Eu Ensino

Empowering educators in techniques and best practices for 21st-century skills, with training in socio-emotional competencies and effective classroom management.

Global research suggests that pre-service training programs focused on practical instruction lead to more effective teachers, yet Brazil has a huge unmet demand for teacher practical training. With a requirement of only 10 weeks of pre-service training before teachers earn their pedagogy diploma, Brazil has one of the lowest requirements in the world, especially compared to countries like Mexico or Cuba, which require 40 and 140 hours, respectively. 

This lack of practical training has widespread effects, hindering teachers’ ability to effectively teach. In fact, studies show that over 20% of classroom time in Brazil is wasted due to classroom management issues, which can add up to 40 days of learning time lost in one school year. This has a negative impact on teachers too. A study conducted in State schools in Sao Paulo found that 8 teachers resigned every day due to stressful work conditions, which could have been avoided with further preparation and support.

The federal government has acknowledged insufficient teacher training as a critical issue, and has funded and required that schools administer regular professional development sessions to all teachers. However, without any guidelines or training materials, these sessions have proven unhelpful, as school administrations lack the resources to provide effective teacher training.

Eu Ensino was developed to fill this demand. Our solution is a digital one-stop shop platform for teacher training resources that school administrators can use during these mandated sessions. By offering a structured approach and targeted content, we empower trainers and teachers to improve their classroom management skills. Our product trains them on simple techniques and socio-emotional competencies, improving the learning environment and student outcomes, and causing teacher burnout to decline.

Once a school starts using Eu Ensino, each educator is prompted to make an account, and take a simple survey designed to capture the unique context and needs of their classroom. Then, using our bank of professional development content, we curate specific techniques and customize a toolkit for trainers. By providing a minute-by-minute guide for how each meeting should be conducted, and offering engaging deliverables, group exercises, and videos, we provide trainers with the support needed to improve their professional development sessions and have real impact in teachers’ pedagogical practices.

Teacher training is not a problem unique to Brazil, and this model can be replicated, contextualized to different cultures, and scaled across the world. We estimate that once we hit a milestone of content available for the needs of 50 schools, our solution becomes significantly scalable and able to empower trainers across Brazil to improve their practice and equip teachers with tips and techniques to help them better manage their classrooms. The techniques are simple and easily applicable, such as making the teachers aware that their instructions should be clear and observable, helping them to create trust in the classroom and make room for active learning. Our goal is to not only improve instruction time and the classroom environment, but also to ensure students are better prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.

Eu Ensino is innovative in Brazil because we leverage technology to increase the reach of teacher training tracks. The innovation permeates both fronts: in using technology and in offering techniques for pedagogical practice, a deep need in Brazilian schools. We innovate in encouraging educators across Brazil to connect and share best practices that were once limited to silos. These then are constantly improved because of the feedback structure embedded in the training sessions and in the platform. By offering a scalable solution to the traditional approach, usually done in person, we also innovate by significantly reducing its cost.

Technology is central to Eu Ensino’s ability to scale and is it’s biggest asset in comparison to competitors. Over time, we expect it to play an even more central role, eventually incorporating machine learning to the suggestion of training tracks and data-collection tools. With access to new and tailored techniques, we hope to empower teachers to use their time in the classroom more effectively, increasing learning time. By doing so, we expect to create a ripple effect, increasing students’ access to quality education and opportunities. Without technology, we are unable to offer such a scalable and adaptive solution.

To measure the success of the organization, we consider our reach, our effectiveness and our financial health. We have three main goals over the next year. First, to reach 15 schools, which means roughly 750 educators and 25,000 students. Second, our survey results usually indicate that it can take teachers as long as 20 minutes to get students seated, quiet, and with their materials out; our goal is to reduce that to 5 minutes per lecture for teachers using the product, by continuously improving our offering. Finally, to reach our breakeven in July 2019, with the company becoming self-sufficient.

