Teachers Lead Tech

On a mission to ensure that EVERY kid learns to create with technology as a basic skill, next to reading & maths. Despite their gender, location, learning differences or socioeconomic background. We solve it through building Teachers Lead Tech, a support bubble to teach creative computer science in K8. 

Monika is founder & CEO of Teachers Lead Tech, overlooking product development and deeply involved in finding new ways for every learner in the classroom succeed as well as supporting teachers in the process. 

Building evidence base into our solution is key step to our growth, where dedicated time and support at LEAP project sprint will help our team focus and have a strong strategy ( outputs) to move forward.

Simply said, it is something we've been dreaming to do, and having dedicated time & support would bring a lot of value.

Building a support bubble to teach creative computer science in K8.

Computer science is quickly expanding to K8 classrooms globally, yet the challenge to find and train teachers, provide with up-to-date curriculum and support teachers when working with diverse learners in classroom, creates room for new solutions. Teachers Lead Tech is building a support bubble to teach creative computer science through continuous micro-PD for teachers, up-to-date curriculum, focusing on student authenticity and creativity and the last, but not least, learning assistant for students to support self-directed learning. 

TLT is a platform where teachers join continuous virtual learning sessions live or recorded, where they hands-on prepare to teach various Computer science concepts, such as AI, VR, creative programming, 3D modelling, etc. Next to learning sessions, teachers get access to detailed curriculum to be used when working with kids. 

The latest feature we introduced, learning assistant, works as a step-by-step guide for students, who complete the steps with a "Create" button to submit their individual computer science project to classroom "Gallery". Through this concept every kid in the classroom succeeds on their own pace. 

Yes, learning variability ( we call it individual learning) is at the core of our pedagogical approach, Understand, Practice, Create, where the goal of the lesson is to apply computer science concept in an individual creative project. Instead of 24 ( sample classroom size) kids solving 1 identical task, we have 24 kids building an individual project. 

We've worked with a group of scientists on our first research school year 2020/2021, it was recently published at Springer. It was both qualitative ( usability ) and quantitative ( user interviews ) research that set the tone for future product development, i.e. introducing learning assistant to support teachers when in classroom.

On daily basis, we collect user feedback and track data to make data informed decisions, yet we feel a need to better measure and understand impact in classroom. 

Teachers report growth in math grades, logical thinking, creativity and imagination, as well as motivation to learn, inclusivity and collaboration. Our challenge is to find ways to capture these outcomes.

It revealed that there are many forces outside of our scope, such as administrative decisions on school / municipality / national level, that no matter our product quality, will impact teacher decisions.

From product perspective, it revealed that despite the training, emotional and technical support, as well as curriculum provided, teachers find it challenging to start in the classroom as well as serve diverse needs of student s when building authentic projects. That's where the concept of learning assistant came into place. Since launching in September 2023, students used our learning assistant more than 200.000 times. Teachers call it "liberating".

We've been gathering teachers feedback, describing impact of our solution as "transformative", "highly impactful", "meaningful", etc., as well as saying things like creativity, imagination, deep collaboration, inclusivity and motivation to learn grows in the classroom. Next to improved maths results and logical thinking.

Yet we did not have a meaningful way to capture it. 

Since launching our learning assistant in September 2023, it has been used more than 200.000 times by kids, teachers call it liberating and now we are looking to capture impact through  student interaction and growth.

1. If and how our pedagogical approach improves student engagement, inclusivity and creativity?

2. If and how our approach to teach computer science improves student success? 

Desired outputs:

-> better define 2 research questions

-> define best ways to collect / measure evidence of our solution

-> define 1-2 year strategy for R&D

First, define initial changes in the product to start meaningfully collect evidence.

Second, use LEAP outputs as insights to apply for next research grant.

On dream level, work on a joint research with a team at MIT to define learning outcomes.

Short term - define scope and methods for next research project.

Long term - built-in measurement of student learning outcomes as part of our solution.