LEVER - Online Learning Community for Teachers and Educators

Online Learning Community for K-12 Teachers and Educators

Teachers play the leading role in imparting knowledge to generations of students. High-quality teachers play in shaping the world of current and future society. Nevertheless, not all schools have equal access to the most effective teachers, especially high-need schools that serve large propositions of economically disadvantaged and minority students which are more likely to have difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, particularly in high-demand subjects like math and special education.

Due to teacher shortage, schools are likely to fill those openings with out-of-field, inexperienced, and less well-prepared teachers. Besides, COVID-19 has negatively impacted students’ learning experience, especially those with socio-economical disadvantages. Ineffective teaching gaps combined with disadvantages in access to remote learning have extended the student achievement gap in SEA countries. 

Improving teaching talents, therefore, is crucial to enhance equality in education. LEVER Online Learning Community provides teachers & educators with sufficient tools and community, involving individual skill learning and collaborative environment where they can reflect on colleagues' practice, share expertise in a distributed knowledge framework, discuss new instructional approaches, and contribute to the mutual teaching storage.

LEVER is equipped with (1) School/ Classroom Management Processes to improve the overall environment that directly impacts Students & Teachers' experience; (2) Learning Design Tools with up-to-date templates and design guidance. Teachers can download colleagues' curriculum or upload their own with/ without Fee. (3) Pedagogy Professional Training where teachers can improve their core professional knowledge. 

With the Learning Community approach, LEVER moves beyond mere one-way skill training to an interactive, flexible, and continuous engagement among teachers & educators.

LEVER seeks to solve the quality gap of education between and within SEA countries. 

Inequality in learning quality is detrimental to a country's development, which stems from the following reasons:

• Government policies, outdated educational systems, and unequal distribution of education-related factors. 

  • Harsh disciplinary policy, minimally articulated core curriculum, and outdated management system. There has been a strong promotion of technology equipment in schools partially bringing improvements in education; however, unchanged curriculum and teaching pedagogy stagnant total education landscape. 

  • School funding, school equipment, and high-qualified teachers are divided unequally causing the gap of effective teaching and learning among states.

• Global pandemic requiring immediate technology implementation for remote learning has been significantly impacting education access, quality, and equity. Particularly, socio-economically disadvantaged students have received limited to no education.

Systemic reasons & pandemic situations have widened the quality gap of education. This emphasizes the role of teacher quality improvement in order to close this quality gap and serve education recovery in the coming period. 

LEVER provides a comprehensive environment for teachers & educators to enhance their professional skills and overall mental wellness. Confidence in pedagogy skills and the sense of belonging & support from colleagues contribute to teachers' wellness which can positively improve the quality of teaching. 

There are about 1 million teachers in Vietnam and 4,8 millions in 4 other countries (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia), 80 - 90% of which are digitally connected. LEVER anticipates making an impact on 50% of these teachers, which equals about 2 million teachers in 5 countries. 

LEVER is designed to assist underserved teachers in the region caused by dissimilarities in the region (rural vs. urban), education models (public vs. private), gender (male vs. female), and other socio-economic conditions that result in disparities in access to quality skill improvement opportunities.

As teachers are essential players in promoting quality education, highly motivated, dedicated, professionally competent teachers are crucial in reforming the overall education landscape. However, in most countries, teaching is not among high-prioritized professions. Pedagogy education and subsequent in-service training for teachers is overlooked with irrelevant & outdated training curriculum, lack of learning facilities, and a healthy, supportive learning environment. 

For that reason, LEVER is modeled for holistic learning & collaborating opportunities to promote quality education, empowered by technology. 

• LEVER is designed to elevate education effectiveness with the professional advancement of teachers

• We are determined to improve teachers' mental wellbeing by providing personal development opportunities and inclusivity within the teachers' and educators' communities. 

• With LEVER's curriculum design tool embedded on the platform, we promote knowledge co-creation among teachers to build a Curriculum Library ready to use and in the long run to bring a source of income for teachers with high-quality curriculums. 

LEVER seeks to be the launcher for teachers & educators success. 

LEVER can effectively improve learning outcomes for underserved learners by improving teaching quality for underserved teachers with an affordable and accessible technology solution. 

