MAiL

Navi Mumbai · since 2025

MumbaiAI Lab

मुंबई एआई लैब

A student-run programme for school students. We teach students to use AI as a tutor that asks them questions, so they keep doing the reasoning themselves.

See the method ↓Socratic Tutor on GitHub ↗

How the tutor replies

Student
Can you solve 2x² − 5x − 3 = 0 for me?
Tutor
Let's work through it. What have you tried so far?
Student
I tried to factorise it but couldn't find the factors.
Tutor
Which two numbers multiply to −6 and add to −5?

An example exchange with our Socratic Tutor plugin. The student still finds the factors.

Why the lab exists

What studies show about learning with chatbots.

A chatbot can answer most school homework in seconds. A student who copies the answer skips the practice that builds the skill. Recent studies measure the cost, and they also show a better way to use the same tools.

17%

Lower scores on a later exam for high school students who practised maths with an unrestricted chatbot, compared with students who never had one. A version that gave hints instead of answers removed most of that loss.

Bastani et al., PNAS, 2025
2×

More than double the learning gains of an in-class active-learning lesson, for students in a Harvard physics course who used an AI tutor built on active learning.

Kestin et al., Scientific Reports, 2025

The same tool can harm learning or help it, depending on how it is used. We teach the helpful way. The student does the reasoning, and the AI asks questions, checks steps and quizzes recall.

Recalling an answer strengthens memory more than rereading it (Roediger and Karpicke, Psychological Science, 2006). For that reason our sessions end with students answering questions.

The method

One question at a time. Try the hint ladder below.

  1. Ask what the student has tried. The tutor starts from the student's own attempt.
  2. Find the one thing that blocks them. Then ask a single question about it.
  3. Raise the help only when the student stalls. A nudge, then the concept, then a worked step, then the full answer.
  4. Fade the hints. As the student gets steps right alone, the tutor says less.
  5. Answer when asked. "Just tell me" gets the full answer, followed by one question on the key step.
  6. End with recall. A short quiz, or a summary in the student's own words.

Hint ladder

  1. 1Nudge
  2. 2Concept
  3. 3Worked step
  4. 4Full answer

Hints used: 0 of 4

Problem Solve 2x² − 5x − 3 = 0

  1. TutorWhat have you tried so far?
  2. StudentI know it is a quadratic. I tried to factorise it, but I can't find the factors.

A scripted demonstration of the ladder. With the plugin, Claude follows the same steps on any subject. Facts, definitions and syntax get plain answers, because the questioning is for reasoning.

Sessions

Run by students, for students.

When
Alternate Sundays
Levels
Three
Based in
Navi Mumbai
Led by
Rayhaan Khan, founder

Sessions teach the method above with the subjects students study at school. They draw on studies of AI tutoring and retrieval practice. To join, write to us.

Updates

News from the lab, newest first.

  1. Open source

    Socratic Tutor, our plugin for Claude

    Our first open-source release makes Claude tutor by asking. It has two skills. The socratic-tutor skill guides homework, proofs, code and essays, and quiz-me runs recall practice. The plugin collects no data.

    Coming soon to the Claude plugin directory Submitted to Anthropic for review

    Read the code ↗Install it now ↓

  2. Research

    A controlled study of In-Place Test-Time Training

    Rayhaan Khan trained Qwen3-4B with and without In-Place TTT on identical data, then switched the test-time update off to measure what it adds. Up to 64k tokens, the update changes the RULER long-context score by at most 0.4 points. The reported gains come from training with the module. Code, configurations and the report are public.

    Report (PDF) ↗Code ↗

  3. The lab

    Mumbai AI Lab opens

    Rayhaan Khan started the lab to help school students prepare for a future with AI. Learning to study with AI comes first.

Before the lab

  • 2024The STEM Club at Podar International School ran peer sessions on training a first model, and talks on AI for grade 3 classes.
  • 2025Rayhaan mentored the school's grade 9 team at the IIT Bombay National Robotics League. With Arduino control and a small vision model for obstacle avoidance, the team placed first among 68 schools.

The plugin

Open source under the MIT licence.

Socratic Tutor icon: an orange question mark in a white speech bubble on navy

Socratic Tutor

by Mumbai AI Lab · version 1.0.0

The plugin turns Claude into a tutor that teaches by asking. It finds out what the student has tried, asks the question that leads to the next step and gives the answer once the student has tried or asks for it.

It is instructions only. It runs no code, connects to no server and keeps no record of the student between conversations.

Coming soon to the Claude plugin directory Until it is listed, install it from GitHub

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add Rayhaan1345/socratic-tutor
/plugin install mailab-socratic-tutor@mumbai-ai-lab

Claude desktop app and claude.ai

Open Customize, then Plugins. Choose Add, then Add marketplace, paste https://github.com/Rayhaan1345/socratic-tutor and install Socratic Tutor by Mumbai AI Lab.

Try it

"I have to solve 2x² − 5x − 3 = 0 for homework. Can you help?" or "Quiz me on Newton's laws, five questions."

Founder

Portrait of Rayhaan Khan

Rayhaan Khan

Founder, Mumbai AI Lab

Rayhaan is in the final year of Cambridge A Levels at Podar International School in Navi Mumbai. He works on machine learning research, with a first-author manuscript under review at TMLR and a research internship at MBZUAI. He started the lab after founding the STEM Club at his school.

rayhaan1345.github.io ↗

Contact

To join a session, write to rayhaankhan1345@gmail.com.

For problems or ideas about the plugin, open an issue on GitHub.