From Challenge to Change: How a New Approach to Project-Based Learning is Helping Children in Uganda Build Foundational and Socio-Emotional Skills Post-Pandemic
Imagine stepping into a vibrant space adorned with colorful walls, filled with local play materials, and equipped with yoga mats. Instead of traditional desks, learners sit on the floor and engage with tablets as their primary learning resource, and reach out to their books and pencils only to prototype. This is what a Flying Colors class looks like: a uniquely captivating educational experience.
There is no internet available in these particular settings, so here offline edtech comes in. Kolibri, Learning Equality’s holistic adaptable and open set of products designed for offline-first teaching and learning, plays a crucial role in delivering a socio-emotional and academic curriculum to learners, and helping teachers develop lessons and track learner progress in real time. Project-based learning (PBL) is known to build foundational skills, and while it does not require technology, technology can be a strong ally on the delivery of supplemental materials for learners and teacher guides for educator preparation.
The concept of this innovative approach to tech-enabled project-based learning made Learning Equality a 2022 Solver team under the ‘Re-engaging Learners’ track. Flying Colors is an application of our MIT Solve solution, “Offline Squared.”
Developed in collaboration between Hopelink Action Foundation Uganda, Learning Equality, and Amal Alliance, Flying Colors is a new innovative program that blends offline technology, social and emotional skills, and playful learning, to bring education to the most underserved communities.
This blog shares what we have learned in Uganda where we’ve implemented this new educational program with out-of-school refugee and host community learners.
Setting the stage: the need for foundational skills and social-emotional learning
Though more than 90% of Ugandan children begin their primary school journey, by the time they reach grade P4 and P5 (at about the age of 11) only half of them are still enrolled. Many factors contribute to this, including poverty, early pregnancy, domestic chores, child labor, and limited school infrastructure. Dropping out has lasting repercussions on children’s future opportunities and well-being.
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated this challenge. Schools in Uganda closed their doors for nearly two years, leaving many kids hanging in the balance. When they gradually reopened in 2022, not all learners returned. According to the National Planning Authority, it was estimated that about 30% of learners would not go back to school, and over 3,500 primary schools were expected to close.
On top of this, Uganda is home to a large refugee population, with South Sudan’s prolonged crisis causing waves of displacement and added pressure on the education system. Among refugees, the rates of out-of-school children are even higher. These children are in critical need of interventions that accelerate foundational learning, support their well-being, and create pathways to longer term enrollment in mainstream school.
This is where Flying Colors comes in; we created a program designed to fill these gaps and give vulnerable children a brighter future.
An innovative, playful and holistic approach to tech-enabled, project-based learning
This pilot, supported by the LEGO Foundation, focused on developing, implementing and iterating on the Flying Colors program by focusing on four primary schools in Palabek Refugee Settlement. These spaces were equipped with playful learning materials and tablets, powered by solar energy. The pilot welcomed 714 learners, in line with Uganda’s 30:70 principle, in which 30 percent of all refugee interventions target host-community needs, who were enrolled into one of two consecutive 12-week cohorts, attending 2–4 lessons each week. This cohort approach didn’t just help us organize students; it also created a dynamic feedback loop that enabled continuous improvement of the program. To support the use of technology in a playful learning environment, each of the four spaces were equipped with playful learning materials and hardware (including a laptop server, tablets, headphones, storage cabinets powered by solar energy).
A critical component of Flying Colors is the development of a curriculum specific to the context and aligned with the Ugandan national curriculum. Each week, the class begins with social-emotional activities, such as breathwork, adapted from the ‘Colors of Kindness’ socio-emotional curriculum developed by Amal Alliance. This proven technique serves as a powerful tool for children dealing with anger, frustration, or stress. By incorporating breathing exercises, learners signal their brains to calm down and relax, fostering both emotional and physical well-being. This proactive approach sets the tone for a positive and conducive learning environment, allowing students to settle in and prepare for the day.
Passionate educators play a pivotal role in shaping the Flying Colors class experience. Ten dedicated Ugandan teachers–most of whom had never used technology in the classroom before–were brought on board, and they were trained along with the four school head teachers to both implement the curriculum and this new pedagogical approach. Using project-based learning lesson plans created by the curriculum experts at Learning Equality, teachers facilitate lessons and playful activities focused on building foundational skills.
As learners engage with video resources related to the day’s topic in a self-paced mode, educators closely monitor their progress through Kolibri’s coach dashboard. This real-time tracking enables teachers to receive personalized feedback for any student facing challenges and, in turn, provide instant support and guidance.
