Instructive

Helping teachers reach every student.

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Inspiration

Having the chance to accommodate students with Individualized Education Plan (IEP) can enhance the study environment for classrooms and teachers. However, going through each IEP takes a big chunk of a teacher's time, and often can be skimmed over, missing the important details. With these details missing, the student struggles without the required accommodations. In our research, we have obtained teachers' opinions, and have requested an alternative to reading IEPs, but still get the important details.

IEPs are long documents, provided by professionals, such as the counselor in the school. There was an approximate of 545,805 students attending public schools in 2019, and out of these more than 54,580 students had an IEP. This is a significant population, especially compared to the approximate 46,600 teachers and 10,350 education assistants. Through our interview with teachers, we are informed of the issue that there are too many students and nothing to help the teachers learn about the accommodations certain students may need. Without the right resources, this not only affects the teacher, but also the student learning, and how their education is being taught in a way for them to succeed.

What it does

Instructive is an education management system that helps teachers adapt their existing curriculum to student IEPs. It centralizes IEPs, curricula, and reports, and uses a local open-source LLM to propose practical adaptations—changes in modality, reading load, pacing, or structure—while citing the relevant IEP goals and school-approved resources. Teachers can review and apply these suggestions instantly, generate reports, and share them with colleagues or parents.

Our Solution

The solution, Instructive, a teachers assistant. Instructive takes in the curriculum, IEPs for each student, core competencies, and teacher reports. This takes less time to create student profiles, new IEPs, and ensures learning targets are met for each student just as well. This enhances the quality of education provided to each student and creates a more effective school environment.

How it works

Powered by a local open-source LLM model, teachers are provided the capability to create effective assessment plans, for specific classes which meet the adaptations or accommodations students might need. These plans ensure the learning targets are met. Fortunately, there is more Instructive can do. Teachers have the ability to create new units, add new learning targets, and re-confirm that the curriculum and core competencies set by the government are met.

How we built it

The frontend was built with React and TypeScript, while the backend was developed in Python with a secure local LLM integration. The interface is intuitive, designed for teachers with limited technical background. Teachers can view per-student and class-wide reports, generate PDF summaries, and export alignment results for administrative use. Together, these features reduce the time spent on repetitive compliance tasks while maintaining quality instruction.

Challenges we ran into

Development did not come without obstacles. Early integration between the frontend and backend proved difficult, particularly when implementing initial API calls and ensuring data synchronization. Another challenge involved translating teacher needs into practical workflow features. Each school and classroom has unique structures, resource availability, and student needs, requiring flexible and adaptive system design. While obtaining the alignment score from the LLM, the outputs were poorly generated. This is critical since it could ruin the chances of helping teachers correctly include adaptations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Over the 64 hour weekend, we are able to integrate a functioning LLM model, designed to assist teachers. The LLM model is able to produce assessments plans for specific classes, suggests adaptation plans based on IEPs, and ensures the learning targets are met similarly for everyone. One of the biggest accomplishments is getting the LLM model to work with the front end. With all this, we could store the LLM and data on our own devices

Another major win is being able to provide a functioning program. Seeing the program is able to provide results allows for a view in real life implementation for teachers. This gives hope for the future of Instructive, and a way to help teachers.

What we learned

Through these challenges, our team gained invaluable skills and experience. We implemented secure login functionality, ensuring safe and authenticated access for teachers. Working with a locally-run LLM taught us how to generate reliable outputs tailored to our application’s needs, refining both logic and workflow. Most importantly, with members contributing to the codebase, we strengthened our teamwork and collaboration skills. Version control was essential; we experienced firsthand how poor branch merging could lead to lost work, reinforcing disciplined practices in collaborative software development.

What's next for Instructive

Taking a look into the future, we are excited to expand Instructive to new curriculums. Having the capability of taking in different kinds of reports, and providing each teacher with the support they need, can enhance education around the world. Although these would not come without struggles and hardships, the outcome will allow not only teachers to excel, but the student to excel in their learning.

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