Beeline Reader
Executive Summary
Project Host:
Fellows:
Jazib Zahir, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Rene Kizilcec, Research Fellow
Sergio Medina, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Sho Tsuji, Research Fellow
Overview
A great benefit of the LEAP program is that it allows host organizations and several experts in their respective fields to rally around a collective question: how can the host organization supercharge their path to have rigorous evidence of the effects of their program?
Over the course of a team sprint this Spring, we set out to address that question for the Seenaryo Playkit - a teacher training delivered alongside an app-based learning tool, that provides easy access to hundreds of play-based learning activities that are designed to build social and emotional learning (SEL) and life skills for children ages 3-8 in Jordan and Lebanon. The Playkit is a program of Seenaryo who operate in Jordan and Lebanon and to date has reached over 400 schools, serving over 89,000 children.
Seenaryo has been operating in the field in Lebanon since 2015 and Jordan since 2018 and is one of few organizations championing play-based learning as an essential component of early childhood instruction in the region.
As we began to answer this collective question of “How Might We Supercharge the Path to Rigorous Evidence of the Program Effects,” several sub-questions emerged:
EVALUATING IMPACT: How does Seenaryo ready themselves as an organization for a future experimental study of the effects of the Playkit?
CHILD EFFECTS: What trusted/tested/rigorous methods might Seenaryo use to observe the effects of the Playkit on children in the classroom?
GREAT DATA: What are some of the best practices of capturing and analyzing Playkit data and how does Seenaryo build that capability?
APP DATA: How can Seenaryo get the most information from the app and tech-based environment (surveys) while optimizing automation?
As we explored these many questions in the sprint, a focus to our work emerged when Seenaryo shared what we began to refer to as their North Star Metrics -- the metrics that they theorize would demonstrate positive intended effects on their students as they were designed.
The impetus to build a stronger evidence base is guided by Seenaryo’s interest in building a better and more effective product, demonstrating that the product is having intended positive effects on children’s learning and outcomes, and build a case to drive greater investment in Seenaryo so that they may scale within Jordan and Lebanon, and set the stage for additional regional scaling.