LearningBeautiful

We seek to impact social and economic prosperity through what we call cultured learning, a process that shares and synthesizes knowledge in a way that fits within the learner's world. Each partner shares a piece of expertise that provides the project with a unique opportunity for change. An understanding of culture and interpersonal skills, mirrored with decades of Montessori experience as well as product ideation and implementation, allows our team to customize experiences to fit individual needs while also critiquing ourselves to maximize service. This opportunity gravitated to our team. Kyle, having worked with children since he was a child, teaching at Tufts University, and enduring myriad struggles in his pursuit of higher education, began work in Uganda in the summer of 2023. Through this experience, he was struck by the lack of opportunity and educational interest in one of the youngest countries in the world. The barriers, such as colonial-style education, costs, resources, and school consistency, were glaring. LearningBeautiful became a partner as founder Kimberly Smith-Claudel's experience in Zambia involved developing materials that could adapt to the learner. Through in-country partnerships with the Aliguma Foundation and the St. Dominic Savio Nursery and Primary School, our solutions aim to serve national and refugee children aged 5-12 who face numerous challenges. Our approach to cultured learning integrates various elements essential for effective education in diverse contexts. By blending cultural understanding with Montessori principles, we create learning experiences that resonate with the learners' backgrounds and capabilities while fostering curiosity and engagement. Our team's expertise in product development ensures that the materials we provide are not only culturally relevant but also adaptable and scalable, meeting the evolving needs of both learners and educators. In Uganda, where access to quality education remains a pressing issue, our partnership with local organizations enables us to reach marginalized children who might otherwise be left behind. By focusing on early childhood education and providing support for both formal and informal learning environments, we aim to equip children with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in school and beyond. Our commitment to continuous improvement means that we constantly evaluate and refine our programs based on feedback from learners, educators, and community members, ensuring that we remain responsive to evolving needs and challenges.

Kyle is a powerful connector, the vessel of change on our team, and the center influence for our solution in Uganda. His interpersonal skills, along with his situational, teaching, and service expertise, allow LearningBeautiful to flourish in Uganda at the St. Dominic Savio School in the Pakele Town Council, Adjumani District. By leading, grant-writing, caring and connecting for students Kyle exemplifies himself to be a servant leader pushing everyone to be the best they can as they are able. He will be in Uganda to lead, teach, and implement the solution and share reports with the team so the project as able to be adapted and assisted in real time. 

Being anchored in Boston while maintaining close ties with Ugandan officials provides a solid framework for our endeavors. We're fortunate to collaborate with Makerere University and local government partners, fostering sustainability for our LEAP project. This ensures that progress continues seamlessly even in our absence, with smooth operations and ongoing improvements.

Our bonds with educators and officials in Uganda are invaluable. They not only understand the importance of securing good jobs but also share our passion for creating better opportunities for the younger generation. Together, we're dedicated to ensuring that every child receives the support they need to thrive. We are currently able to establish this project from June-July this upcoming summer, 2024, to effectively understand what are the best ways to implement consistent communication as well as analyze the materials at hand that we can adapt to build the solutions with so more connectivity with the solutions can be developed. Thus, more on-the-ground experience will provide invaluable insights that will guide us in refining our strategies and ensuring the long-term success of our initiative.

In our efforts, we're developing user-friendly guides tailored to local contexts, empowering communities to implement our ideas effectively. These resources are designed to be adaptable, allowing for flexibility based on available resources. Additionally, we actively engage with teachers and school leaders, providing assistance and eagerly listening to feedback, including that of the children themselves.

Our mission is clear: to enact lasting positive change. By fostering strong partnerships and remaining attuned to community needs, we're confident in our ability to create a brighter tomorrow for everyone.

Creating change through access and incorporating culture through learning to help every learner see their mind as beautiful. 

Computer science (CS) education across Sub-Saharan African countries is evolving rapidly. As countries develop more capacity for university programs and technical training for the IT sector, more people have opportunities to pursue careers in CS and other technology-related fields. These jobs can be meaningful, perpetuating upward mobility and often provide career opportunities within one’s home country that can in turn have a powerful impact on a local level. 

For our pilot study, we are partnering with St. Dominic Savio Nursery and Primary School in Kampala, Uganda in order to co-create our model for a tangible toolkit for computational thinking that can be adaptive to serve other communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, there are currently 28 institutions that offer degrees in computer science, with many other programs offering Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, Business Computing and Computer Security. 

