What makes Open Door unique?

What makes Open Door a unique Edtech company?

Most parents want children to score well in school exams. Most schools want children to score well in school exams. As a business, whether you are selling to schools (B2B) or parents (B2C), you are expected to help children in scoring well in exams! If you provide people what they want, your product would sell like hot cakes.

Business 101, right?

At Open Door we stopped and asked ourselves: Is that the right thing to do? We realised that it is not. So we took the audacious step to put the right thing before doing 'business'. We decided to help children become deep thinkers. This would make children capable of learning anything they want.

This may be difficult to do, but necessary. This may have only a few takers, but someone needs to do it.

The problem with exams..

Most school exams do not test what children have learned. They test the memorisation of a concept or how well have children practiced the questions in the book.

Children who prepare for exams often become poor thinkers. Many children even score good marks but do not have think or explore the concept deeply. As people who know better, as people who have come through the same exam system, why should we make children intellectually handicapped?

There is nothing wrong with scoring good grades but grades should be the by-product of good learning. Not the focus.

We changed the problem statement

We decided to change the problem statement from

'How to help children in scoring better in exams?'

to

'How to make children a better thinker?'

And we went about solving that problem in 2013. Instead of working to serve the demands of the market, Open Door decided to devote itself in helping children in developing the habit of thinking deeply.

Open Door realized that if children learn by thinking, they will learn better. And when they learn better, they will score better grades. If children focus on learning, then marks are often a by-product. But, if children focus on scoring high marks, then learning and thinking is always sacrificed.

What does Open Door do?

Open Door offers programs to both – schools and individual parents – which have beautiful questions at its core. Open Door's programs to schools are called Mastery Assessments and Thinking Classroom. Open Door's programs to individual parents are called Unbox Physics and Thinksheets.

Open Door uses questions like ‘Will an alarm clock work in space?’, ‘How would the world be if Sun gave out blue light?’ to make children think. These questions may make children uncomfortable for a second but it always makes them realise something new in the process. Open Door believes that this discomfort is crucial in learning.

That’s why Open Door’s programs work on the philosophy of asking questions and allowing children the time to think on their own.

What makes Open Door unique?

Open Door is a unique company in many ways:

1. Putting 'Ed' before 'Tech' in 'Edtech': Open Door does not fall into the trap of making learning fun and easy. Instead of force-fitting cool technologies like AI/VR in learning, Open Door first thinks of how children learn & then asks itself if 'tech' is even necessary. For example - one of Open Door's product Thinking Classroom has maximum 'ed' but 0 'tech'. Open Door has made questions a powerful learning tool. Questions may not look attractive but can be more powerful than a 100 lectures.

2. Learning leads to good grades: Parents want a secure future for their children and they believe that this can be achieved when their children to have a better score in their report card. But, educationists are supposed to know better. They should know that learning leads to good grades. But, excessive focus on only grades can do permanent damage to the thinking habits of a child. That’s why Open Door focuses on learning as learning should be – full of thinking and exploration.

3. Open Door team has a strong academic foundation: The founders started off as teachers and do not look at education sector as a money-minting opportunity. Open Door would like to make a significant change in thinking habits of children across the world and while building an organisation that lives for a hundred years. The people who became the early members of Open Door team is also aligned with the vision of making children deep thinkers.

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Open Door’s impact so far

Open Door programs have had a considerable impact on both teachers and students in the school so far. We work with more than 200 schools where 150000+ children currently thinking much more deeply than ever before.

Impact on teachers:

According to school leaders and teachers themselves:

There has been an improvement in classroom teaching. There is more questioning and dialogue in classrooms. Teachers have also been making better lesson plans.
Better appreciation of science and math concepts. Open Door’s questions have helped teachers see regular concepts in a new light.
More confidence in their own teaching due to an improvement in their students

Impact on students: