A new program to help students think better.

For Students

Each student is paired with a PIA Pod team that can help them think through topics and issues that are important to them. IVA, the AI advisor on the team, is available 24/7 and adapts to the student's interests. Whenever the student run into an issue, IVA is usually the first advisor to reach out to. Human advisors help guide students through more challenging issues. The team works together to help the student learn faster and make progress towards personal goals.

For Parents

The combination of a team of human advisors and technology gives students the best of both worlds to help them prepare for what’s ahead. The team works together to help students develop critical thinking and independent inquiry skills. By adapting to a student's interests, the dynamics within the team promotes collaboration with considerably less stress. The PIA Pod program is flexible and can be scaled up or down depending on the student’s schedule and interests.

For Educators and Advisors

The PIA Pod program helps advisors discover and monitor students’ interests and developmental progress in a more efficient and effective way. The program provides a personalized learning experience for the student, which is a great complement to traditional curriculum-based methodologies. The combination of AI and human advisors allows the student to access the benefits of new technologies as well as develop human connections, which technology can never replace. IVA acts as a first-line of support to the students and alleviates administrative burden for the advisory team. The team works much more effectively as a result of this model.

A starter program for inquiry education.

The PIA Pod Pilot Program is a starter program for students who are curious about inquiry education. The student will be paired with an advisor to learn more about the inquiry method and to begin their self-learning journey. The commitment is approximately 1 hour per week for 4 weeks, which can be renewed for an additional 4 weeks. Although the program can be delivered online remotely, we encourage in-person meetings whenever possible.

Fees for the pilot program are currently waived. We hope this will give students and families a risk-free way to try out the program. Register in the link below!

• Register Here

How do you define success? What's the basis for this model of education?

One of our core missions is to develop students into effective self-learners, leaders, and decision-makers. Education is a life-long endeavour and does not end when you graduate from school. Students are more successful when they become independent learners who can thrive in the uncertainties of the real world. The closest methodology associated with self-learning is a form of inquiry-based learning, whereby the student generates the questions. Great self-learners know how to ask good questions. However, this skill is best developed with guided support. By learning how to ask better questions, students develop more depths and perspectives in their thinking. The book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman, describes a basic model. Some of the design criteria for this model are almost opposite of what people typically think of as “education”:

• An adaptive model that evolves with a student's interests and goals over time. Students primarily compete against themselves, not each other.
• Exams are not mandatory, but are available to students for self-assessment.
• Teachers are facilitators of question-asking. They help students initiate the cycle of inquiry, which involves asking questions, seeking answers, and self-evaluations. This process often leads to additional questions, for example: “What is the ‘right’ answer?”, “According to whom?”, and “How do they know?”
• Being wrong and making mistakes is a natural part of exploration. Discovering flaws in one’s thinking is not punished and almost cherished as a point of learning. Students should not associate learning with pain and fear.

One of our observations is that students are not trained to ask good questions. The modern school system is designed as a factory-output model of delivering structured pre-defined curriculums using punishment incentive structures. Students are rarely afforded the opportunity to learn via asking self-driven questions and to think through to an answer at their own pace. In the K-12 system, you learn what you’re told to learn at an arbitrary pace, and universities essentially continue this pattern. However, upon graduation, students experience the “reality shock” of lacking the skills to deal with the real world. They’ve never had to figure out their own path in a new environment. Predictably, they experience huge cognitive dissonance and often feel lost.

When we asked ourselves what types of outcomes we wanted for students, it became clear that we needed a different language to describe student development. The K-University system is so entrenched in our modern culture that we often lack the words to think differently. Ultimately, we care less about what students learn, and more about how they learn. To start, we hope that students make progress in 3 major areas:

• How to understand the physical world - Our physical reality operate on rules and laws that govern how the world works. They can be used to our advantage or ignored to our folly. Students should learn how to discover and test the ways nature works.
• How to develop relationships with others - Humans are social creatures. We are stronger when we work together. Students should understand human social dynamics and how to collaborate with others.
• How to reflect on ourselves - Understanding ourselves and how we derive meaning in our lives is an important pillar of mental wellbeing. Each student should take steps to develop their purpose and their value systems.

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Who is this for? What if a student is not sure about their interests? Where can this program fit?

The PIA Pod program is primarily designed for students in high school or college/university. We welcome students who have strong interests and those who are still searching. Part of the inquiry process is helping students discover new things that could spark latent curiosity.

The program is also designed to be adaptable so it can fit around other commitments. Here’s a breakdown of 3 possible ways of how the program can be structured:

• After-school program - one advisor and 1-2 hours of team meetings per week.
• Summer program - two advisors and 3-4 hours of team meetings per week.
• Gap year program - three advisors and 5+ hours of team meetings per week.

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Why doesn't something like this exist already? Why isn't it more popular?

Inquiry-based school programs, in one form or another, have been around since the 1960s. However, they have lingered on the fringe of the education ecosystem. In many school districts, this form of education is actually in decline. We speculate that the combination of over-standardization of curriculums and the pressures of government funding of schools are major forces that suppress inquiry-based learning. In short:

• Standardizations of curriculums, although well intentioned, have the negative effects of adding barriers to experimentation and reducing personalization. In essence, all kids at a certain age should learn the same thing at the same time.
• Flow of government funding, especially at the federal level, to schools created incentive structures whereby the standards are used as a metric for fund allocations.
• The education bureaucracy, due to its complexity and incentives, are very slow to respond to students’ needs. In trying to create a single curriculum that satisfies everyone, the curriculum ends up helping very few.
• Over time, the standards, rather than a means to an end, became the end. And the students, rather than an end, became the means for school districts to get government funding.
• When evolved over decades, the education bureaucracy, school administrators, and some teachers all have adapted to the incentive structures. Each group works in tandem to resist changes to the system.

There are pockets of educators who do deploy inquiry-based models of education, but they are often small scale. Since many will have to integrate with the rigid system (ex. via standardized testing to qualify for funding), these personalized models become difficult to sustain via public funding.

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What are qualities that make good advisors?

The people in the advisory group are fundamentally facilitators of question-asking. They advise on the inquiry process rather than specific subjects. Those who are familiar with inquiry-based models will be ideal. Many advisors may require additional training to learn more about the inquiry methods and to be aware of counter-productive habits. For example, advisors should avoid giving direct answers to questions. The effort of thinking is a core part of the learning process, and directly giving the student answers robs the student of that experience. As a thought experiment, imagine a teacher helping a student workout on an exercise bike by pedaling for them.

A great advisor may not necessarily be the most prestigious or high-profile individual. For example, a student struggling to understand how a computer system works may not be best served by an award-winning computer science researcher operating on the cutting edge. The researcher’s perspectives will be too advanced to be useful for the student. Sometimes, good advisors may be people who are also learning in an area of interest but are a few years ahead. They have dealt with the same issues as the student and have a more intuitive understanding of beginners.

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Is this type of program affordable?

For the initial pilot program, the fees are waived.

The target goal for the program is approximately $1,200 USD per month, or $15,000 USD per year, for a full group of advisors. A pod with fewer advisors operating part-time will cost less. An important part of achieving affordability is to minimize administrative costs via adoption of technology.

We anticipate that students will want to start small to test out the program. If they enjoy working with the advisors, they can scale up the program as they see fit.

Ongoing programs