Revyze: learning from the TikTok of education
Where the students teach each others to succeed at school
Revyze (for now in 🇫🇷 only) is a mobile app that helps teenagers learn their curriculum better. What makes it interesting? A TikTok-like interface and the teachers being the teenagers themselves!
Between gamification and peer-to-peer learning, Revyze’s goal is for students to receive the best learning experience possible thanks to the app.
Guillaume, one of the startup’s cofounders, contacted me a few months ago after reading some pieces I wrote on the future of education. Since then, he’s kept me updated on the adventure and it looks very promising.
“I learn better from my peers than from my teacher”
-Revyze user
This is the first insight the team received when interviewing teenagers. Peer-to-peer learning proves to be an effective way to understand knowledge better and develop confidence about it. This becomes even more true as teenagers get to experience different paradigms with their teachers. Today’s students are a generation with instant access to knowledge, and teachers are the ambassadors of an outdated system.
Some alternative schools make this the core of their pedagogy. One example is free coding school 42, founded by billionaire Xavier Niel: the learning is project-based, the more advanced students teach the younger ones, and peers correct each other's activities. For 4200+ students at the Paris campus, there isn’t a single professional teacher involved.
This is exciting for the future of education; does it mean teachers will disappear? Probably not, but their role will evolve- which was the topic of my Monday newsletter, Tomorrow’s teachers will be facilitators.
Peer-to-peer teaching: a source of wellbeing
One of the worst punishments is making people feel useless. Yet this is the feeling we often give to kids for 12+ years.
That shows a general lack of understanding of how happiness works. And it sticks: in one industry, wellness, the main activities that are promoted are deeply individualistic. They miss a key point: we strive forward when we feel like we matter to others.
Kids have a lot to teach each other- and often, they do it even better than adults.
On Revyze, students create small videos to teach their peers about difficult points of the school’s program. And when they receive likes, it means they really helped people. As one student said to other content creators after one exam,
“You have something that others don’t: you’re giving your time to help students. Even if it’s not officially recognized, each person that you’ve helped knows it.”
Beyond the immediate satisfaction felt in helping others, those students have the opportunity to train their soft skills and become great instructors. It’s also an opportunity to verify how well they’ve understood the class.
“If you want to master something, teach it. The more you teach, the better you learn.” Richard Feynman
In the future, the company plans to offer certification to the students creating lessons on the platform (they’ve already launched a currency, the “EDU” which measures contributions). This would allow students to highlight the qualities they’ve developed via the app with regard to universities and jobs.
Community building
It’s not a secret - a successful product often starts with a loving community of users. Revyze is no exception: the team spent a huge amount of energy hanging out with their users to understand their pain points and build a trusting relationship with them. They opened a Discord, organized meet ups for coffee or a game of FIFA, and even corrected some of their students’ motivation letters for entry to their dream university.
Guillaume, Florent and Anatole, the three founders, are not the only ones who’ll win if Revyze continues to grow: hundreds of teenagers are now part of the adventure, too.
In the future, it will be a cool thing to do as a teenager to teach on Revyze. Your peers will value curiosity, helping others and learning. It already looks very intuitive for the Revyze community- let’s spread it to the world!
Revyze just announced their $2 million pre-seed round, more about it on TechCrunch.
Here’s to another product I wish I had as a kid. As always, thanks for reading!
Every Friday, I’ll publish a new article to review a school or educational product- who should I write about next? Reply to this article or write to me on Twitter to let me know!
From the internet, by Zelda
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Hey it’s Zelda; I’ve been writing about people’s wellness & education since I was 14. Share with me your thoughts here: zeldapoem@gmail.com
It's always great to see peer to peer teaching. I see it happen in action when I teach teen filmmaking workshops. I teach how to use the equipment to the first person using it and then after a little while I get them to switch roles, and without telling them to, the students automatically start showing the new person how to use the camera or the sound recording system. Teaching each other comes naturally. Also as the teacher I just see myself as an upper level student sharing what I know. There's a saying that goes something like "when you teach you learn the subject twice." I do believe teaching has made me a better filmmaker because every time I teach I'm relearning.