Levebee

Who (first and last name) is the Team Lead for your application and LEAP Project?

Michal Hudecek

Describe the role the Team Lead plays in your organization. [100-200 words recommended]

Michal Hudecek, CEO of Levebee, is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of  experience in online business. His background combines deep technical knowledge with business skills that allow him to set strategy and oversee execution of both product development and marketing. 

He has managed to build a highly effective international team of people passionate about educational equity. Michal helps his team not only with high level decisions but can also, thanks to his background, provide support for programmers and marketers in improvement of more day-to-day tasks. As a CEO, he also believes in sharing lessons learned with the EdTech community. Recently, he has been invited to WebExpo 2023 to give a speech called “What we learned about product design from 300.000 kids and their teachers” (https://slideslive.com/39000647).

Explain how your Team Lead and supporting team members are well-positioned to effectively support the LEAP Project, given other priorities within your organization. [200-500 words - recommended]

Our team is ready to devote necessary time as we believe that larger scale research is one of our top priorities at this stage. We were actually looking hard for opportunities to do that before we learned about LEAP Challenge. We are convinced that providing more and higher quality evidence would help us with adoption of our educational tool as well as adjusting the product based on better data. We also have experience with participating in similar projects. We were among the Top 8 startups out of 280 in IMPACT EdTech Accelerator (3rd Open Call). We received one of the highest scores for outstanding participation in this programme. We always meet the deadlines and deliver what we promise.

One-line solution summary: In 20 words or less, summarize your organization's product or program that is the focus of your LEAP Project.

Levebee app helps ALL children understand math, including students with special education needs, different first languages or from disadvantaged environments.

Define the problem that your solution seeks to solve. [200-500 words recommended]

In developed countries, around 20 % of children struggle with numeracy for reasons mostly unrelated to math (ADHD, dyslexia, autism, remote learning, different mother tongue, etc.). Unfortunately, this closes a lot of doors for them in their future education and career. It might not always be obvious which math concepts kids do not understand properly. Eg. if they struggle with fractions, assigning them more exercises about fractions may not help. It is possible that they in fact do not fully understand division or even multiplication. Levebee helps to find these gaps and fill them. Students can work in Levebee independently at school or at home which frees the hands of teachers and allows ALL students to master the basic math curriculum. Levebee also provides teachers with a detailed real-time report of true understanding of math concepts for individual students as well as a whole class, which serves as a formative assessment and responsive teaching tool.

Describe your solution and how it works in simple terms. [200-500 words recommended]

Levebee helps ALL pre-school and primary school children to fill the gaps in math, including children with special education needs and different mother tongues. This is achieved by implementing validated pedagogical research. The activities in Levebee are designed to optimize cognitive load, provide scaffolds, give instant feedback  and  adjust adaptively to each child. Math concepts taught in the app are divided into hundreds of exercises, each representing the smallest possible learning bit. This helps to identify exactly where the students truly got lost and also helps them to learn quickly because they are always focusing on one simple activity at a time. 

The interface of the app can be adjusted to kids with dyslexia, autism, ADHD, visual impairment and many other special needs. All instructions in the app can be shown and played in two languages at the same time to support kids with different mother tongues (eg. refugees) and their teachers. Feel free to visit www.levebee.com/research to learn more about the research behind the app. The content of the app currently covers Pre-K to K-4 math curriculum. We are working hard on adding more content as our budget allows.

Levebee is trusted by 500+ schools on an annual subscription and 300,000+ students.

Select the key characteristics of your target population. Select all that apply.

• Pre-primary age children (ages 2-5)
• Primary school children (ages 5-12)
• Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
• Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
• Persons with Disabilities

In which country or countries does your solution currently operate?

USA, UK, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Israel, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Croatia.

Upload your solution's Theory of Change or Logic Model.

Where would you place your solution on Nesta's Standards of Evidence?

To date, what research/studies has your organization conducted that have helped demonstrate the effectiveness of your solution? [200-500 words recommended]

We conducted very thorough foundational research to ensure that the app is built on scientifically proven principles. The main outputs are available at www.levebee.com/research. 

In cooperation with Charles University in Prague, we conducted qualitative research to gather insights about how and why teachers use Levebee.

We also ran international pilots via the IMPACT EdTech programme in Poland, Slovakia and Romania. 

What has the research/studies you have conducted revealed about your solution and how did it inform your work moving forward? [200-500 words recommended]

All 3 goals set for the pilots were met: 

✅ Validate the MVP in real classrooms, learn about practical & pedagogical use cases of our app

✅ Validate that the app matches curriculum in all 3 countries

✅Identify the main benefits of the app to communicate to the teachers

The conclusions from the research helped us to identify main features to focus on. All of them are implemented now:

✅ More exercises covering higher grades (we now cover everything from Pre-K to K-4)

✅ Diagnostics & adaptive learning - the exercises in the app are now methodologically connected and are assigned to students based on evaluation of their real skills. This unlocks more use cases, including providing the app just as an assessment tool for evaluating new math teaching initiatives in a school.

✅ Instructions in two languages at the same time (important for Ukrainian or other refugees)

✅ More language versions - Hebrew, Swedish, German, Romanian, Finnish, Arabic, Croatian, Spanish (this allows pilots in new countries or pilots in existing countries with new language minorities).

The video reports from the pilots are available at www.levebee.com.