Computer science is considered a major component of the broad ICT sector and digital transformation agenda that has been flagged as a key priority area for Uganda’s Third National Development Plan. Uganda’s national development plan has projected a demand of over 500,000 jobs in the ICT sector, including in the CS specific jobs in software development and software engineering, embedded systems, machine learning, data science, computer vision, and computer security. (Bainomugisha et al., Computer Science Education in Selected Countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, ACM 2023)

As Uganda and other African countries prioritize the development of the ICT and CS sectors as part of their digital transformation agenda, there is a growing need to begin foundational computational thinking education for the younger ages. While there are an increasing number of university opportunities to pursue computer science, there is often a lack of foundational knowledge on the part of incoming students. There is a need for a curricular pipeline, one that is developed across ages in order to lay a strong foundation for later exploration into computer science. 

However, schools often lack the resources required to effectively teach computational foundations in their schools. Many teachers are not trained or feel unqualified to teach this content. They often do not have access to digital equipment such as computers or tablets, and may not have reliable internet connection or access to app-based learning methods. Additionally, in countries such as Uganda or Zambia, in an effort to incorporate English, content is often not presented in the local language. This means that for children who are not yet fluent English speakers, they are not retaining or comprehending these concepts.

Computational Schoolkit is an adaptive, agile set of resources designed with and for Sub-Saharan African schools to learn computational foundations, without the use of computers or digital technology.

Our Computational Schoolkit is comprised of 3 parts:

1. A curriculum handbook with DIY, tactile activities

This handbook includes unplugged activities, and DIY instructions for making simple educational materials from local, accessible materials. 

1. Computational thinking children’s books, presented in both English and the local language

These books link concepts with contextual examples so that children and teachers can apply these concepts in relevant ways. We believe in inspiring young people through the knowledge of what is possible, and so these books are intended to expand basic knowledge of computing and the role it plays in our lives. These books are simple and short, and are presented in both the local language and English

1. A series of short online teacher videos for guidance on the content

We present short videos that offer simple instruction and demonstrations for the lessons and the materials. These are available online.

Our approach is embedded in research of proven-effective (US and South Africa) methods of learning such as the Montessori Method. As such, learning is centered on a physical, multi-sensorial approach in which children learn through active play and doing.

To date, we have conducted one scouting trip in the summer of June 2023, which allowed for an extensive view of the country and the barriers to higher education and sustainable livelihoods. Learning that degree revocations, unsuitable public education, and lack of costs for school and school supplies are significant hurdles in Uganda. Through our initial rendition, we have established strong partnerships with key individuals who understand the struggles of pursuing education in a developing country where the route of opportunity is not linear. We plan on creating a literature review and a documentary of our outcomes as well as the impact they have on the community. Analyzing these visuals, along with the data collected during our scouting trip, will provide valuable insights into the challenges faced by individuals seeking education and the effectiveness of our interventions in addressing these challenges.

Through a combination of analyzing research articles and being immersed within the country's education system through visiting and interacting with school administrators from the slum village level to the university setting the imperative remains the same, create and provide access to these highly-innovative students. Per Uganda’s national development plan they have projected a demand of over 500,000 jobs in the Computer technology sector, including specific jobs in software development and software engineering, embedded systems, machine learning, data science, computer vision, and computer security, though currently only 1,600 computer science undergraduates receive degrees per year and some choosing work overseas in the USA or Europe. The number of graduates is small not only because of the difficulty of the program but also because of the ability of universities to support these programs and teach them in up-to-date ways because of technology and resource deficits. In other country settings, we have seen progression from using our learning materials when learners are able to be tactile, ask questions, and see the applied usage of what they are learning. Adapting these strategies through cultured learning, where we plan to teach with the intent of understanding and applying cultural contexts, we aim to provide solutions to the demand for highly skilled tech professionals and the current educational landscape in Uganda. By analyzing research articles and immersing ourselves in the country's education system, from interacting with school administrators in slum villages to engaging with university settings, we recognize the imperative to create and provide access to highly innovative educational opportunities for students.

