Tyto Online

82% of young people don’t have the skills they need to enter the workplace; they need to develop critical 21st century skills and scientific literacy.

Our solution, Tyto Online, empowers experiential learning through a video game where students actively DO science, directly exploring science phenomena and authentic problems. For example, students work with a botanist to breed more crops to address a food shortage, or pilot an art robot to investigate puzzling deaths within an ant colony in the Amazon Rainforest.

We focus on middle school STEM because this is the age where students, especially those who are marginalized, tend to lose interest in STEM.  We bring many strategies to engage marginalized students: diverse, meaningful representation; breaking stereotypes about STEM; and showing the social impact of STEM careers. At scale, Tyto Online would therefore be able to help diverse students build critical skills and stay engaged in STEM.

Over 80% of teachers in the United States have shifted to the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which represent a huge paradigm shift in how science is taught, focusing on not telling students content, but having them construct knowledge through experiences with science phenomena instead. And only 33% of 8th grade students in the United States currently meet science proficiency targets. More broadly: 82% of young people don’t have the skills they need to enter the workplace. Developing SKILLS and not just content knowledge is therefore critical.

We also know that interest in STEM tends to drop off in middle school, particularly for underrepresented populations such as girls and racial/ethnic minorities. From the early NGSS testing in California even pre-COVID, we saw huge equity gaps with marginalized populations which have only been further exacerbated during COVID19 lockdowns and remote schooling.

Tyto Online helps teachers and parents engage their students in actively doing science, by providing a video game that empowers students to directly explore science phenomena and solve authentic problems.

For example, students work with a botanist to solve a food shortage while learning about genetics. They learn about climate change by investigating coral bleaching and conducting experiments about why it’s happening. Learning is designed around authentic problems, where students can learn in an applied, meaningful manner. Through this approach, Tyto Online empowers students as they experience what it's like to do science, build their science and engineering practices, and become scientifically literate citizens. This design is around building critical *skills* and as part of a NSF grant, we saw a 12% increase in students’ science and engineering skills after using Tyto Online.

We’ve also incorporated a number of strategies to support marginalized students’ interest in STEM: representation, showing what it’s like to “do” science, busting stereotypes around STEM careers and participation, showing the social impact of STEM, using varied ways to demonstrate understanding, and more.

The product is built to run right in the web browser on low-end Chromebooks, ensuring broad accessibility.

Our target population is middle school students (where STEM interest drop-off often occurs), focusing on the public school system, where we’re more likely to serve diverse students. We also have a focus on including students underrepresented in STEM: both girls and underrepresented minorities. Currently, the population of schools we serve has 10% more BIPOC students than the national average.

The proximal outcomes in our theory of change, such as improved engagement, STEM mindsets, and improved science learning represent immediate improvements to students’ lives. The most meaningful impacts would be regarding the distal outcomes, such as students’ improved learning leading to better achievement, entering STEM careers, and engaging in lifelong learning.

We know we’re just one part of an ecosystem designed to support students, but the research base connecting the theory of change to these outcomes, and our own initial pilots, both provide strong initial evidence.

We prioritize engaging directly with the students we serve for product feedback. When we first started building our product, we actually had a group of 10 middle school students who joined us every week for two hours for 2-3 months, providing feedback on every aspect of what we were building. Now, we regularly still collect feedback and engage students directly in addition to feedback from teachers: we talk with them on our support live chat, we send out surveys to guide our next R&D, conduct usability sessions and new feature play-tests, etc.

Tyto Online is designed around engaging diverse students in STEM, and as a digital video game format has worked well in remote, hybrid, ad physical environments. We have 30% month-over-month active user growth this school year, and have seen over 40% of students play additional quests beyond what was assigned in school! The game is online, so students in class together also have social interaction available (with new collaborative gameplay features being tested).

Additionally, we include strong teacher training to help them use best practices in using a video game for strong student-centered pedagogy.

This last school year, we have served nearly 6,000 students across the United States. Example schools and districts we’ve worked with include CICS Northtown (Chicago), Princeton City School District (Cincinnati region), Barrington Middle School (Barrington, Rhode Island), EF Duvall Junior High School (Deer Lodge, Montana), Greater Albany Public Schools (Albany, OR), Glover Middle School (Spokane, WA), and a number of districts in Western New York: Amherst Central, Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda, Catholic Academy of West Buffalo, etc.

As a startup, we fell into this pilot category because we have raised less than $2m in institutional funding ($1.4m to date), and have ~$100k in annual revenue. So we have early evidence of product-market fit and efficacy, but still need to begin scaling the organization and our impact.