A highlight of the learning experience is the introduction of a weekly project. Learners, working in groups or pairs, are guided through the process of prototyping solutions for challenges pertaining to their community. The most gratifying moments for educators stem from witnessing students actively contribute to finding solutions and addressing real-world issues. This commitment to project-based learning serves as a gateway to educating learners for the demands of the 21st century, fostering critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
So, what were the successes?
(1) Empowered teachers: Despite their initial inexperience with technology and new teaching practices, teachers gained significant confidence over the duration of the program and were able to implement the full curriculum. One of the key contributions to this success was regular training with a focus on practical, hands-on experience. As Richard Elmore says in his Instructional Rounds in Education, “We learn to do the work by doing the work.” Teachers successfully navigated the Kolibri Learning Platform with ease, using tablets for lesson planning, content delivery, and monitoring student progress.
(2) Boosted literacy and numeracy: The results were remarkable. Many learners, who started with limited English literacy skills, achieved significant progress. By the end of the program, 74% could read a paragraph, and 63% could read a story. Numeracy skills soared as well. We found that the more Kolibri lessons a school implemented, the more students’ literacy and numeracy skills improved.
(3) Emotional growth: Beyond academics, Flying Colors nurtured learners’ social and emotional skills. Students learned to identify and manage their feelings, and gained confidence in and out of school. Parents and teachers alike noticed a positive shift in students’ behavior and interaction with peers.
(4) Relevant curriculum: The curriculum was designed for out-of-school learners in refugee contexts, where many children have faced displacement and trauma. Participants reported that technology and playful hands-on learning activities made learning more interesting and enjoyable, improved concentration, and motivated attendance. A remarkable 98% of learners that successfully completed Cohort 1 enrolled back into mainstream primary school after the program.
“Incorporating playful learning was one of the best aspects I have ever experienced … because we are dealing with learners who are out of school. Being a refugee, it’s not easy, the trauma they have [but] when they are in school we play with them, we do lessons on Kolibri, so they were able to be relieved from the trauma.” Teacher, Focus Group Discussion
What about the bumps in the road?
Flying Colors didn’t just deliver successes; it also uncovered valuable lessons that we are now incorporating into the program design beyond the impactful programmatic changes that were already made across the two cohorts:
- Language matters: Language differences can limit engagement in multilingual contexts. While English is Uganda’s national language, learners’ limited English skills of learners in the pilot classroom posed a challenge. Furthermore, many learners’ mother tongue was also the non-dominant spoken language in the area. Teachers provided in-classroom translation, which worked to an extent, but they reported that some learners still had difficulties, and that they themselves found some of the content difficult to understand. To adapt, we re-recorded parts of the curriculum in a local Ugandan English dialect to make it more accessible.
- Differentiated learning requires support: Even though they are all enrolled at the P3 level, learners in this context are at very different levels. Teaching them in the same classroom necessitates grouping students and assigning specific content and exercises for different abilities. Kolibri enables this process through the coach tools, but Flying Colors teachers needed more support to manage it effectively in the classroom. Facilitating differentiated learning is challenging in any environment, but in this context and with teachers using technology for the first time, the learning curve is particularly steep. The updated curriculum and training materials accounts for these challenges and provides more opportunities for teachers to practice facilitating differentiated learning.
- Enhanced monitoring and evaluation: Ensuring regular and robust monitoring and evaluation efforts is challenging in low-resource environments. We realized a need for additional in-person support, and more time and resources for classroom observations to enable more consistent and reliable data collection. We are also updating our processes for gathering regular data from teachers, and better utilizing Kolibri’s quiz function to explore learners’ progress week by week.
These successes and lessons in Palabek are a testament to the power of innovation and the significant potential that holistic edtech programs, when done thoughtfully and in partnership, can have in low-resource contexts.
Flying Colors is now on a pathway to sustainability in Palabek. Hardware maintenance and usage in the pilot schools are being sustained. We are continuing to collaborate, with and through our partners, with schools, communities, and government stakeholders to share our findings and secure buy-in that will ensure the program’s enduring impact.
We are now seeking to expand the program and make it accessible to even more underserved communities. We are taking our learnings from Flying Colors, together with wider research on project-based learning promising practices, and incorporating them into the release of our openly licensed, open-access Kolibri PBL Training Pack and PBL Curriculum.
But we can’t do it alone…
We’re actively seeking funding to continue the program in Uganda, and expand it to new contexts and partners enabled by the Kolibri PBL Training Pack and PBL Curriculum, which will enable us to refine the program design, training approach, product features, and curriculum to further deepen its impact. At Learning Equality, we believe that every child, regardless of circumstance, deserves an education that empowers them to learn, dream, and succeed.
Please reach out to partnerships@learningequality if you’re interested in finding out more or working with us on this journey.
