Company description
MTS (Mobile TeleSystems), headquartered in Moscow, is the largest mobile network operator in Russia, operating on GSM, UMTS and LTE standards. Apart from cellular networks, the company also offers local telephone service, broadband, mobile television, cable television, satellite television and digital television. As of Q1 2021, the company serves over 84.9 million subscribers in Russia, Armenia and Belarus.
Product overview
Smart University is an educational side product launched by the MTS R&D department in 2018. The product is a unique digital platform with a web and mobile application written in native programming languages – Kotlin and Swift.
The service was created for remote education in any subject, possessing methodical tools to study English (for adults and kids) and to prepare students for the Unified State Exam (Russian language and Maths).
The platform’s usage included teaching (reviewing own slots and toolkits, homework, holding online classes) and studying (executing homeworks and connecting to the lessons).
Several educational forms included: individual and group classes, speaking clubs and self-study.
User flow for the student consisted of an introductory lesson with testing and automatic construction of a unique study track.
Screens of Smart University
My role
Product Manager, Expert in EdTech
I was responsible for a school segment, specifically for the process of preparing children for the Unified State Exam in Maths.
Promo video about preparation for the USE Maths with Smart University
Favourite challenge
When it came to teaching English as a second language, the product's growth allowed for greater latitude in terms of flexibility, originality, and ability. However, when it came to the process of preparing for the standardised tests, especially in the subject of mathematics, which I was in charge of, it was difficult to devise alternative formats to the systematic study.
My solution
As a stream leader, I have successfully completed the qualification improvement courses for the individuals who are responsible for estimating the USE (Unifed State Examination) in Mathematics in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the mentality of the experts who verify and accept the exam. That was a challenging experience, but the team was able to find a solution to the issue, and the metrics and statistics of the project ultimately proved that.
Promo video about a product “Intensive Maths exam preparation course“
Metrics
100% of students who graduated from the Maths stream received positive grades on the exams (60 points out of 100 and 4.5 points on 5 points scale)
The average score of the Maths stream graduates was 18% higher than the average score among students in Russia
The average number of points earned by students participating in the USE was increased by 23 points
With the help of feedback analysis, the conversion rate (CR) of sales after the introductory lesson has grown from 20% to 32%
Introduced an evaluation system for working with teachers (regular educating webinars, lessons quality control system and teacher’s motivation tracking based on a regular estimation)
Increased the Maths teacher’s CSI from 4.0 to 4.87/5. CSI was counted for every lesson and included three parameters: connection quality, a teacher’s work and content quality. Further, based on these parameters, it was counted for every teacher and the whole teachers’ team
Helped to integrate the study-tracks adaptive system, which led to a 19% increase in the content's excitement and had the 4.6/5.0 CSI.
Impact
“The effectiveness of the Smart University programme was proven by the first set of students’ results: the average score of their USE was 83 points. More than 36% of the students passed the Maths exams, reaching the top 6% of the best students in Russia.”
- Yaroslav Smirnov, the Head of the entire project