As teachers are the most important school-related factor influencing students' achievement, improving teaching effectiveness is a top priority to improve learning outcomes. Underserved teachers lacking access to qualified learning opportunities is the challenge that LEVER wishes to solve. 

With affordability as the key objective, LEVER implements a low-cost technology solution to provide (1) online courses and materials for teachers & educators professional skill improvement; (2) pre-embedded curriculum design tools that enable teachers to create and share their curriculum as a part of knowledge co-creation & further income flow from colleagues; (3) online community for teachers and education practitioners to update and discuss knowledge. The above functions are common and easily implemented without large financial investment. 

LEVER is also highly accessible by using a hybrid model - an online platform combined with live training and coaching. With 80 - 90% of teachers in 5 target countries having access to the Internet, they can access LEVER simply from their mobile phones.

Nguyen Thuy Uyen Phuong - Founder and CEO of FAROS Education & Consulting (www.faros.edu.vn)

Existing teachers' learning courses are limited to upgrading teachers’ professional skills, leaving many gaps that LEVER aims to fill in.

LEVER is the first solution in the region that has a Holistic Approach to improve all aspects that directly affect learning outcomes: (1) School/ Classroom Management Process, (2) Learning Modules/ Curriculum and (3) Professional Development Courses.  Educators that seek to improve current systems & processes have to find sources of knowledge themselves, without a structured curriculum to follow, hindering the improvement of school management. 

Secondly, LEVER enables collaboration among Teachers & Educators. Inclusion in a strong teacher network is highly beneficial for teachers, particularly for the underserved. LEVER prepares a fertile ground for teacher & educators networking. Not only to support and exchange teaching strategies with each other, but teachers can also leverage the platform to build their professional reputation & establish thought-leadership pieces. Co-creation approach lets teachers co-build an on-going database of curriculum plans to constantly upgrade teaching experience, and in long-term, high-quality curriculum plans can be a source of income for teachers.

Moreover, LEVER is pre-embedded with modern learning design tools and frameworks that assist teachers in designing learning experiences that affect learners in moving towards their learning goals. 

All the above features can easily be deployed with existing Learning Management systems at a low cost, enhancing the accessibility of the project. 

Over the past 18 months, we've tested this approach in a small community of 1000 teachers and educators (mostly FAROS alumni). First, we implemented online training courses, including both synchronous and asynchronous components. After that, we tested community collaboration features, encouraging members to cooperate to share knowledge and experience. Most recently, we started training members on how to design learning experiences and use Learning Design tools. Most of the features have received positive feedback from users.

Beyond a learning platform, LEVER is an integrated suite of apps that enable specific pedagogical functions, including: 

• A Learning Management System (LMS) for ubiquitous learning. LMS has been popularly used, updated and revised to manage digital learning. 

• A Learning Design Studio with various Instructional Design software for interactive course/ learning module design and delivery. 

• A Community Platform to connect with like-minded peers and join communities of interest

• A Content Marketplace to give at no charge or sell published works, curated on LEVER or imported from external sources. 

LEVER provides a holistic platform that allows teachers and educators to participate in a series of career-oriented activities: 

• Learning: Taking online professional development courses on the platform 

• Engaging: Participating in peer-to-peer activities that elevate work quality while expanding the network: collaborating projects, discussing, giving, and receiving feedback for their works

• Creating: Creating and delivering online courses, designing curriculum/ learning modules, writing articles...

Through relevant activities with professional works, teachers and educators increase awareness of their roles in narrowing the achievement gap of students by improving their professional skillset, while gaining practical knowledge, skill, and support system to do better at their job. 

In the short term, teachers and educators will demonstrate a shift in their values, improvement in their teaching quality and education management competencies. They will also be more active in sharing and participating in collaboration activities with nationwide colleagues.

In the long run, teachers and educators will become knowledge creators and designers of human-centered solutions to tackle everyday challenges in their classroom, school and their communities.

LEVER uses the following indicators for progress measurements: 

• The number of active users

• The number of courses and courses’ participants

• The number of published works 

• Views/ Downloads of processes/ documents 

Besides the above metrics, we will also do periodical surveys and/ or interviews with learners to measure the improvements in professional skill, mindset and wellness i.e. if they feel more confident/ motivated in their profession.

