Progracademy

Our mission in Progracademy (PRG) is to develop the skills that Latin-American underserved children and youth under 18 years old need to thrive in the 21st century -Life Skills (6C) and Technical Digital Skills (TD)- by providing free online technology education. Most underserved children and youth in LatAm are not receiving from the education system proper development of those skills, so the gap vs. the skills of well-off children and youth is very large. Furthermore, the Digital Era's rapid technological changes -which are adopted earlier and better by the haves rather than the have-nots- are making such a gap to grow over time. To complement the education system to provide 6C and TD Skills development to underserved children and youth, PRG integrates and leverages resources not currently in the education system.

PRG's Values are related to the 6 Sustainable Development Goals that we address:
- People have the human right to unleash their full potential, and quality education is one of the most powerful tools for that (SDG 4)
- People have the human right to decent work and income (SDG 1, 8)
- Social and Economic inequality should be reduced. That benefits individuals, the economy, and society (SDG 5, 10)
- Collaboration is one of the hallmarks of humans. Education is a Whole Society Enterprise and as such needs much more collaboration between public and private sectors and civil society, within and across countries (SDG 17)

Originally a Systems Engineer, Francys found her passion in Educational Technology. She led the scaling of EdTech in two large Venezuelan universities and witnessed the quantum leap impact that EdTech can have in both the teaching-learning process and the students' learning outcomes. As a former university professor, researcher, and developer of computer systems, focused on educational software and learning management systems, Francys combines the right expertise mix to contribute to an EdTech organization like Progracademy that develops skills both in adults (tutors) and children and youth. She joined Progracademy in May 2022 as Chief Operating Officer and after a few months it was clear that she had the leadership skills, the subject matter skills, the teaching-learning skills -and the stamina- required for performing at the next level, i.e., the Chief Executive Officer position, which she assumed this year. During her time in Progracademy, she has led the design and implementation of PRG's learning management system, and the expansion from 1 school in one country to 18 schools and orphanages, 1 after-school center, 2 companies, and 1 home school, all across 4 countries.

The Lead project is a top-priority undertaking for the organization. As such, the Learning lead, Juan Carlos Resendiz, the Learning senior permanent advisor, Armando Sanchez, and the Operations lead, Angelica Rodriguez, will be supporting the Team Lead and the LEAP project in general. The Learning Lead and the Operations Lead have experienced assistant employees in their respective areas thus allowing the Leads to devote more time to the LEAP project. Moreover, many of the current 355 university student volunteers we work with and others that we could integrate in a short period have the expertise, time availability, and strong willingness (they get "paid" by serving their service hours out of their service hours quota requirement) to support specific tasks that we may require in Learning, Operations, Administration, or Research. Moreover, our 100% online, collaborative, and agile culture leveraged by technologies like agility software allows us to assimilate workload peaks with flexible integration of team members and without compromising the quantity and quality of the teams' deliverables.

Progracademy develops Life and Technical Digital Skills of underserved Latin-American children and youth by providing free K-12 online technology education.

There is a massive Learning Crisis among children and youth in Latin America, which consistently ranks as one of the worst performing regions in the world in international standardized assessments of educational attaintment like PISA. The Learning Crisis is three-fold since there are significant deficiencies in Foundational Skills (aka 3R), Life Skills (aka 6C, Transversal Skills, 21st-century skills), and Technical Digital Skills (rather important and consequential in the Digital Era: computer programming, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, etc.). This crisis is particularly grave among underserved Latin American children and youth. 

While the Foundational skills are the most important skills, it is clear is that with Foundational Skills only a person does not have any chance to thrive in our current Digital Era. For such thriving, Life Skills are indispensable. Technical Digital Skills might not be a requisite, but certainly add a lot of value in the Digital Era -and technology education is one of the best vehicles for developing Life Skills. Moreover, the Life Skills gap between underserved children and youth and their better-off counterparts is not only large, but it is growing. The Learning Crisis could lead to consequential missed opportunities in key areas like sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and social cohesion.

Unfortunately, the public primary and secondary education system, which is the only one that underserved children and youth attend, is badly equipped to overcome the three-fold learning crisis. School staff is usually not pro-digital, the system is not agile enough when adapting, developing new capabilities, and changing traditional teaching-learning practices, and finally, there is a shortage of financial and human resources to address the skills crisis, especially for Life and Technical Digital skills. To narrow the gap in 6C Skills with other countries and regions and within our own countries, and do it not in a too long time, extra resources, i.e., resources currently not used by the public primary and secondary education system, need to be plugged in, thus making the "Education as a Whole Society Enterprise" approach a reality.

