CLOUD BASED LEARNING PLATFORM Milestone 7 Update

Despite observing high gains in treatment sections for bottom and middle tertiles, marginal negative treatment effects have been noted for top tertile students. Although the negative effect is not statistically significant, efforts have been made to understand its causes and address the issue. To mitigate the negative treatment effect, the Math Whiz algorithm is being recalibrated to offer harder questions to top-performing students. Additionally, higher difficulty questions are being introduced to further challenge these students. These adjustments aim to optimize the learning experience for high-achieving students. The project is also undergoing revisions to enhance question quality. All questions in the database are being revised to include better solutions and to scrub out any issues in preparation for scale-up. Furthermore, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) is being expanded to 10 schools for the 2015 school year. This expansion will occur between April and August, allowing for the optimization of onboarding procedures. Geographic focus is centered in Punjab, India, with the establishment of an office in Chandigarh, the capital city. A team of four people is currently staffing the office, with two additional team members planned to join in April. The project has also secured the services of two J-PAL research assistants, Jalnidh Kaur and Ganesh Rao, who will manage the evaluation of the RCT during scale-up. A USAID field visit is scheduled for April 16-17, during which current and upcoming school sites will be visited, and key stakeholders, including the Punjab government, will be met. This visit aims to foster deeper relationships with partners and facilitate the project's continued growth and development.