Varee Chiangmai International School

Mett Dr. Matt Welling, Head of Science at Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS). With over two decades of teaching experience, Matt has used Kognity for three years. Learn how Kognity has supported VCIS in many aspects of student learning, their teachers’ day-to-day routines, and strengthening the wider school community.

Main Challenge: improve confidence and elevate learning

Founded in 2010, Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS) is an independently-funded coeducational school located in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. Around 275 students attend VCIS and the curriculum is taught in English. Dr. Matt Welling reached out to Kognity to work on five main challenges including both learning- and teaching challenges.

Students lack confidence in their learning efforts
Inability to track and collate student grades
Book shipments to Thailand prove difficult and time-consuming
High teacher turnover often means new teachers in need of support
Providing quality feedback without increasing teacher workload

When students enjoy learning, their confidence in their own abilities increases. Students can rest assured that everything they need to learn is within Kognity, with the content broken down into simple explanations along with videos, 3D models and quizzes. Kognity’s dynamic platform tracks their level of knowledge throughout each subject and displays it to them in the
form of ‘strength bars’, so they can prepare for their exams with full confidence.

Matt explains: “The students really like it, because having Kognity makes them feel more confident. We’re trying to help students become more autonomous and better independent learners, so Kognity definitely helps with that. Kognity has simple explanations, which give teachers more time to focus on students and their individual needs. I trust Kognity’s content to cover the course exactly, which helps students’ confidence.”

“Kognity has simple explanations, which give teachers more time to focus on students and their individual needs.”

Enabling smart lesson-planning

Individual needs are more likely to be met when student data can inform the approach a teacher will take. Being able to track student learning and set pre-reading before lessons allows teachers to flip the classroom, and cover topics in more depth during class time. Well-planned, well-informed teaching leads to better learning and better outcomes.

Matt explains: “I use the Kognity data to help guide my revision sessions as I can see where students have put in less work or have lower average marks. I use the data from Kognity’s assignments to inform what I’m going to teach as well. Pre-requisite reading can be set with teacher visibility, which helps progress in class.”

Kognity saves me a lot of time

There is no doubt that Kognity is a time-saver for teaching For VCIS. It also relieves teachers of the burden of dealing with shipments of books, which, when teaching in Thailand, can be a life-saver. Teachers have access to all of their students’ reading and performance data at their fingertips, and they can also use Kognity’s resources for emergency and cover lessons. Kognity reduces the stress for teachers around planning, review, materials, and marking, so they can focus on what matters.

“15 minutes of input produces about 5 hours of homework for the whole class, that marks itself and collates all the data.”

“Kognity is undoubtedly time saving for teaching. 15 minutes of input produces about 5 hours of homework for the whole class, that marks itself and collates all the data. Kognity takes care of review questions and pre-reading, giving me time to focus on students’ individual needs and harder topics. Automating that is wonderful. We really wanted to find a way to provide quality feedback that furthers learning, but without increasing teacher workload, which Kognity offers.”

We want to support students’ digital literacy

Varee is not yet a 1:1 school, which means students need to share devices. But despite this fact and some challenges with bandwidth, Kognity has simplified learning for teachers and students. “Kognity outperforms other resources both in content and interactivity, says Matt. The platform increases digital competencies for students and teachers alike.

“Working with Kognity has been a breeze because the technology streamlines learning seamlessly.”

Moreover, Matt knows that things will increasingly turn digital in the future. “We recognise that this is the way learning is going, and we want to support students’ digital literacy and working from a screen as they will likely do in further education and their career.”

Praised by school community

Kognity has won the hearts of both teachers and students by facilitating high-quality learning without putting undue pressure on teachers. Matt is a firm fan of Kognity, and “has yet to be convinced by other options.”

It’s not about quantity or quality, but Kognity!

Furthermore, when Matt sent out a survey to the students, over 80 percent came back saying yes to Kognity. At the same price as textbooks, Kognity is an easy sell to parents too. When Matt asked one of the students at VCIS if quality or quantity of studying affected grades more, the student responded: It’s not about quantity or quality, but Kognity!