For decades, scholars and futurists have dreamed of game-based learning’s potential, but the reality is that most game-based learning platforms are simple, pop-up multiple choice experiences where students can review in a more engaging way, but not actually build conceptual understanding and skills. We’ve built a scalable platform that actually meets these ideals, with a content authoring system so everything isn’t hand-coded and we can build out more content affordably. We’re even working on a content authoring system for live, cooperative simulations so those can be spun out quickly without months of coding, too.

Specifically, we incorporate key strategies into a game-based learning platform that haven’t been utilized together before. These include:
- Ability to do cooperative, problem-based learning;
- Using phenomena and simulations where students directly “do” science, building science and engineering skills;
- Showing the social impact of STEM through using relevant, meaningful problems and phenomena.

Beyond just game-based learning goals, though, we pull these strategies from regular educational educational research, science learning research, and game-based learning research on what works. We also use many strategies designed to support underrepresented learners: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.

Long-term, our goal is to open up our content authoring toolset to third parties so that we are not the only ones building relevant content, allowing us to scale up content, access, and impact even more quickly.

In the last year, 6,000 students have used Tyto Online. We’ve seen over 40% of them choose to do more than assigned in class.

We plan to serve 25,000 students in the next year as we begin to scale sales/marketing efforts with Tyto Online, representing being in nearly 80 organizations.

Right now, we have bottom-up projections for three years modeled, based on sales growth with schools, which has us reaching 185,000 students (via paid channels) by the end of 2023.

Within five years, we’ll have opened up Tyto Online with a free tier with more accessible, free content for students, meaning that we can have significant additional bottom-up adoption, with the potential of having reached millions of students. This is especially achievable as we plan to work with content partners who also have significant reach and can drive attention and earned media through their networks.

Outcome

Measurement

Proximal Outcomes: Impact can be measured in under 1 year

Improved Three-Dimensional Learning

• Science assessments with the Next Generation Science Standards; there are a number of published options available. Can be pre/post, comparison, etc.

Improved Engagement & STEM Mindsets

• Currently using PEAR’s Common Instrument Suite, which looks at Enjoyment of STEM, STEM Career Interest, STEM Career Knowledge, STEM Activities, STEM identity, Relationships with Peers/Adults, Critical Thinking, and Perseverance.

Distal Outcomes: Impact evidence can be measured within 3 years, some of which would be a proxy for the long-term impacts

Improved Science Achievement & Literacy

• Improvement of schools/grades/classes using our product on the 8th Grade Science Assessment.

  • The new assessments based on the Next Generation Science Standards will be launched in the next couple years; CA is the only state that released them so far and less than ⅓ of students passed, with huge equity gaps.

Increased STEM Career Participation

• Measuring the number of students who choose advanced STEM classes in 8th grade and high school, as this is a primary predictor of STEM college major and career choice.

• Measuring STEM career interest.

Equitable Learning Opportunities for BIPOC

• Measure the demographics of students we serve vs. national demographics to ensure we’re serving an equitable group of students.

• Across all outcomes, measuring against demographics to ensure outcomes are equitable.

We have 14 full time employees, 1 full time contractor, and 1 part time contractor.

Our Founder & CEO, Lindsey Tropf, was working on a PhD in School Psychology (Education) when she founded the company. She therefore brings a strong pedagogical understanding, has been able to acquire non-dilutive funding and show efficacy, and has experience in schools and districts to understand their needs.

The rest of our leadership team includes Co-founders Caroline Lamarque (Creative Director) and Ryan Tropf (Operations/HR/IT), and Leads Jeremy Baker (Programming) and Florencia Bonarto (Art). They have a diverse set of experiences, from independent creative work to working within corporate hiring/training to technology startups, and one member’s background is even helping her immigrant parents run a restaurant growing up and starting with us as an intern until she’s worked her way to our team lead.

Our team is 60% women and/or minority, 7% LGBTQ, 26% immigrants or first generation, and comes from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. This has already benefited us well: for example, with LGBTQ team members suggesting we use body styles instead of forced gender choices in one of our first-ever design meetings. We appreciate these diverse perspectives, but also prioritize going to our students for feedback rather than only depending on our representative experiences.

We also have been funded and are advised by successful ed-tech entrepreneurs like Jean Hammond (General Partner at LearnLaunch, focused on ed-tech) and John Graff (Second Story Capital; had his own company acquired by Blackboard).