To integrate extra resources into the primary and secondary education system to address the Life and Technical Digital skills learning crisis, Progracademy has developed two 100% online innovations that allow cost-effective integration of those resources at scale: Technology education MaxiMOOCs, and an Educational Crowdsourcing Platform.

MOOCs are particularly cost-efficient, but their learning effectiveness is rather low. They are known for very low completion rates, and their effectiveness with our primary target beneficiaries, i.e., primary education students, is even lower. The challenge then was to keep MOOCs' cost efficiencies but to increase the support provided and engagement generated in order to significantly increase their effectiveness. That is why MaxiMOOCs mean "MOOCs with Maximum support and engagement". Support for the student comes mainly from three sources: 

i) the MOOC platform itself, which provides the student with performance information, feedback, adaptive "learning routes" according to the student's progression, and other resources, 

ii) the student teammate(s) (usually teams have 2 members) with which the student performs co-coaching (in one session one student is coach and the other one coachee, switching roles in each session), and 

iii) their tutor, with whom each team has two weekly synchronous sessions and who also provides asynchronous support to his/her students within the MOOC platform. To model and develop the students' coaching skills, the tutors mostly behave like coaches. 

Up to now, we have produced Computer Programming MaxiMOOCs leveraging different platforms (code.org, Hatch Kids, Hatch XR, App Inventor, Minecraft, Roblox), and we are preparing the production of an Artificial Intelligence MaxiMOOC (leveraging VittaScience's platform). We are also planning to produce other technology education MaxiMOOCs leveraging IBM's SkillsBuild platform. We sell our MaxiMOOCs i) to organizations that want ESG programs to contribute to their employees' children and/or underserved children and youth (mainly in schools and orphanages), ii) to well-off schools, and iii) to the general public.

The second innovation is tutor-focused: our Educational Crowdsourcing Platform, which provides a tech-enabled social collaboration system that allows fast and effective integration of non-professional educators into MaxiMOOCs facilitator roles. Similarly to the MaxiMOOCs' support sources, tutors receive support in the platform mainly from three sources: 

i) the Crowdsourcing platform itself, aided by artificial intelligence, with performance information and learning routes and resources that allow the tutors to hone their coaching and leadership skills asynchronously, 

ii) their peers, who are other tutors and conform a Community of Learning, and 

iii) their Master Coaches, who provide them a weekly synchronous coaching session and asynchronous support during both pre-service and in-service periods. 

The crowdsourcing platform allows smooth integration and coordination of resources that can come in great quantities: Mexico, Venezuela, and Ecuador require their university students to provide social service hours as a requirement for graduation. That allows PRG to count with millions of free service hours each year potentially. In the other Latin American countries this social service is not a requirement mandated by law, but some universities have it and others incentivize it.

Progracademy has conducted several types of studies to understand the program's effectiveness and to identify potential ways to improve it. We have conducted mostly formative research, specifically usability studies, user interviews, implementation studies, and process evaluations. We have also conducted pre-post testing, specifically for computational thinking. Most of those studies have been done in-house, but in two occasions we also commissioned researchers in Venezuela to work together with us. Several research questions remain in the backlog, and out of them we have prioritized three for the LEAP project, but at some point in time we will undertake those research topics. 

Research efforts began at the design stage, before implementing our first pilot in Venezuela in 2017. At that stage, we wanted to understand perception and understanding from our host school organization (the largest education NGO in Latin America: Fe y Alegria) about the learning model that we wanted to introduce in its school, as it was unprecedented and disruptive. So through interviews, we explored their views in regards to key elements of our model not that common in that school: gamification, coaching and co-coaching, our three attributes of the Graduate Profile, and the 6 habits and 24 competencies behind them, Bandura's self-efficacy to overcome the learned helplessness existing in many targeted underserved children and youth, Deci&Ryan's ABC for intrinsic motivation, Papert's constructionism, Chi's ICAP framework for engagement and learning, Ericsson's (PRG' advisor until his death) deliberate practice, Dweck's growth mindset, Fullan's 6C and New Pedagogies for Deep Learning. This exploration informed us about good ways to integrate the school staff into our Educational Crowdsourcing Platform. We have used since then some school staff integration practices defined at that moment -which have proven to be quite effective.

