Does our work require IRB approvals?  (If Yes, articulate our detailed IRB strategy.)

Yes, our Save Tuba beta validation project requires IRB approval.  The team is proposing the following IRB strategy:

Research Design:

The purpose of the proposed study is to validate the beta version of the Save Tuba app, a gaming app designed specifically to teach sustainability education.  The sustainability lessons are focused on: 1) waste management, 2) environmental literacy, and 3) climate change.  The study will include students and teachers from Almaty, Kazakhstan to participate in one of a series of five focus groups for teachers and one of four focus groups for students.  Participants will be given access to the Save Tuba app – beta version at the beginning of each scheduled focus group.  After engaging with the app, the researcher will lead the participants in a conversation via pre-designed questions aimed at collecting end-user feedback on the design, curriculum, special features, and ease with traveling from one level to the other.  Questions will be asked in both Kazakh and Russian.  The research team will include a designated individual to ask the questions in both Kazakh and Russian, two (2) other research members to take notes and a third member to record the discussion.  Each focus group will be an estimated two-hour session, allowing the initial 20 minutes for the participants to play and interact with the app prior to answering the focus group questions.

Research Participants:

Some of the participants will be children in grades 1 – 9 (ages 6 – 15) in Kazakhstan schools.  The other participants will include teachers from Kazakhstan schools that teach students in grades 1 – 9.

Informed Consent Process:

• Process for obtaining informed consent from all adult (Kazakhstan) subjects who will participate in our study:

Parents/Guardians of school-age children and teachers identified for the study will be provided a copy of the Informed Consent form, which will be made available in English, Kazakh, and Russian. The participant will receive an electronic copy of the informed consent to review at least one week prior to the day of the focus group.  On the day of the focus group, the researcher will meet individually with the participant to review the informed consent form, answer any questions, and collect a signed copy.  The participant will receive a copy of the signed informed consent form.

• Parental consent for Kazakhstan students (ages 6 – 15) who will participate in our study:

Student informed consent will be secured from their parent/legal authorized representative.  Similarly, informed consent forms for students will be shared with their parents at least one week prior to the date of the focus group.  Parents of the participating students and their child will meet with the researcher the day of the focus group to receive a print copy of the informed consent form, get answers to any questions they may have, and provide a signed copy of the consent form to allow their child to participate in the focus group.  The parent will receive a copy of the signed informed consent form.

• Student assent for Kazakhstan students (ages 14 – 15) who will participate in our study:

Assent of students who are 14 and 15 will be secured during the individual meetings the day of the focus group.  For participants who are 14 and 15 years old, the researcher will secure the student’s consent following explaining the informed consent to parent/guardian and securing their signature.  Student assent will be documented after reviewing the information on the student assent form, which includes providing information about the study, expected risks and benefits, and what they will be expected to do during the focus group.

Privacy and confidentiality or anonymity of the participants and/or their data:

Identifiable data related to the participants will not be  collected for the study.  For the purpose of documenting ages of students and grades taught by the teachers, the researcher will keep a record of participant’s age and/or grade taught on the form that will be used to collect aggregate data from each focus group.  The participants will be asked to provide their age/grade taught and the researcher will record the verbal responses in the transcripts.

The researcher will safeguard the data by keeping all focus group notes in a safe or locked cabinet. Once focus group notes are transcribed into the university’s computing system, electronic files will be password protected on the university’s cloud file storage system.  Data will be backed up on an USB file, which will be kept in a safe or locked cabinet.

Audio recordings of the focus group discussion will be made to best capture input from participants and allow the researcher to continue with the conversation without stopping the discussion or asking the participant(s) to repeat a comment.  Recordings will only be used to assist capture the participants comments and will not be used in any other way or serve for another purpose.  Recordings will be transcribed with the use of an app that will convert the audio recordings into text.  Recordings will be kept in a safe or a locked cabinet. The transcribed recordings will be kept in the university’s computing system.  The electronic files will be password protected on the university’s cloud file storage system.  Data will be backed up on an USB file, which will be kept in a safe or locked cabinet.  The original audio files will be deleted after transcribed, saved, and backed up on USB files.

Risks and Benefits:

There are minimal risks related to participating in the focus groups.  Participants will be told during the informed consent discussion and reminded again at the beginning of the focus group that they may end their participation with the focus group at any time.

Benefits for participants include:

• contribute to educating others about sustainable behaviors
• be part of creating a more engaging learning tool for sustainable education
• learn how their actions impact the environment and communities
• help connect in-class learning with the world around them and day-to-day life

Benefits for society at-large include:

• raise awareness for the wilderness and national parks in Kazakhstan
• help rejuvenate support for efforts to protect animal life, nature, and expand sustainability

An outline of our mid-semester presentations.

