Introducing Hedgehog Education

The Problem We Set Out to Solve

The way students tackle problems, in and outside of the classroom, has changed. They now have access to general-purpose AI that can answer almost any question they ask. Faced with a problem, a student can now get straight to the answer, skipping the challenge and productive struggle that is the foundation of learning and builds understanding. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022, the free and accessible nature of these tools has made turning to them the default behaviour of the majority of students across every level of education.

This was a problem that Miguel, a teacher, and one of my co-founders, was directly facing in his classes; students would come to lessons with seemingly perfect homework answers, but struggled when faced with the same problems on their own. Rather than the homework material itself, the deeper concern is cognitive offloading, and what we stand to lose when a generation of students has grown up with a costly habit of relying on AI as a shortcut to their thinking process.

Our Why

Built in the right way, however, the same technology could address longstanding problems in education. With customised learning paths, students can grasp complex concepts at their own pace and receive personalised guidance that might otherwise be inaccessible. Teachers can gain access to targeted feedback which can help them intervene where and when it matters most, and - rather than manually correcting - focus their time on the more human aspects of their work.

It is with this conviction that the Hedgehog team set out to make critical thinking the norm in a world where it has become optional. To reap the benefits of AI in the education sector, it is not only training for teachers and students which is needed, but access to well-designed tools with scaffolded learning experiences, which give educators the right level of oversight.

Hedgehog exists to maximise the agency and potential of both teachers and students, and consequently educational institutions, by ensuring that AI is used to augment learning rather than undermine it.

Starting with Homework

While the potential to address the problem of cognitive offloading spans across the education sector, there was a need to target a specific problem to focus on and deliver it well. Homework was the natural starting point. It is where students are most likely to get stuck without support, reach for a shortcut, and least likely to receive meaningful feedback in time for it to matter. It is also a process that was failing students long before the onset of AI.

The purpose of homework is clear: time away from direct instruction is where students internalise concepts, build fluency through repetition, and develop the independence to solve problems themselves. But the system built around homework has never reliably delivered that outcome.

In the current model, a student who gets stuck on a question has no recourse until the next lesson, by which point they have mentally moved on to other topics and subjects. Since learning is in many cases cumulative, especially in science subjects, one unresolved gap compounds across the rest of exercise or topic. In addition, every student receives the same assignment regardless of where they actually are in their understanding or how they learn best. And the teacher, marking those worksheets days or weeks later, discovers what students did not grasp when it is likely too late - with no practical way to deliver targeted feedback to every student. This is compounded by a limited ability for the teachers to identify which concepts need to be revisited before the class has already moved on.

Rather than eliminate the entire concept of homework, we identified an opportunity to deliver on its original objective, simultaneously addressing these frictions. In the Hedgehog platform, the incentive for homework is no longer checkbox-ticking; the true measure of success becomes understanding, and whether the specified learning outcomes are achieved.

Our product design is rooted in evidence from leading learning science and pedagogy literature, continually tested against students and constantly refined with user feedback. The exercise experience is designed to keep students at Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, where, with the correct scaffolding, learners master skills they cannot yet perform alone. This is achieved through inquiry-based learning and Socratic tutoring, creating the optimal conditions for students to fail, try again, and learn.

For teachers, Hedgehog does not add to their workload. It is effortless for them to assign homework using their existing worksheets and material, or create new exercises based on syllabus content. Following exercise completion, an intuitive dashboard provides them  with detailed, targeted, granular feedback on misconceptions and knowledge gaps both on an individual student level as well as collective insights across the class.

The Way Forward

Solving the homework problem is only the start. Grounded in sound pedagogical and design principles, we aim to transcend subjects, features and levels of education as we deliver on our mission.

We look forward to building the future of education together.