As the program expanded to other countries and institutions, we started to see patterns in the usability studies: given the unusually high level of student time-on-task in PRG, the program was being used by institutions' staff as a behavior management tool (e.g., "children, if you don't behave you will not work on PRG this week") or as a schedule disruptor (e.g., "teacher, we don't want to go to recess, we rather stay in the lab working on PRG"). This type of findings allowed us to anticipate situations and agree in advance with school authorities on the framework under which PRG should be used.

Given our monitoring and evaluation system gaps in terms of the 5C (i.e., the 6C except for Computational Thinking), we have over-relied on user interviews and implementation studies to gather evidence about PRG's impact on the 5C. Thanks to that, we have realized how powerful rotational peer coaching (aka co-coaching) is for engagement, learning, and development of three Life Skills: communication, collaboration, and character-citizenship. A pattern discovered in the studies is that many students that have been previously rather individualistic and aggressive, after rotating coach/coachee roles in PRG for several months, they develop collaboration, communication, and character up to the point of spilling it over other classes and subjects. This has increased the number of "coaches-peer tutors" in the school community, something that teachers have greatly appreciated. That 5C-impact finding has been one of the most striking ones for our clients (in fact, it was instrumental for Fe y Alegria to ask us to expand beyond Venezuela -they have schools in 19 countries). The finding has led us to give more emphasis and tools to the student teams for developing those three "soft" Life Skills. However, we still need to properly assess the level of development of all the 5C and further explore the mechanisms behind that development.

One of PRG's needs to strengthen the evidence base of our Technology Education solution is to catalyze the development of an evidence-based culture in the organization's DNA. That is a critical milestone to develop an organization that continuously improves the quality of its programs.

PRG also needs to assess the progress of our students in their 6C better, so we can improve their skills development and our support tools for our students, both i) our 24/7 asynchronous support tools (session plans, chats, themed on-demand videos and posts) and ii) our twice-a-week synchronous support tool (coaching sessions between each student team and its tutor). Moreover, based on LEAP project insights that strengthen our evidence base, we might also identify the need for additional support tools for our students.

Those insights and others resulting from LEAP's review of the support to our tutors would also allow addressing another need of ours: further research and improvement of the support tools that we provide to our tutors so they develop their skills better and improve their performance. Among them: 1) the students' session plans provided by the system that the tutors validate/modify, 2) constructive criticism of previous sessions thanks to analysis by artificial intelligence and master coaches review of sessions' recordings, 3) the tutors' lesson plans the system produces for them, 4) the pre-service training they get, and 5) the weekly on-the-job coaching (synchronous and asynchronous) they receive from their instructional coaches (the "Master Coaches").

Finally, strengthening our evidence base should also increase our effectiveness in two engagement areas: 

1) commercial engagement across sales channels, including i) organizations interested in ESG programs for the benefit of their employees' children and/or sponsored schools/orphanages, ii) employees of those organizations, iii) paying (well-off) schools, and iv) general public, and 

2) integration engagement with different stakeholders of the education system (school communities, orphanages, universities, government's education authorities), and potential funders.

We have just started (less than six months) to explore commercial engagement with companies and Foundations for ESG programs focused on underserved student sponsorship opportunities. Traction is promising (two successes, and several interested leads under discussion). We believe that now is the right moment for LEAP project to catalyze those efforts by guiding the development of a more solid evidence base behind our Progracademy Social program.

1. What is the impact of PRG's Technical Education MaxiMOOC in the development of students' 6C and Technical Digital Skills?

2. What are the impacts of the different elements of the program and other mechanisms, in such skill development?

3. How to assess the pre-service and in-service development program for tutors, particularly in terms of its efficacy in developing the students' 6C and TD skills?

The formative and summative research needed to strengthen the evidence base of our solution would benefit by getting at least 4 outputs from the 12-week LEAP project sprint:

1) Research design

LEAP project should develop study designs that answer each of our three research questions. The study designs should include the research strategies, methodologies, and methods to be used in each study, and the criteria to limit data collection (via participant selection, for instance).      

2) Research implementation plan

Ideally, LEAP project should also propose a plan to implement the research studies, a detailed plan that would include the procedures and tools to be used to collect and analyze the data, timings, and tasks, roles, and responsibilities of the team that would implement the research. Relevant training for the team members in charge of data collection would also be part of the implementation plan. 

