Wouldn’t it be great if textbooks were able to customize themselves for students? Bloomy Learning’s latest online educational offering does just that.
Bloomy begins by identifying a student’s current readiness and then creates an individualized learning path. Instead of simply using grade level labels, Bloomy can track progress separately across different domains of the same subject. The program continually adjusts what comes next based on the student’s progress. For homeschool families, where children are already free to learn at their own pace, Bloomy is a particularly natural fit. This gives students instruction that reflects what they are ready to learn while giving parents a clearer sense of where to begin and what should come next.
Each Bloomy lesson progresses in three phases. The first part is known as the “base camp,” where students are taught the concept using explanations, narration, charts, animations, and worked examples. They then move to the “climb” phase, where they practice what they learn as they work toward mastery of the concept. Finally, they reach the “summit,” where they demonstrate mastery before finishing the lesson.
During the “climb” phase, students have access to Bloomy Bot, an interactive AI that uses Socratic questions to help students find their own way to the answer. Most importantly, Bloomy Bot will not let students offload their thinking to the bot, but rather asks questions back to the student to assist them in following the logic of the lesson. Additionally, during the “summit” phase, Bloomy Bot is disabled in order to verify mastery of the lesson.
Bloomy also incorporates a writing studio, which helps students compose papers and creative writing. It has a supply of prompts for a number of different books that your student can start from, as well as a set of organizing questions to help them get their writing oriented. Bloomy Bot is available to help, but will not do any writing for the student. Instead, Bloomy Bot asks questions to help students think more about what they want to say and how they want to structure their sentences. Bloomy will analyze what the student has already written and offer suggestions, but will not take over the creative process. This gives students support with planning and revision while keeping the thinking and writing in their own hands.
Just as importantly, Bloomy also gives parents visibility into what their students are doing. It includes a dashboard that shows the student’s progress, as well as the student’s interactions with Bloomy Bot. This allows parents to know where their child is struggling and what questions they struggle with. It also helps parents understand when their child may need additional support without requiring them to monitor every lesson.
In short, students get immediate feedback, get questions answered, and are guided in how to think about problems to get the right answers. Parents get full visibility into the process and can direct students to the skills they need to learn. Bloomy Bot is there to encourage thinking, not replace it.
For more information on how Bloomy can benefit your homeschool, please visit https://www.bloomylearning.com/families/.
