Project Lightbulb

A Collaborative Challenge-based Learning Environment According to Indiana Universitys Indiana University's High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE) close to 70% of High School students perceive learning as a boring experience. Our team sought to change that. We wanted to design a highly enjoyable learning environment, where the responsibility of learning would move from the teachers shoulders to the students themselves. Higher order learning is possible only if students are deeply engaged. We believe that our Learning Environment Lightbulb can help achieve that.

Target Audience:
Early on, we narrowed the scope of this project to Elementary School children enrolled in public and private schools in urban settings. There were several reasons why we selected this target audience: 1. Elementary School students form impressions of learning (whether it is enjoyable or not), which they carry to higher stages of education. 2. We limited ourselves to public and private institutions (as opposed to home-schooled, special schools or institutions for the gifted) because the vast majority of students attend these schools 3. We chose to focus on urban areas because we had limited time to access our target audience. We hope to expand to rural settings once we have tested our model. Our team did not limit our project in terms of geographical regions.

Learning Conditions:
Internet access is typically available in urban settings. Elementary School students in metropolitan areas typically have been exposed to communication technology. Their parents and community tend to show interest in their educational well-being. Schools in these areas may not be particularly affluent, but they have access to funding sources (e.g. public funding or community support) to support educational technology investments.

Rationale:
Absorption, retention and application of material taught in schools is very low. Students perceptions of school in particular and learning in general are negative. Students who do attend school tend to see it more as a social hangout than a center of learning. As such, their interactions with

their teachers are not fruitful and schools are not able to fully achieve their purpose of existence. We strongly feel that it does not have to be like this. Learning can be a highly enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, the causes of this problem lay not with the schools or their staff but the learning environment they have inherited over time. It is then the learning environment that must be changed. Our team looked for ways to make this learning environment more fun and engaging. We interviewed Elementary School students in 5 countries to find out when they enjoy learning and what they enjoy about it. Their responses are summarized in the affinity diagram below:

These responses can be summarized as: Autonomy: They want to be able to do some things on their won Visual Content: They want to be able to see what they are learning Creative Energy: They want to make things.

Evaluation: They want to be able to evaluate themselves and their colleagues. Accessibility: They want access to resources and information Motivation: They want to be motivated to learn. Teacher Interaction: They want more interaction and discussions with the teacher Collaborative Learning: They want to learn new things while interacting with their fellow students. There has been a significant amount of research in this area. We explored several options and built a learning model centered on challenges. Teachers would give learners a driving question and give them a few weeks to answer it. Answering this question requires gaining new knowledge and learning many new skills. They would work in teams to learn in the quest for answering the driving question. Our model mimics problem-based or project-based learning in many aspects. Although project-based learning methodology has proven to be effective, it has failed to take off among students and educators. The students find it difficult to manage their projects. The educators find it difficult to come up with the right ideas. Students who need support from their teachers, experts and community members find it difficult to communicate with them. Moreover the paperwork involved in tracking progress and reporting it is tedious for educators. Our teams solution to these problems is Lightbulb, a collaborative challenge-based learning environment accessible via the web as well as mobile devices.

System Function and Features:

Lightbulb consists of 4 integrated portals: 1. Teachers Portal (Free for all teachers) 2. Students Portal (Part of the subscription package) 3. School Management Portal (Part of the subscription package) 4. Parents Portal (Part of the subscription package) 1. Teachers Portal (Free)

The Teachers Portal is essentially an online database of project ideas shared in a specific format to ensure their quality and practicality.

Teachers and community members come up with driving questions. The questions have to be so interesting and engaging that students want to solve them. For instance, "How do you put out a fire on a space station?" for 9-year olds. The teachers also come up with the criteria for rating the solution. In case they have any confusion, there are examples, templates and tutorial videos on the development of these 'driving questions' and their criteria. They fill up an online repository and rate questions. Any teacher who wishes to teach her students a new topic can pick a suitable "driving question" from the online repository. She can divide the students up into teams and give them a time limit to answer the question (the deadline may be within 1 day or 3 weeks). Her instructions will be communicated to the students on their hand-held devices.

2. Students Portal (Part of the subscription package)

The Students Portal is essentially a project management application simplified for Elementary School students to help them manage their project.

The driving question has now turned into a project for the students. In order to complete the project, the students have to gain new knowledge, learn new skills and piece together materials (physical or virtual). The teacher is available to answer any questions or help them learn new skills. In general the teacher guides the students to books and websites to help them learn what they need to learn. When figuring out the next step, students interact with the online application on their mobile devices. The application gives them multiple options to choose from. They pick one and proceed. The outcome of the project may be a presentation, a physical structure (model made from available materials, a video of a play or other exciting ways for the students to express their creativity. The student teams will upload the videos, photos, hand-drawn images, videos and voice recording are uploaded to an online database, where they are visible to other teams. Finally, when the project is over, the teacher as well as other teams rate the students work. This rating earns them points (game elements). After a certain number of points or certain types of projects, students get badges and rise through levels.