LEVER's impact goal for the next 5 year will be as follow: 

• Within the next year (2022):

  • Increase the number of pilot users from 1,000 to 20,000.

  • Raise enough funds to fine-tune our MVP for official launch in November

• Within the next 3 years:

  • Attract a minimum of 500,000 users in Vietnam (primarily)

  • Establish a strategic partnership with 03 major universities of pedagogy/ national education colleges across 3 regions: North, Central and South of Vietnam

  •  Expand to other SEA countries in year 3

• Reach break-even point in year 3

• Within the next 5 years:

  • Attract a minimum of 1,000,000 users in Vietnam and 2,000,000 users in other SEA countries (primarily) through licensing/ partnership model.

We intend to achieve those target through extensive partnership as follow: 

• Strategic Partnership with Institutions that primary users of LEVER are participating in:  

  • Pedagogical institutions in Vietnam such as Vietnam Universities of Pedagogy, National College Institutions

  • Local education authorities

  • K-12 schools (public & private)

  • Education NGOs/ NPOs

  • Associations of teachers/ educators

• Affiliate Partnership with firms that share mutual target users & offering different products: 

  • Publishing companies

  • Providers/ vendors of E-learning/ Educational software/ Education materials...

  • Social media groups of Teachers and Educators, nationwide and local ones. 

• KOLs Partnership for endorsement from KOLs in Education i.e. well-known Teachers and Educators in Vietnam 

FAROS Alumni network with quality relationships that will be a source of endorsement for LEVER

We are addressing the Financial barrier by working steadily, focusing on quality over speed as we would prioritize partners that show enthusiasm for solutions that drive sustainable impact on a large scale, especially for the long term. Currently, we are developing a collaboration with some impact funds in Vietnam. Additionally, we are discussing with other individual investors that are interested in innovative solutions for positive changes. 

To address the Legal challenge, we are taking a step-by-step approach, starting by establishing mutual benefits with government-owned pedagogical institutions as they will drive the initial source of users to LEVER. To this end, we are working with NCE - National College of Education. Besides, we also work with local education authorities to provide training scholarships for teachers in Vinh Long province as a form of the pilot and learn from the experience of working with policy implementers. 

Regarding the Cultural challenge, we understand that despite similarities in some aspects, each country has its own nature of education which only natives can understand and implement well. Therefore, we are working on developing a licensing/ partnership model for future partners to customize LEVER for their specific cultural needs.

FAROS Education and Consulting has been operating for 4 years in the Education sector, providing a hybrid model between for-profit and not-for-profit projects. 

FAROS provide a well-rounded range of service for Investors in Education, including

• School set-up and operation consulting

• Training and professional development for teachers and educators

• Curriculum and educational resources development

Besides, FAROS has also been organizing various not-for-profit projects

•  Teacher Effectiveness Training (T.E.T) scholarships for underserved teachers to improve their professional skill

• Progressive Education Scholarships for preschool teachers who lost jobs during Covid-19, in which we provide reskill courses so preschool teachers can find new careers post Covid-19. 

• Design for Change: the world’s largest movement for students and teachers to introduce design-thinking to students so they can solve the world's biggest problems

• Educators’ Talks with free-of-charge workshops/ webinars for teachers and educators to improve professional skills or mindsets when working in education. 

The first motivation behind FAROS and LEVER is due to the yearning to create a larger and more sustainable impact on a bigger scale. Prior to COVID19, FAROS provided mainly offline in-person training which had to be moved to online platforms, where we realized the potential to create a bigger and broader reach, creating long-lasting sustainable impacts especially for underserved groups with a lack of access. 

Moreover, we live by the motto “To give is to get". We believe the success of LEVER will enhance our credibility strengthen the trust of investors while we have the enjoyment of creating a good impact on our society.

We have a team of 16 people currently working on LEVER, in which

• Strategic team: 4

• Technology team: 5

• Instructional Design team:2

• Customer & Partnership Development: 2

• Marketing & Community Development:3

LEVER has a well-tailored team.