3) Research monitoring and evaluation

Another LEAP project output could be the framework to monitor (including tools and guidance on the process for collecting and analyzing data) and evaluate the research progress, along with suggested mechanisms for course correction if necessary. This output would also include the indicators that are critical for the success of the research and the value range of those metrics that would answer the question "What constitutes success?"

4) After-research plan

This would include the scenario planning output from LEAP project (If-Then). Different research findings scenarios could have recommendation sets to strengthen our solution's evidence base, including potential reactions and future tentative research studies. Recommendations about gathering feedback from trusted sources on the research results, and strategies for socializing those results would also be part of this output.

We plan to immediately put into action the four outputs of the LEAP project sprint:

1) Research design:
We would kick off the implementation of LEAP Project outputs on our Progracademy Social program by discussing LEAP's study designs with relevant stakeholders: i) our staff, both the ones that are going to work directly on the research and the ones that are not, and ii) the researchers who have shown interest in participating in research studies about Progracademy. They are staff and graduate students in the following universities: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Caracas, Venezuela), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid, Spain), and Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Madrid, Spain). Immediately after briefing them on the study designs, we would discuss the implementation plan. 

2) Research implementation plan
Since we already have the budget for the research implementation, we can fully focus on the implementation plan. Along with the research team, we might need to add implementation details missing in the LEAP project output, if any. A critical part of this stage will be to identify if all members of the research team have the right level of training (especially data collectors) and fill the gaps in that regard, if any.

3) Research monitoring and evaluation
A critical element of this stage will be to ensure a solid data management system in terms of data generation, storage, and ongoing reporting and analysis. Agile monitoring and evaluation of the research implementation would allow for timely adjustment of relevant tasks/performance/processes. As a 100% online organization, our expertise in agile management and usage of agile software tools could be handy.

4) After-research plan
We would prepare the socialization of the research and its findings along with staff in the three universities mentioned above (at least). This would include our support/participation in the preparation of research papers for peer-reviewed journals and/or articles for relevant educational publications, along with communication with the communities of the schools and orphanages where we work. As we already work with public schools in the Dominican Republic, that would also mean providing information on the research and its results to the Ministry of Education there.

Finally, the most important part of the after-research stage is the program adjustment based on the research findings. We expect to do that swiftly but also with close monitoring and evaluation of the impact of those adjustments.

Our desired long-term outcomes of the LEAP project for the organization include:

- To strengthen PRG's research capabilities, including an Evidence-First culture, and appropriate strategies, frameworks, and team expertise. This would result in better and sustained program development and improvement.

- To increase the credibility of Progracademy and its programs vis-a-vis important stakeholders like school/beneficiary communities, client and potentially-client organizations, universities, policymakers, and social impact funders/investors.

- To develop a network of allies among LEAP Fellows (both researchers and social entrepreneurs), and fellow LEAP Project Hosts that can provide support throughout our always-improving evidence journey and in which we can provide such support.

In terms of our desired long-term outcomes for our TechEd solution, we would mention the following ones:

- The research agenda introduced by the LEAP project should enable the sustained success of our solution over time and under different replication circumstances. 

- The success of our program in terms of its education effectiveness and replication should lead policymakers and civil society to promote the development and growth of TechEd Corps-like groups, a crucial element to leverage resources from outside the educational system.

- We believe that our leveraged "Education as a Whole Society Enterprise" approach is indispensable if we want to quickly leapfrog and scale the development of 6C+TD Skills of underserved children and youth. As mentioned before, our solution has two key enablers of such an approach and both require more research to validate them and opt for replication by other organizations in other circumstances and countries: i) the Technology Education MaxiMOOCs, with autonomous student teams performing co-coaching, adaptive support from the MaxiMOOC itself, and systematic synchronous and asynchronous support by tutors-coaches, and ii) the Educational Crowdsourcing Platform, a tech-enabled social collaboration system that empowers our "TechEd Corps" and integrates it into the education system to quickly scale Technology Education and the development of 6C+TD Skills. That's why our Mission is "the provision of free online technology education" -without restricting who would provide such education, i.e., not only us. The more organizations work with Technology Education MaxiMOOCs and Educational Crowdsourcing Platforms, the more robust research behind them could be gotten, and hence the better such free Technology Education provision could become. We desire that the LEAP project becomes the beginning of a strong evidence journey of PRG and other organizations behind the two key enablers, which would take our Mission to the ultimate level, i.e., above and beyond Progracademy.