3. School Management Portal (Part of the subscription package)

The School Management Portal is essentially a graphical reporting tool.

The Vice Principal, other designated staff members and members of the school district board have access to summary reports of student performance. They can use the system to view project work as well as learning trends.

4. Parents and Community Members Portal (Part of the subscription package)

The Parents and Community Members Portal is essentially a social media communication tool

Parents and community members can have access to view the project work showcased by student teams. Parents also have access to the performance records of their children.

Technology Specifications: The application is web-based and accessible via desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile devices. A custom-designed app called Igloo is available for installation on both iphone and Android hand-held devices. The application is designed to be accessible via the cellular network. However, uploading of videos, audio and photographs will require broadband access. Standard Wi-Fi access available in schools in metropolitan areas will suffice. Accessibility: In order to make the application available to visually impaired students, we will ensure all the instructions from the device are narrated. We will also ask all project teams to record a vocal narration of their project so visually impaired students can assess them. We will also test for the use of a translator module to allow interaction between English speaking and non-English-speaking students. Depending on its efficacy, we will consider adding the translator as a permanent feature.

Business Model:
Lightbulb is to be launched as a freemium service, i.e. the teachers portal is free. Schools interested in purchasing access to the Student, Parent and Management portal will pay a standard subscription fee of $6 per student

per month or $60 per student per year. The annual costs amount to $358,000 while the expected annual revenue in the first year (with an estimate of 10000 students) is $720,000. The payback period is 2 years while the rate of return on the investment would be about 60%. The Business Model Canvas for Lightbulb is provided below.

Scalability: The application is meant to be scalable. The Teachers Portal will be available to teachers from around the world, without charge. This portal will build a database of challenges. These challenges will vary not only by age group and subject matter but also by the unique context in which students learn. Similarly, the Students Portal can be accessed anywhere via the internet. The application and databases reside on the cloud, allowing the system flexibility as the number of users grows. Affordability: Although the annual subscription is a small amount for developed

economies, it can be a major challenge for schools in a developing country. Moreover, many schools do not have funds for hand-held devices, Internet access and our subscription fees. Considering the larger volume of students from developing economies, we have set their subscription fee to $2 per student per month. When we are ready to market our services to developing economies, we will develop partnerships with the following types of organizations to make this possible: Funding for mobile devices (provided at cost i.e. USD 80) from education-focused foundations (e.g. the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) One time injection Funding for internet access from NGO's One time injection Funding for our subscription from Governments Purchased annually We will encourage schools in such communities to launch fundraising challenges for their students to pay for the Lightbulb subscription fee. This will allow the students to learn while they sustain their learning. Pedagogy (Background Research) Our research demonstrates that although problem-based and inquirybased learning methodologies have been proven to be effective (HmeloSilver, 2004; Kain, 2003; Stepien, Gallagher, & Workman, 1993, Dochy, Segers, Van de Bossche, & Gijbels, 2003).

Learning is more effective when students are trying to answer a driving question and have some autonomy in developing an answer. (Mergendoller, J. R., Maxwell, N. L., & Bellisimo, Y. The effectiveness of problem-based instruction: A comparative study of instructional methods and student characteristics. 2006) Problem-based learning is more effective than traditional instruction for long-term retention, skill development, and satisfaction of students and teachers. (Strobel, J., & van Barneveld, A. (2009). When is PBL more effective? A meta-synthesis of meta-analyses comparing PBL to conventional classrooms.) However, problem-based learning has suffered a very poor uptake among teachers (Hmelo-Silver, 2004; ). The most commonly quoted reasons are: Students feel unsure of where this activity will lead Students unable to manage the time in each aspect of their inquiry and

end up finishing late Teachers unable to find suitable 'driving questions' or unsure whether the question they developed is suitable enough Lack of experience with open-ended teaching strategies (Land, 2000) Novice PBL instructors encounter difficulties in all aspects of PBL instruction:
planning, implementing, and assessing. (Ertmer, Simons, 2005)

Only 5-10 % of teachers try new teaching strategies unless given an adequate support system (Joyce and Weil, 1996). Introducing peer collaboration will help teacher uptake of problem-based learning. (Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx and Soloway, A collaborative model for helping middle grade science teachers learn project-based instruction, The Elementary School Journal, Volume 9, No. 5, 1994) Our online application is a support system for teachers (to make sure Problem-based learning happens) as well as a decision-support system for students. It will give them the autonomy to create as well as the guidance to proceed.