement of learning outcomes. This will not happen overnight. So I think that after an initial hot period, there will likely be some consolidation and rationalization. Also as knowledge and skill sets in edtech develop we will see the impact on the solutions. One effect that the pandemic has had has been that parents have begun to understand and appreciate the role of technology in learning so previously while they might just be seeing their kids you know watching cartoons or videos etc now they can really appreciate the role of technology in learning and so they have become enablers so we will see parental participation in edtech purchase increase where they are the decision-makers as well as the purchasers. So from this perspective ah, you are no longer ah propositioning a learning expert but a layperson. Also, pedagogy has changed from the time parents were in school so this will impact the choices you make in product design um, and as well as your go-to-market plan right? I mean like ah if you're teaching a new way of multiplication tables where parents will say this is not how we learn times tables. So you'll have to ah in the same way that you have to bring teachers along with you. You have to bring parents along with you and they are a much more diverse group and you have to take that into consideration as well.

14:07.81

Ritesh Chopra

No, I think it's a good point. I think we've seen at least I've been in the nursery for almost like twenty odd years now. I've seen pedagogy, especially the work and the experiences ah that we are building today are more around gamification or AR/VR.

14:23.12

Duriya Aziz

Hmm.

14:23.21

Ritesh Chopra
How do you make education more friendly for today's age for digital natives so that they see a seamless learning off of on a device of their own choice rather than probably taking a 300-page static book and learning out of it? So, a very valid point, Duriya.

14:36.19

Duriya Aziz

Yeah.

14:41.19

Ritesh Chopra

And ah before we kind of talk about as an understanding your ah 2-3 years looking at the crystal ball. I would like to understand what percentage of a digital out-of-the-market landscape that you have, ah is your market today, is your addressable market and what suggestions do you have and what key takeaways do you have for someone who is kind of building those digital products based on the user personas and the trends that you're seeing in the market.

15:14.73

Duriya Aziz

I think again it varies from market to market. It used to be that in some markets the book was the only technology right, but that's no longer the case today at a minimum. There might be a projection technology available or at least you can assume that a teacher has a mobile phone through which she's accessing content. Um, broadband access is also increasingly prevalent making online solutions accessible this significantly lowers cost overall. Cost of development, cost of implementation, cost of maintenance, and so on. Um, for example in the Philippines, we had to offer offline solutions or land-based solutions to our schools about five years ago. Today 100% of these schools are online, so that has made a big difference in the kind of offerings. It also makes a big difference in what benefits we can deliver ah like you can get deliver real-time data, you can deliver real-time insights, and so on. Of course, this is not the case everywhere but it is certainly becoming increasingly prevalent and this has been one of the better side effects of the pandemic I think.

16:25.88

Ritesh Chopra

Great! Um now let's talk about the crystal ball. If you have a crystal ball based on your experience Duriya, what emerging trends do you see emerging out of the Asian market for which will go mainstream in the next two years?

16:39.83

Duriya Aziz

Right! I think ah, there are a few things really, one is that both parents and teachers will become more data literate and they will use data to understand this to students, children, and improve learning outcomes. AI will become more prevalent in all aspects of learning and from predicting learning outcomes and learning trajectories, to suggesting learning pathways for each individual student. Students I think will become more visible and participative in the learning process and also in the development of these learning ah tools as they begin to learn coding and programming. But you know, as they become more fluent in coding and programming skills. Um, and users will begin to choose learning platforms rather than learning products and programs. Um, so really I'm looking at the platformization where you can you know different ah products would be talking to each other. You're not going to have to look at singular dashboards and go from dashboard to dashboard but there'll be a free flow of data so that you'll have a composite picture of student learning and edtech I think will become more service-based rather than product-based and that goes beyond just SAAS. You know, I mean we talk about software as a service but that is still a very It is fast becoming a dated concept but we have to go beyond that so that edtech really becomes more service-oriented so a lot of ah, real-time services that are linked to technology will begin to be offered so that's what I think that's what my crystal ball says.

18:20.60

Ritesh Chopra

Oh great. I think I absolutely, have some good insights over there, Duriya thanks for that and I kind of relate to it because we're seeing a lot of workaround learning analytics because when everything is digital and you rightly mention that when everything goes digital is important to understand ah, the data okay, how do we capture the right data? We're seeing data everywhere now. Why don't we capture data even in the learning environment to kind of find out how does a student read? What is the need on a personalized basis? More like an adaptive experience for that and that's where as you mentioned about the use of AI and use of data analytics kind of comes in really handy. So absolutely with you. Thanks for those insights, Duriya. And lastly Duriya, what advice do you have for ah for those developing and implementing learning programs and products? Ah, based on your wealth of experience I think that would be something that our audience would be very keen to hear from you.

19:23.50

Duriya Aziz

Um, my advice is actually quite simple. It's keep learning. Keep learning from your users, from your teachers, learners, and parents. Give them a voice and involve them in the design and development process. Always keep your user personas in mind and keep learning from data. You know the usage engagement efficacy data throughout the customer journey. Don't just focus on one part but right from ah you know, exploration all the way to retention and advocacy look at your customers and learn from them and keep learning from research. What does a research you know, ah pedagogical research tell you about how kids are learning, how teachers are, what are their effective practices and all and so and so forth? I think those of us in the learning business have to be learners first and foremost and then remember that those of us in education are optimists. We believe that the future is better and brighter that we want to create a better and more equitable world and education is the way to create it and we have a role to play in it.

20:30.13

Ritesh Chopra

Absolutely! Very well said, Duriya. I think education is a great equalizer. I think which is important and I think that's one motivation that we think all have as educators to kind of create that balance and fill in those gaps that we have in this world using education and thanks Duriya, I really appreciate it. It was a delight talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me today for the latest Tech In EdTech podcast, we appreciate your insights and as always look forward to you and our audience joining us in the future podcast. Have a great day, Duriya.

21:03.54

Duriya Aziz

Thank you, thank you. Ritesh.

21:07.16

Ritesh Chopra

Thank you.