We are very excited about this project. With a pilot study slated for June we are eager to gain more information and answer key research questions that will enable us to build on these findings to create a modular, adaptive toolkit to distribute to other schools in the region. We are interested in LEAP because of its global perspective and connections. We seek assistance in defining a social impact business model, one that allows us to create key partnerships in order to distribute our content to as many schools as possible. We know the students have the intellectual capability as they recently performed 7th best in the district on standardized testing, indicating access is the issue, not ability.

The research questions our project seeks to address are: How can computational thinking be introduced in a Sub-Saharan African setting and what technology is capable of supporting its integration? Additionally, how can local cultural contexts and educational practices inform the development of computational thinking curricula and tools, ensuring relevance and effectiveness? Through exploring these questions, our project aims to uncover innovative approaches to promoting computational thinking skills in Sub-Saharan Africa, leveraging appropriate technologies and culturally responsive pedagogies to empower learners and educators alike.

In the 12-week LEAP Project sprint, our desired outputs focus on completing formative research to ensure the effectiveness and relevance of our interventions. We will conduct usability studies, feasibility studies, and user interviews to gather insights into the needs and preferences of both students and educators in Sub-Saharan Africa regarding the introduction of computational thinking content. Additionally, we will undertake case studies and implementation studies to assess the practicality and impact of integrating computational thinking into existing educational frameworks. Through pre-post or multi-measure research, we aim to measure the outcomes of our interventions, tracking changes in students' understanding of computational thinking concepts and their enthusiasm for pursuing computer science (CS) at higher levels of education. Moreover, correlational studies will help us understand the relationship between exposure to computational thinking content at a young age and long-term educational and career outcomes. Ultimately, our goal is to generate evidence-based insights that inform the development of culturally responsive curricula and tools, ensuring that students are well-prepared to pursue CS at the university level and contribute to the rapidly growing fields of computer science and IT in African countries, thus positively impacting local economies and communities.

Fellows engaged in the LEAP Project receive comprehensive assistance both in the field and remotely to support their endeavors effectively. In the field, they benefit from various forms of support, including local liaison support, training and capacity building, and access to necessary resources such as transportation and equipment. Partnering with individuals or organizations familiar with the local context provides invaluable logistical and cultural insights, while training sessions conducted by local experts enhance understanding of cultural nuances and community engagement strategies. Additionally, remote assistance is essential for expert fellows, facilitated through virtual collaboration platforms, technical support, and access to data analysis and reporting tools. These resources enable expert fellows to stay connected with their teams, troubleshoot challenges, analyze data collected in the field, and generate insights for project evaluation and reporting purposes. Furthermore, mentorship programs or peer support networks provide opportunities for guidance, shared experiences, and learning from each other's successes and challenges. Overall, by offering comprehensive assistance both in the field and remotely, the LEAP Project empowers expert fellows to effectively execute their roles, overcome obstacles, and maximize the impact of their contributions to the project's objectives.

Our organization has the fortunate opportunity of being able to travel to Uganda, bringing and creating materials made with the input of community members and 

The desired long-term outcomes of the 12-week LEAP Project sprint for our organization and solution are multifaceted and encompass various levels of impact. We are aim for sustained access to foundational computational thinking education for children in partner African schools, ensuring that this curriculum becomes a permanent fixture in their educational journey. To establish this, we are creating tools that we pray will enable us to adapt from the local environment to create material resilience and better mastery of the tools. Concurrently, we seek to establish a sense of empowerment among teachers in these schools, equipping them with the tools and resources necessary to confidently and effectively teach computational thinking concepts. By exposing young children in African countries to computational thinking at early ages, our goal is to lay a robust foundation that prepares them for future careers in technology, thereby contributing to better livelihoods and quality education access for refugees and displaced persons who face many barriers to success. Through sustained global partnership, we want to be able to properly implement problems within St. Savio Nursery, where learners are at the ripe age to engage with this information and track how these thinking skills transfer into real-life and future success. The ability to have time to work with learners over this initial 6-week period and then prayerfully through another 12 weeks will allow for content immersion from the teachers and students as each class will have a learning goal or principle the best suits the students they have. We look to provide assistance rather than dominance as we did not grow up in the world we are entering, so determining the way things prosper cannot be determined without the massive help from our community partners. Through this endeavor, a child receives the help to grow themselves into a world that needs them despite what their environment tells them.