SMART SPARROW: $10 million to San Franciso, CA-based Smart Sparrow in a Series B round led by Yellow Brick Capital. The company previously raised $2 million in a round led by OneVentures. Smart Sparrow is an online platform that professors can use to create an adaptive course for any subject; currently faculty from over 400 colleges are using it. The company was founded in 2011, but the R&D on the technology behind the platform began in 2005 as a part of intelligent tutoring systems research led by Dr. Dror Ben-Naim at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The platform allows teachers to create interactive materials and set up learning plans with different lesson delivery pathways to account for possible student misconceptions. As students progress through the materials, the system offers real-time feedback that gives teachers further insights to refine their content and where students are having trouble.
In contrast to other adaptive learning platforms where content delivery is out of the hands of teachers, Ben-Naim tells EdSurge that Smart Sparrow "puts the teacher at the center of learning process by allowing them create the adaptive lesson."