We have an education expert team led by Ms. Phuong Nguyen - acknowledged as one of the leading thinkers & innovators of Vietnam, with 15 years working in education. She has a strong background in Science of Learning, endorsed by pursuing a Doctorate degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Learning Design and Leadership (with a concentration in New Learning). She also has experience in setting up and managing different types of educational models (K-12/ After-school/ Executive training/ Professional development). 

FAROS, founded by Ms. Phuong, is the leading provider of teachers/ educators professional development and school operation with a strong portfolio, through which establishing a strong network of relationships: 

• Partnership/ client relationships with various educational organizations such as local education authorities or the National College of Education

• A strong FAROS Alumni network 

• Other international education partners. 

The whole process from consulting to investing and operating has provided the whole team with a deep understanding of market insights and government regulations in education. FAROS also has rich experience in working with underserved teachers through implementing competency development and aid programs for underserved teachers/ educators (T.E.T Scholarship, H.A.T, Well-being Support). 

The Technology Pillar is held by a team of 5, led by our CTO with a strong background in Computer Science and Digital Business, particularly in building technology-based educational solutions (Learning Management Systems/ School Management System). He has a passion for Technology for Transformation especially in Education, where it can drive great impact for generations.

In 2013, Phuong founded TOMATO Children’s Home, which has been recognized as the first afterschool chain in Vietnam providing SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and 21-century skills programs for children aged 3-11. TOMATO is now a leading brand in its field, with nearly 20,000 students.

She is also the founder of other businesses that applied progressive educational approaches, such as:

• I Can School: The first K-12 school in Vietnam that adopt Design Thinking in its teaching and learning

• The Caterpies: A non-profit organization to promote awareness of Early Childhood Education.

• Design for Change Vietnam: She brought this global children’s movement to Vietnam and localized and popularized it to the schools.

In 2020-2021, she created the Help A Teacher (H.A.T) Initiative to help kindergarten teachers who lost income due to school closure during Covid-19. She has successfully fundraised 350,000 USD to provide financial support for nearly 1,200 teachers and also implemented a job-placement program to help them find new sources of income.

Currently, we are having Strategic Partnership with:

• Pedagogical institutions (Universities Of Pedagogy or National College Institutions):

  • National College of Education (NCE) where we co-organize workshops and training courses for NCE alumni network

  • Gordon Thomas Training (GTI) International (US) and Riverside Learning Center (India) - USA: international providers of teacher training and school operation consulting services to increase our credibility.

• Local education authorities: 

  •  Departments of Education of various provinces to provide Teacher Effectiveness Training scholarships to local underserved teachers. These partnerships are setting up a user base for LEVER future users. 

• K-12 schools (public & private): 3000 schools across the nation which had their teachers participate in FAROS’s training.

Besides, we also have Affiliate Partnership with:

• Publishing companies: Quang Van Publishing House who co-published the two books Teacher Effectiveness Training (T.E.T) and Parents Effectiveness Training (P.E.T), which helped increase awareness of the FAROS brand through books and similar forms of publication.

• Providers/ vendors of e-learning/ educational software/ materials: LEVER main platform is powered by ClassIn (Top 50 Edtech in 2020), a provider of digitizing offline classrooms, providing a connected, online-merge-offline learning experience → To provide online courses on ClassIn platform. 

By applying to Octava Social Innovation Challenge, we would like to receive quality feedback to improve LEVER's pilot model on how we can refine our model and accelerate the platform. 

More importantly, we aspire to get an endorsement from Octava Foundation and MIT - reputable organizations that will greatly enhance our advantages in the next rounds of fundraising as well as in working with the local government. 

Finally, we believe to receive support from Octava Foundation and MIT for the LEVER expansion plan out of Vietnam to create larger impacts for countries that share similar needs.

The establishment of quality network connections is vital to LEVER’s development. These include (1) Connection to funders and impact investors that share mutual goals with LEVER; (2) Connection to international experts of the sector or organizations that are willing to provide high-quality course content and curriculums to LEVER users at no cost; (3) Connection potential partners and licensees in other countries so LEVER can help create a bigger impact on the international level.