In five years, Eu Ensino will be in all states in Brazil, impacting 10,000 teachers and around 350,000 students, in private and public schools. This represents 0.5% of the potential market - it may seem conservative, but given the complexity, diversity and inequality of Brazil’s education system, it requires much effort to be achieved. However, once we overcome initial barriers and pushback, we believe adoption will be more fluid, especially if securing a government contract. By targeting educators, our reach goes beyond our users, impacting thousands, if not millions, of students around Brazil and perhaps Latin America.

Eu Ensino provides materials that school leadership can access through our portal. If there is limited access to technology at the school, they are able to print the materials used in training sessions. Our model provides ongoing training, and customers will constantly need to access the platform for new materials, videos and techniques, increasing probability of retention. As we build more tailored content, the effectiveness of our solution for each school increases. Our strategy is to sell to private and public schools, initially reaching out to them personally. Once proven effective, we will shift to a completely online model.  

We are currently running two pilots in Brazil, reaching around 50 educators and 1,200 students with our full solution: initial diagnosis, training tracks, videos and techniques. Their main challenges are with indiscipline and student motivation. Our Diagnostic Survey found that 60% of teachers feel they lack the tools to handle challenges in the classroom, and 80% take at least 10 minutes to start lessons (20% take 15 minutes or more). After 6 weeks of Eu Ensino, 25% of teachers feel they lack the tools, 30% take at least 10 minutes to start lessons (70% taking less than 10 minutes).

We expect to be serving 15 schools (~750 educators), by offering access to all content at a discounted price. Our goal is to test and refine the product, using the platform’s embedded feedback mechanism. In three years we hope to reach 100 schools. Our target customers are urban schools, mostly public and from disadvantaged areas, who are dedicated to continuous learning, but lack the tools to effectively improve their practice. We expect to see the first results in improved classroom management in a few weeks of using Eu Ensino and we will track the results in our weekly development survey.

We are a small organization, but with a very diverse team, bringing expertise from education, business, innovation, finance, and policy, specifically focused in Brazil. Our training tracks are currently developed in-house by Rafaela, a teacher trainer, and Laura, a former teacher, who also has a business background. We are leveraging our policy expertise to develop a partnership with the State Secretariat of Education in São Paulo to measure our impact in public schools. Also, as winners of Columbia's EdTech Challenge, we are able to leverage the connections of Fundação Lemann, our sponsor, to increase our reach across Brazil’s public schools.

Eu Ensino is a for-profit social enterprise. We charge schools a monthly subscription fee to access the platform, with a fixed component of R$200/month (~US$70/month) and a variable component of R$20 (US$7)/month per user. Our pricing is within the discretionary budget for training in public schools, which is crucial to ensure entry at schools without undergoing long procurement processes. For this initial phase, it secures revenue, in addition to the private schools, which have less bureaucratic processes. Once we can bid for government contracts, we will sell to districts and achieve scale. Reaching the target of 50 schools will demand a significant increase in our capacity to generate unique, targeted professional development content. Once we hit that milestone, Eu Ensino becomes significantly scalable due to the continuous use of our bank of professional development sessions, which will be quite large. As we add new schools to the platform we essentially monetize what is already there, since the challenges faced in classroom management across schools tends to be the same, whether in private or public schools. Targeting public and private schools, and continuously using of our bank of professional development sessions ensures long-term stability.

Eu Ensino is in its initial stages, but with a strong team and mission. We have identified a huge need in Brazil’s education landscape and we’re confident our platform provides a simple and effective solution to address it. However, we’re also aware of our shortcomings, such as a lack of technical expertise in our team, and we see Solve as a potential partner that could significantly address our needs as a company. We would not only benefit from the 10 thousand dollar prize (which would go a long way at our stage), but also from the community, partnerships and exposure.

We have identified 3 potential barriers: limited technology awareness, technological restrictions for adoption and the risk that trainers access the technology, but don’t implement the techniques in the classroom. For awareness, Solve can help in leveraging their network and reach to increase our exposure. For technological restrictions, the Solve community can help us improve our platform’s usability, also bringing the expertise to develop our app. Finally, if our techniques are proven effective, teachers are more likely to try them. With help from Solve, we will have the support to measure our impact and have the data to show our success.