Describe your organization's need to strengthen the evidence base of your solution. [200-500 words recommended]

Levebee is built on a rigorous and meticulous foundation of scientific research. We have conducted an extensive literature review to ensure our app is not only up-to-date but also incorporates the most reliable and respected findings in the field.

The qualitative research organized with Charles University in Prague met our expectations when it came to learning from active users of our app. However, we were unable to get in touch with inactive teachers who discovered our app by themselves and then abandoned it. There might be some barriers to using the app we are not aware of which might be a topic for another research project.

The international pilots of our app have been encouraging. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers. They reported students’ improvement not only in math skills but also in self-confidence, collaboration and positive attitude towards school.

Despite this initial success, we understand that further validation is necessary. We are interested in conducting larger scale studies to robustly assess our application's efficacy. Such studies will provide additional insight into how our apps perform in diverse educational settings and will help us better understand their impact on student achievement.

However, we acknowledge that we are inexperienced in conducting summative research. We would like to learn more about this topic and prepare an actionable research plan. 

What are 2-3 research questions that you would like your LEAP Project to help you answer? [100 words recommended]

Does the app influence the effectiveness of teachers?

Does the app exhibit impacts on children's learning outcomes?

What are the barriers to implementing the app in classrooms?

What type of research/studies do you think will help answer your stated questions? Select all that apply.

• Formative research (e.g. usability studies; feasibility studies; case studies; user interviews; implementation studies; pre-post or multi-measure research; correlational studies)
• Summative research (e.g. correlational studies; quasi-experimental studies; randomized control studies)

Please elaborate on your selection above by describing your desired outputs of the 12-week LEAP Project sprint. [200 - 500 words recommended]

Deliverable #1: Actionable plan for organizing and funding a controlled group study about the app’s impact on effectiveness of teachers

During the LEAP project, we would like to work together with fellows on an actionable plan that would address among others the scope of the research, study design, participant recruitment, data collection methods, data analysis, timeline, risk management, ethical considerations, budget and possible funding strategy. We hope this plan will help us to contact organizations that might be interested in co-funding the summative research.

Deliverable #2: Actionable plan for organizing and funding a controlled group study about the app's impact on students learning outcomes 

We expect a lot of overlaps with Deliverable #1 but we would like to specifically focus on differences derived from different target group (student’s instead of teachers). For example, we might have more quantitative data available on the app usage from students than from teachers which might open more opportunities in data collection and data analysis.

Deliverable #3: Research plan for identifying possible barriers to implementing Levebee in classrooms

As our own initiatives to gather information from inactive users failed, we would like to brainstorm other options for identifying possible barriers to implementing Levebee in classrooms. The output should be a document stating various strategies and recommendations that can be implemented inside or outside of the product.

How will your organization put these outputs into action? [200-500 words recommended]

A) Leveraging Deliverable #1 and Deliverable #2 to attract co-funding partners for the research

We plan to use Deliverable #1 and Deliverable #2 for contacting potential partners for co-funding the research project. For instance, when contacting universities, these deliverables can be used to demonstrate the project's academic relevance and potential for generating novel insights or technologies. With NGOs, they can be used to showcase how the project aligns with their missions and objectives, and how they can contribute to educational equity. Applying together for grants with these potential partners would enable a more robust proposal. 

B) Incorporating findings from Deliverable #3 into product development and marketing

We plan to implement suggestions from Deliverable #3 into our product as well as marketing activities. Even if users initially sign up for our app, barriers can lead to high churn rates if they're not addressed. For example, if the app has a steep learning curve, users might abandon it before they start to see its benefits. The barriers can be also external - eg. lack of hardware, internet connection or time for trying out new learning tools. By understanding these barriers, we can take steps to mitigate them and thus improve user retention. Knowing the barriers can also help us address potential concerns proactively in our marketing materials. 

Describe your desired short-term and long-term outcomes of the 12-week LEAP Project sprint for both your organization and solution. [200-500 words recommended]

A) Short-term Outcomes:

1. Improved Research Strategy

We expect to get a better understanding of optimal research strategy for our app and get better prepared for its execution.

2. Identification of Barriers of Adoption

We hope that by implementing suggestions from Deliverable #3 we will finally be able to properly identify barriers to adoption. This knowledge would provide us with insights into the reasons for user inactivity and help to improve user engagement.

3. Potential Funding Partners

With the research plans from Deliverable #1 and Deliverable #2, we can approach potential co-funding partners, demonstrating the academic relevance and potential of the project. These partners could be universities, NGOs, or other stakeholders interested in educational research and development.

B) Long-term Outcomes:

1. Building In-House Research Competencies

Over the long term, we desire to build research competencies in our core team. This would not only help us improve the effectiveness of the app but also potentially generate novel insights for the field of education.

2. Increased User Conversion & Retention

By understanding and addressing the barriers identified thanks to strategies suggested in Deliverable #3, Levebee can increase user retention and improve the overall user experience with the app. The insights could be used to make necessary product modifications or to create more targeted and effective marketing strategies.

3. Bigger Positive Impact on Education

Ultimately, we seek to validate and enhance the positive impact of the Levebee app on teachers and students. The improvements to the product, marketing, and user experience based on this project's findings should lead to a greater adoption rate, more effective teaching, and better learning outcomes for all students struggling with math.