TAW ACADEMY

Vision: A Hub that translates learning to fun, Skills and Solution for African children ages 0 to 18. We foster Quality Education (SDG 4) as a tool for achieving No Poverty (SDG1). 

Mission: A Creative Education Social Enterprise that designs fun learning tools that redefine learning as skills and Solution based; fun tools that improve overall learning outcomes and develop Success Skills in children.

Core Values

✓Innovation

✓Value

✓Adaptability

✓Learning

✓Fun

✓Community

Ogechi Esimai is the Founder, Team Lead and Creative Director of TAW ACADEMY.

She heads the Design and Innovation Team that designs, tests and reviews learning tools for children and schools. 

As the Team Lead, She supervises every department, receives reports and checks  performance based on adopted metrics of all the departments. 

She also works with the product promotion and marketing unit especially during product adoption Demo and Tests in Schools.

TAW Academy official daily work hours is 8 to 10hours.  With 1-2 hours dedicated to contingent assignments.

Every last week in a month, we design our monthly work plan and outline of major goals and responsibilities per team member and in team. We divide goals and duties under Routine, Creative and Contingent. Hours are given to these activities.

The 3 months of Sprint will come into our 3 month plan as Creative and Contingent along side other activities with allotted time.

Team Lead and supporting team members will plan ahead and fix in duties in their private  calendars.

Looking at the Leap Project, we already envision that the Team Lead will work with the Marketing and Field Demo Lead and the Creative/Research Assistant.

CHEWA WORD BOARD GAME and MINDO NUMBERS BOARD GAME as tools for improved learning outcomes and Success Skills in Children. 

Based on Statista findings, In Nigeria alone per year, 30million children go through the traditional school system with the predominance of ROTELEARNING as the major form of learning.

ROTELEARNING presents education as dry, uninteresting, non-experiential and positions learning as that which ends in the classroom or for mere writing exams.  And so we find children who learn about topics in the classrooms but not empowered to experience or think on what they are learning. This is why a child finishes at the primary and secondary level of education and can barely innovate, solve problems, thrive in a new context or proffer solutions to daily life problems. This is a poverty enabler. ROTELEARNING doesn't translate knowledge to skills and Solutions for the child.

Our Solution is teaching and empowering children with Lifeskills required to thrive through a fun Educative Board. We infuse contexts that trigger their minds to think, innovate, solve problems and develop smart solutions in seconds and minutes. We also developed these Learn Boards as Subject interest triggers for Literacy, STEM and Numeracy. And so a child who sees these subject areas as uninteresting will enjoy learning them through the Boards.

Children between  Ages 5 and 12 can play, learn and have fun with both CHEWA and Mindo learn Boxes.

 For CHEWA, at every session of play, a child enjoys the mastery of new words, spelling, writing and every aspect of word learning and at the same time, they are solving a lot of word problems, calculating swiftly on strategies to meet up with their set goals, learning strategies to work with other people  and mapping out solutions that work.

For Mindo, every child that plays Mindo sees the numbers as fun. With a lot of critical thinking and decision making, they make number moves that work with the play mode to improve their calculation and Numeracy Skills.

Children below 5 use the Boards and their part tools as foundational tools for Numeracy and Literacy Skills.

Formative Research

We did a 1 year Usability Study on both CHEWA WORD BOX and MINDO NUMBERS BOX on over 600 Students(Participants aged 5 to 18). We had a lot of user interviews, observation and feedbacks. We have adopted the 3 part approach to testing effectiveness of the Educative Board Games on School Children and Children in every context.

Immediate Participants Feedback from the children

6Months Outcome Teachers and Parents and 

1year check from the school board or community.   

All Immediate Feedback show high engagement(fun) of Participants in learning( 99%), A high degree of problem solving, adaptability to learning context, critical thinking and Participants designing Solutions.

6months feedback on Participants show a considerable degree of Innovativeness, solution based thinking and improvement in Literacy, Numeracy and other subjects among Participants.

1 year research always shows the community learning and adoption of innovative learning among the students and schools.

We have an active plan to push for these Innovative learning tools to Ministries of Education and Learning Agencies in Nigeria and other African countries. This is to get these Educational Stakeholders to infuse these tools into the general learning curriculum for Public and Private Schools. This will grant children the balanced learning they require to thrive now and in the future.

We also Promoting their adoption as intervention models for Numeracy and Literacy Skills for slow learners and learning disadvantaged children. They foster a learning condition that allow each child to enjoy learning at their own speed. We have watched low performing students perform better in their subjects after putting them on a 3 week Board Game Program.

We need a concrete evidence of these impacts on children and this is why we need to be on the LEAP Project.

Every Year, Schools produce children who are academically learned but lacking relevant Lifeskills to translate their learning to Solutions. The Leap Project will grant us the evidence our Solution is making to change this narrative  and also help check out product validation.

1. What effect does a weekly Participation in Mindo Numbers Game have on the level of Numeracy Skills of Children Ages 3 to 12?

2. What's impact does a weekly Participation in CHEWA WORD GAME have on the Literacy level of Children Ages 3 to 12?

3. To what extent does weekly Participation in CHEWA WORD GAME and MINDO NUMBERS GAME develop Life and Success Skills in children Ages 3 to 12?

In Nigeria a Child between ages of 2 and 12 goes through a term educational calendar of 12 to 14 weeks. Active learning happens in 10weeks.

We project the use of 2 Schools. 1 private Primary School and 1 Public Primary School. One School will play CHEWA WORD GAME once every week for 8weeks. One MINDO NUMBERS GAME once every week for 8weeks. We will have a control group and experimental group in each school. 

We will do usability interviews but use learning outcomes scores to check product impact.

It is our desire that after the 8 weeks focused usage of these tools. Students learning outcomes will improve in Numeracy and Literacy. Also their attitudinal and Skills sets will have some improvements. We hope to have improved scores especially when compared with previous scores before the tools.

The Leap Project will be a concrete evidence that Our impact to learning is required to raise a total child.

It will validate our mission and be a platform on which we can boldly approach the Educational Bodies to infuse them into Schools Curriculums.

On another note but most importantly, It will beam a neutral objective light to what we are doing and perhaps an eye opener to areas of improvement in the products. This will be a call to review and re-innovate which is still a major progress.

On the Solution; Our Short  term Outcome is to improve the level of understanding of Literacy and Numeracy Skills of children ages 2 to 12. Also develop or  boost their Success Skills by helping them translate their learning to skills and Solutions.

On the Organization, It will be an immediate validation on us as a Creative Education Social Enterprise designing tools that improve the creative, mental and handy capacities of children.

On the desired long term Outcome for our Solution. We desire to raise Innovative, productive children who grow to live above poverty. We desire that our Solution achieves SDG 1(No Poverty) with SDG(Quality Education)

On our Long therm desired outcome. We envision a Creative Education Hub that gets involved in the Educational Policy Making,  Curriculum adoption and Partners with Education Stakeholders for more impact.