21KnowPD

Professional Development for 21st Century Educators

Training 21st Century skills, using 19th Century methods does not work because existing K-12 and pre-service educators primarily receive professional development through factory delivery methods where everyone receives the same content. There is a set of standards and requirements but they often don’t align with skills and tasks required for the 21st Century. They are presented cookie cutter with no take into factors of the educator’s background. Professional development is not personalized. No data is used to help determine learning content or delivery.

How can existing and pre-service teachers learn to teach 21st Century skills, if they have never experienced 21st Century learning?   

21KnowPD helps educators use data to improve and develop 21st Century skills. It’s a 200+ question formative diagnostic authentic  assessment that evaluates the educators pedagogy and technology knowledge and backgrounds and provides visual feedback and recommendations that helps them learn how to use data for their own learning of 21st Century skills.

The 21KnowPD is unique in that addresses an ongoing debate within the educational technology community: What comes first the pedagogy or the technology in development of 21st Century skills (Kazmo-Clark)? Our solution allows for the two elements to be interdependent and are represented in two-dimensional data presented through heat mapping.

Through knowledge and content based recommendations, educators can find content, professional development providers, and events to increase their knowledge and skills of pedagogy and technology.

The product monetizes through a nominal fee 2 assessments per year and additional revenues are possible through content, vendor, and provider access. The assessment is offered online or through a mobile device.

The market for K-12 professional development is estimated to be in the U.S. 4.1 billion for external providers with a 20% growth from 2015 to 2020. The overall professional development market is anticipated to grow 4.5 CGAR during that time period.  Currently there is a global teacher shortage estimated to be 69 million with sub-Saharan Africa and Asia having the greatest being most affected by the shortage. Uganda’s Kyenjojo District has primary student teacher needs of 70:1, and this year needs to train 40 teachers just to maintain that level of service.

There are many PD service providers that provide formative assessments for K-12 educators but focus on subject and discipline assessments. 21KnowPD is the first assessment that looks at 21st Century skills and technology, to create a diagnostic authentic assessment.

21KnowPD was founded by a group of educators, educational technologists, senior researchers, statisticians, and executives from the technology sector. The company management has expertise in business that ranges from startups to VP positions at large technology companies.

With educational technology experts, there is an ongoing chicken and egg debate among professionals: what comes first the pedagogy or the technology? Our technology creates a looks at pedagogy and technology as interdependent.

We use a 4 quadrants approach to knowledge of 21st Century Skills development.

1.    Educator knows pedagogy/ knows technology

2.    Educator knows pedagogy/ does not know technology

3.    Educator does not know pedagogy/knows technology

4.    Educator knows pedagogy/ knows technology

This provides a data-based roadmap gives a pinpointed look at the skills educator needs to be successful in delivery of 21st Century skills.

21KnowPD assessment allows for the development of a hybrid recommendation system, that combines both content-based and collaborative filtering. The actual assessment contains 40% questions that relate directly to the educators knowledge, usage, and utility of technology. Further, about 20% of the assessment includes questions that relate directly to the integration of technology into pedagogy approaches.

ln July 2018, the formative assessment will be completed. August, September, and October Cohort 1-20 users will use design thinking to help develop the feedback and recommendation elements of the product. November-January 2019, rapid prototyping will be used to develop a Prototype 2. February 2019-April 2019 Cohort 2 will beta test Prototype 2.  May 2019- July 2019 retesting of Cohort 1 and evaluation of Cohort 2 to determine next product refinements.

21KnowPD the formative assessment data is used to create the content-based recommender system. This would move the product into to its next phase. Personalized content and vendors will be recommended to teachers and instructional coaches.  The personalized content would be delivered through micro-feeds through mobile devices, a type of “PocketPD” that utilizes a previous content directory created by the team called 21Teach. Teachers would have access to synchronized and asynchronized educator professional development learning environments with in this phase.  

• US Educators
• US Instructional Coaches 
• School and District Leaders

0

6/18-5/19- 1500 during beta testing-- 3000 assessments delivered through Qualtrics app and custom feedback application (US K-12 market--very small design thinking trails in Uganda-10 people)

6/19-5/20--30,000 (90% US market and 10% Africa)  

6/20-6/21-- 3,000,000 through custom built app (50% US market and 50% Africa)

There is a qualified teacher shortage for 2018 in the US is 500,000

According to the UN 69,000,000 new teachers are needed to meet Universal education goals with Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia having the greatest needs. 

Team--

 Karen A. Sorensen-- BS-Business Administration emphasis Entrepreneurship, MA-Educational Technology. Serial entrepreneur, instructional designer, education technologist, experienced adjunct faculty member teaching machine learning and technology in the classroom. 

Jodi Drisko-- Data Collection and Management-- President of Parametrix Group--a data and evaluation company

Advisers 

Eileen M. Lento, PhD--Co-Founder and President at Eureka!Enable-WW Director of Marketing and Advocacy, Government and Education Company Name Intel Corporation

Mick Adkisson--Founder and Co-President at Eureka!Enable, Senior Manger Education Policy & Practice Smart Technologies 

Revenue model is a per unit download of the assessment at $10 per user for the administration of 2 formative tests with feedback. Additional revenue can be achieved through PD vendor and content advertising and learning events.  The cost to administer the assessment is $1.50 per test. 

We are applying to Solve 2018 because 21KnowPD and Solve are addressing the issue of how to train the 69 million teachers who need 21st Century skills.  We believe that 21KnowPD can grow faster with the support of the Solve organization and will be able to reach a more diverse user base from what you have established within your network. The recognition from the Solve community would help with growth.

Barrier number one that we face is direct marketing is an expensive cost, since we are bootstrapping we are depending on the disposable income of the founders to grow. The lack of funding leads to a delay in growth and outreach.  Barrier number two is with limited funds it is hard to reach areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where infrastructure is costly. Solve’s community can help with funding and connections with investors and international organizations that are interested in our mission.