Our leadership team is already diverse: of five people, three are women, two are POC, and one is LGBTQ.  We all highly value diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is important and something we’ll maintain. Some examples of how these values have manifested into practices in our organization include:

• Allowing people flexibility of behavior based on their needs, such as people with ADHD being able to pace during group meetings;
• Removing gendered signs from bathrooms (which was then an indicator to a Muslim intern that he could ask for a safe place to pray... inclusion of even one group lets others know they’ll be supported!);
• Right now, all make the same salary. Since we’re under market as a startup, we all “suffer” together — from the newest team member to the CEO;
• Currently have 3 sponsored immigrants on staff; even at this early stage, we don’t mind sponsoring and figuring out the visa process as we want anyone to be able to join our staff;
• Time off for team members to protest together about a social issue important to them;
• A roundtable was held with our Asian team members after the murders in Atlanta, to support each other;
• Performance reviews focus on growth goals for team members, particularly triangulating based on what they want their career trajectory to be and how we can help them get that; including a section on what their managers need to do to help them be successful (such as removing barriers, providing resources/opportunities, etc.).

We’re on the cusp of scaling after having served 6,000 students last year and building our sales/marketing team to begin a converted growth effort. This, for us, is perfect timing to join a community to share practices and learn together on social impact and scaling, from measurement of impact without too much burden + that is representative of culturally responsive needs, to best practices on product development and teacher dashboard, etc. We’ve benefited from our past communities, and know the value of having a cohort with common interests.

One specific area we are most excited about is the opportunity to build partnerships, and not necessarily just ones with any financial exchange. We plan in the next 12 months to start our first ever content partnerships, such as working with nonprofits who want to disseminate STEM-based knowledge to middle school students. Ideal partners would have a significant reach, so that the cost for us to build content with their interests would be an investment in marketing/PR. Having the Solver network to help us make the right connections to use those partnerships for massive impact for both organizations would be invaluable.

• Financial: pitching for investment is always challenging at the early stages when it’s about finding the right fit investors who build conviction in your team and approach, so support and introductions area always valued. We are also collecting broader impact data this year, so have the potential for further Foundation connections for funding and impact scaling in the future. Additionally, we have rather complex accounting needs as we balance multiple simultaneous grants which need financial reporting, so improving those practices to reduce ongoing burden of the manual documentation would be helpful!
• Public Relations: especially as we begin bringing on content partners and open our platform up as freemium in the next 12 months, we want to focus more on earned media and broader reach to drive bottom-up sign-ups and interest/adoptions.
• Product / Service Distribution: revenue solves all problems!  We have no mission without a margin, and expanding from initial founder sales into a real marketing/sales process with proper lead nurturing generating regular marketing qualified leads for sales reps is one of our biggest upcoming challenges as we begin to scale.
• Technology: we still have challenges around deeper optimization for low-end devices, scalability handling increased traffic, and unit metrics on server costs as we grow. There are additional opportunities for richer data analysis like AI/Ml strategies for deeper knowledge generation for teachers about their students’ performance (and for the students themselves).

MIT has several initiatives that we could collaborate with on the educational gaming side, such as the MIT Media Lab, Playful Journal Lab, and pK-12 Action Group. As we expand our game-based product, the teacher tools and implementation recommendations, and measurement of impact, and make new connections in the marketplace, these groups could likely contribute in all areas with consulting, co-creation/grant applications, and introductions.

Expanding on the research for improved attitudes and interest in science, research also explicitly supports the role of game-based learning in increasing career interest, with multiple studies showing increased in STEM career interest after game-based learning interventions.

Tyto Online utilizes most of the strategies ASA is interested in:

• We’re a digital video game that serves middle school students, an ideal target for early career exploration;
• We align with the Next Generation Science Standards, meaning that teachers are using our solution as part of their core curriculum, rather than needing to make separate time for it;
• We’re utilize project-based learning as storylines are anchored in core problems or phenomena that students spend a series of experiences investing and working to solutions for;
• We include with Tyto Online access to free online professional development for teachers which not only teaches them how to use Tyto Online, but incorporates best practice strategies for student-centered game-based learning, science instruction, and equity.

Right now, our career exploration is mainly implicit: students already “do” the careers with botanists, ecologists, and even social servants as they explore various STEM problems and help the community in the game.

With the ASA prize, we would be interested in conducting customer discovery with students and teachers to add more explicit career exploration. This could take the form of career-focused quests, dashboards showing the competencies students are engaging in already + more career information, or other solutions to extend this impact from implicit career attitudinal changes to explicit exploration. 

