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A deeper dive into Geniebook's Skills System
In a recent article published in July 2023, we highlighted several key improvements and updates for Geniebook’s online learning tools. One of these new features is the Skills System, which allows students to check their performance across all subjects and topics in an easy-to-read format.
We’ve only given a brief overview of the Skills System up until now, so this is a great opportunity to give you a better understanding of how it works and how to reap the benefits of this system. Let’s dive in!
How do skill levels measure performance?
The Skills System utilises two types of skill levels to capture performance: subject and topical. The subject skill level measures a student’s overall proficiency in a subject (e.g. Mathematics), relative to their current academic level and the previous level (e.g. a P5 student’s evaluation will consider both P5 and P4 academic levels). Meanwhile, topical scores measure their proficiency for specific topics within that subject (e.g. Fractions).
When a student is performing poorly in a subject, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they lack understanding in every topic equally. Every student has unique strengths and weaknesses, with different levels of understanding for each topic regardless of how proficient they are in the overall subject.
Unfortunately, vital information like this tends to get lost when we solely focus on exam results. But with skill levels, you’ll be able to understand which exact topics your child might need more help with.
How are skill levels calculated?
In order to ascertain a student’s skill level, the Skills System first considers the marks obtained by that student in their GenieSmart worksheet questions, with each mark calculated by taking into consideration the difficulty of the question. Then it uses two different methodologies to calculate the subject and topical skill levels respectively.
Subject skill levels: Takes the average of all topical skill levels for the student’s academic level and one level below. For instance, if the student is in P5 English, his English skill level would be the average of all skill levels for the topics in P5 and P4.
Topical skill levels: All new students will start off at a skill level of ‘-’ or ‘null’ for each topic (which signifies that there is not yet enough data to determine their level). By having your child attempt more questions in worksheets and getting them correct, you will observe their skill levels improving overtime.
Aren’t skill levels just another scoring metric?
Although each student’s skill level is expressed in numeric points (from 1 to 10), the way it’s calculated differs quite a bit from just averaging out their worksheet scores. That’s because skill levels take into account the difficulty of each attempted question and the corresponding mark given, giving a more accurate view of their mastery for each subject and topic.
Skill levels aren’t just for instilling a sense of pride and accomplishment, either - Geniebook’s Skills System works closely in tandem with our AI recommender by feeding this information to the latter. This ensures that the worksheets are individualised to each student’s proficiency, where the questions are not too easy, nor too difficult for them. This ensures that your child only attempts questions that promise the most potential improvement.
How do I track this progress in real-time?
Tracking your child’s skill levels is easy, be it through the student or parent account. Simply access the Progress tab for each subject, then select up to three topics in the table to see how their skill level has increased/dropped over time.
Why do my child’s skill levels automatically drop even when they aren’t doing any questions?
Geniebook’s Skills System does take into account the science of memory decay, which states that our memories tend to weaken over time - in other words, we simply forget things.
It’s therefore possible for students to forget previously-acquired knowledge if they go for long periods without sufficient revision or practice, not unlike losing toned muscles after a few long months without exercise.
The Skills System therefore tries its best to simulate this decay, for better or worse. If your child stops practising the same topic for a month or more, it’s not unreasonable to notice a drop in their skill levels, which hopefully serves as a useful reminder that it’s probably time to start practising and revising again.
I’m only interested in my child’s final exams. Why should I care about skill levels?
The Skills System considers your child’s performance based on their attempted questions on GenieSmart (Geniebook’s AI-assisted worksheet generator). It is also supported by a robust AI recommender that provides your child with an accurate assessment of their subject mastery while providing questions with the most optimal challenge and learning opportunities.
By designing the Skills System’s algorithm to closely correlate with students’ exam scores, we can assume that students who generally possess higher skill levels in Geniebook are more likely to achieve higher exam scores in school. Therefore, active monitoring of your child’s skill levels may directly influence their ability to excel in future exams.
In Conclusion
We hope this has been an illuminating read about how the Skills System works and how your child can utilise it to track their academic progress. If your child is an existing Geniebook subscriber, feel free to log on to the app and start looking up their skill levels today!