What supporting evidence will we provide for each point?

1. Intro- brief overview of what our venture is about/what has been accomplished prior to this semester
2. Our achievements this semester: 
   1. Programming team- new members are familiarizing themselves with the code and adding new features (e.g. inserting the remaining educational content into the app; demos of how the features work/excerpts of the code)
   2. Design team- working on finalizing new backgrounds and User Interface (screencaps of the new designs/demos of what they look like in the app)
   3. Returning members- working on a gamification paper (an attachment of the first draft)
   4. Validation team- finalized the questions that were included in the validation surveys sent out to educators in Kazakhstan, with the help of our AlmaU student partners (first draft of the questions with the partner students’ feedback, proof that we have been meeting with them weekly this semester, results/data gathered from the survey), working on planning out the alpha survey focus groups in more detail (preliminary list of materials, venues, etc.)
   5. App Content creation team- Working on structuring the curriculum and making videos based on the feedback received from the surveys and the alpha focus groups.
   6. Meeting with American Council to ensure to spread the word about our venture
3. Conclusion: Brief overview of where we plan to take our venture in the future 

How will we boost our credibility every step of the way?

The Save TUBA team has/will work diligently to increase our team’s credibility by doing the following:

• Partner with AlmaU students to learn about the Kazakhstan culture, develop study instruments, translate the materials, and recruit participants (students, parents, teachers, and administrators).  Additionally, to gain credibility with the study participants, Save Tuba members will work with AlmaU partners to provide all research materials in their native language of Kazak or Russian.
• Develop and grow relationships with representatives from Kazakhstan’s Education Ministry, such as Mr. Andrey Dupik and Mr. Bayan Konirbayev (Chief Digital Officer at Almaty City).
• Ensure that the design of the app and curriculum are respectful, aligns with topics taught in their schools, and incorporates Kazakhstan’s culture.
• Travel to Kazakhstan during the summer months to conduct the beta validation of our sustainable education game app in-person beta.
• Participate in media events, such as an interview with the American Council, to promote the joint efforts with AlmaU partners to address sustainability education.
• Partner with AlmaU colleagues to regularly showcase progress with the Save Tuba game app via social media channels that reach the target population in Kazakhstan.

Ten things that make me feel human.

My philosophy of engagement as it pertains to my work with the Global Social Impact Fellowship

Doing WITH, not TO people!

I am an educator and life-long learner with over 26 years of experience working with schools and nonprofits. I have served as a teacher and administrator of youth and family services for nonprofits in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York.  Although my educational credentials have afforded me influential and privileged professional roles, my philosophy for engagement has been guided by values that were taught by my family and upbringing, not necessarily the formal educational systems that academically prepared me for those positions.  These values have helped form and develop my philosophy on how to engage with children and families that I serve via formal (and informal) roles.  My personal upbringing and work experience have helped crystallize the most central concept to my philosophy of engagement – “Do WITH not TO people!”.

I am fortunate and blessed to be in rooms and/or sitting at tables where critical funding, program, policy, and educational decisions are made that impact thousands of children and families.  Additionally, I am privileged to lend my voice to large scale efforts aimed at improving the common good for people in my immediate and larger community.  These special and often limited opportunities create the impetus for engaging.  It is a moral imperative for me to embrace these reserved spaces that create impact in the lives of children and families.  The Global Social Impact Fellowship (GSIF) is one of these special opportunities for me to learn, serve, and help make an impact in a project that will directly improve the educational experience for many children and the common good for thousands of others in their community.  GSIF/Save Tuba is a privileged platform not afforded to many that I wholeheartedly embrace.

Another central concept to my philosophy is the importance of building a culture of excellence and delivering a high-quality service to children and families.  This guides the projects that I choose to be involved in, such as the Save Tuba project with GSIF.  The collective effort to use a game app as a mode to deliver sustainable education aligns with my mission of making an impact with a young person’s educational experience and additionally, having a long-term impact in the livability of the world they live in.

I am often the individual that will answer the call to “help” others defined to be in need.  I have learned that most often those “in need” are defined by what they do not have – a deficit approach that is contrary to how I view people.  One of my first steps when engaging in a project is to learn from “them” what they see as their strengths, assets, and resources to address the identified need.  Additionally, I also prioritize confirming from the individuals being helped that the defined issue/problem is what they see as the issue/problem to be address.  Taking these steps better ensures approaching the project – more importantly the people impacted – in a respectful way.  Again, my way of ensuring that a project is doing with, not to people.

It is my hope that my epitaph reads, “he was someone who spent his life helping give voice to those often not heard, leveraging his access to resources to serve the most vulnerable, and championed to provide services and educational programs to improve the quality of life for children and families.”