Our entire focus of impact is in increasing STEM engagement and career interest in equitable ways for diverse students: aligned 100% with GM’s mission in funding solutions in the Solver community. This is covered in detail in our application, but for a summary:

• Our video game, Tyto Online, empowers students to engage in STEM problem solving, using a video game to set up the context and storylines which represent authentic problems, like fixing a microplastics problem, investigating climate change, or addressing a food shortage through growing more crop yield.
• These experiences focus on STEM best practices for deep learning, and also use strategies to support marginalized learners: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.

We would use the GM Prize to build more content, making the product usable in more classrooms, and help expand our reach to additional students in the coming school years.

Our focus of impact is in increasing STEM engagement and career interest in equitable ways for diverse students, including girls: aligned with the Innovation for Women Prize’s mission. This is covered in detail in our application, but for a summary:

• Our video game, Tyto Online, empowers students to engage in STEM problem solving, using a video game to set up the context and storylines which represent authentic problems, like fixing a microplastics problem, investigating climate change, or addressing a food shortage through growing more crop yield.
• These experiences focus on STEM best practices for deep learning, and also use strategies to shown to engage girls in STEM: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.

We’ve seen high engagement from girls in our game, with some of our top-engaged players being girls. We would use the Innovation for Women Prize to build more content, making the product usable in more classrooms, and help expand our reach to additional students in the coming school years.

Our impact focus is on increasing scientific literacy and STEM learning in equitable ways for diverse students: aligned with the AI for Humanity Prize mission.

• Our video game, Tyto Online, empowers students to engage in STEM problem solving, using a video game to set up the context and storylines which represent authentic problems, like fixing a microplastics problem, investigating climate change, or addressing a food shortage through growing more crop yield.
• These experiences focus on STEM best practices for deep learning, and also use strategies to support marginalized learners: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.
• These experiences are designed to boost STEM skills, but also to inspire students about the social impact that STEM has, so that the video game can serve as an inspiration for the social impact they could have in the world, and a safe place to experiment with those outcomes.

Right now, our AI usage is minimal, used in our simulations. However, what we would like to do is use AI/ML for richer data analysis, like generating deeper information for teachers about their students’ performance (and for the students themselves). For example, we could look for problem-solving loops in our simulations, make personalized learning recommendations, etc. With the AI for Humanity Prize, we would want to take some of these first steps and expand our teacher dashboard for more simulation and student-facing reporting.

Our impact focus is on increasing scientific literacy and STEM learning in equitable ways for diverse students: aligned with the AI for Humanity Prize mission.

• Our video game, Tyto Online, empowers students to engage in STEM problem solving, using a video game to set up the context and storylines which represent authentic problems, like fixing a microplastics problem, investigating climate change, or addressing a food shortage through growing more crop yield.
• These experiences focus on STEM best practices for deep learning, and also use strategies to support marginalized learners: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.
• These experiences are designed to boost STEM skills, but also to inspire students about the social impact that STEM has, so that the video game can serve as an inspiration for the social impact they could have in the world, and a safe place to experiment with those outcomes.

Right now, our AI usage is minimal, used in our simulations. However, what we would like to do is use AI/ML for richer data analysis, like generating deeper information for teachers about their students’ performance (and for the students themselves). For example, we could look for problem-solving loops in our simulations, make personalized learning recommendations, etc. With the AI for Humanity Prize, we would want to take some of these first steps and expand our teacher dashboard for more simulation and student-facing reporting.

Our impact focus is on increasing scientific literacy and STEM learning in equitable ways for diverse students: aligned with GSR’s mission in funding solutions in the Solver community. This is covered in detail in our application, but for a summary:

• Our video game, Tyto Online, empowers students to engage in STEM problem solving, using a video game to set up the context and storylines which represent authentic problems, like fixing a microplastics problem, investigating climate change, or addressing a food shortage through growing more crop yield.
• These experiences focus on STEM best practices for deep learning, and also use strategies to support marginalized learners: busting stereotypes; showing that STEM careers are creative, collaborative, and make a social impact; focusing on “doing” science vs. needing to come in with a science identity, and more.
• These experiences are designed to boost STEM skills, but also to inspire students about the social impact that STEM has, so that the video game can serve as an inspiration for the social impact they could have in the world, and a safe place to experiment with those outcomes.

We would use the GSR Prize to build more social-impact focused STEM content, making the product usable in more classrooms, and help expand our reach to additional students in the coming school years.