 Imagine streaming live on think tech Hawaii. We're facing massive work disruptions due to automation and now the pandemic. Our challenge is to create solutions that address the future of work and demands of a new labor market. On Hawaii re-imagine, I feature innovators and entrepreneurs who are addressing these economic and workforce development issues with innovative solutions that will make a positive social impact for people in our communities. I'm Ruby Menon, your host. I help mid-career professionals navigate their career transition and my career, get it done mastermind community. And you can learn more at brainsmartdesign.com. So my guest today is Sheila Buya Kokchar, the founder of an educational company called Focus Reality. And what Focus Reality does and what she does is creates interactive project-based learning opportunities for students to develop the skills they need for the future of work and develop them into impact citizens who contribute to their communities. We'll talk about her work in education and also about the app she created called Maghugs that allows an educator to quickly create, send and record customized messages about a student's positive actions and impact on others. Sheila, I am so happy that you're here. You've joined me to talk about your work in Focus Reality and especially about these project-based learning initiatives that you're working on in the education sector. So I wanna dive right in and let's start with your story, like what's your career path and how did you get started in the education sector and what led you to create Focus Reality? And it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Ruby, for inviting me to talk about some of my passion. It all got started when I graduated from college many moons ago when I wanted to teach kids about business and I never did until I was retired from the US Air Force and I came about trying to teach them about business and I found out that no one talked about entrepreneurship, no one talked about innovation, no one talked about passions and potential and so I created something instead and after I retired, I did some after-school programs, could not get into the schools because of no child left behind. So all the extracurricular things went out the door but I did get some after-school programs and summer programs and was able to create this wonderful interactive way of learning about their community and about things that are created from ideas all the way to actually being a reality. And so therefore the words focused, so we focus in on a reality that they can uncover their potential, their passions and make connections to community in a very valuable way. So that's how it got started way back when. So let's focus in on Focus Reality actually. Let's talk a little bit. I know that there's a lot of work being done with project-based learning. I think there's, oh, what's that? MTLS, what does that stand for? Most likely 260. Yeah, and that film was pretty amazing. It was quite an eye-opener in terms of how they're using project-based learning as a modality to bring these kids into the 21st century. So is that a similar model that you're utilizing in your project-based learning approach? Maybe talk a little bit about how are you doing that and are you only working with the kids? Are you working with the teachers? Maybe talk a little bit about that. Okay, well, what you find out through research as well as working with kids or just being yourself, you tend to want to do things. You tend to want to play. So the more you can enjoy your work, the more it isn't work anymore. So project-based learning came about for that very reason is putting anyone into the real world situations where they can make decisions, look at resources and actually come up with things to solve a problem. So project-based learning has been around for a while. We just chose as an educational system to be more lecture-focused and we're making those assumptions that everybody learns the same way. But as we all know, no one learns anything like each other. Everybody is unique. And so project-based learning has always been a part of me even before I learned that this was great educational learning methodologies, pedagogical kinds of methods, just because it just made sense. And so I've always used it because I've always wanted the kids to play and be exposed to community kinds of issues and problems and opportunities. So I think that's where it comes from and it gets rooted in the research. And so I was lucky enough to have research back up my gut feelings on how kids actually learn. And so now it's entwined in everything, right? I use community-centered projects where it's not just go do anything you want to, it's really about solving a problem within the community. And we try to focus their knowledge exploration. We try to focus all of that so they can experience these potentially passionate things and strengths and see that they can master something that they never thought they could or create something that they never thought about before. So it's really kind of interesting. So Sheila, walk me through like an experience. So let's say if I was a student that was enrolled in one of these programs, Project Based Learning, would I just come in and tell you Sheila, I've got an idea that I want to work on something, I love animals and I want to do something with animals and I've got this project idea. Do I just run with it? Or is there some structure around it? Do I work with a teacher or a mentor? Could you kind of walk us through like, what would that experience be like for a student? Sure, all of the above. All of the above, but let me give you a scenario. So it depends on where you're coming in at. When I first started, it was really about just exposing the kids to what around them is really about ideas and getting it to market. And so that was an exploration of all these different kinds of things that were in the community. We looked at Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the houses, to a neighborhood being built from nothing to actually the actual signs and the model house that holds all of those things that people create, design, manufacture and sell. So that was one phase. Now what's happening is it depends on what the teachers need. Since we're so focused on common core, there are things that teachers have to teach. And that is really critical. So we can come in at, or any teacher can come in and do, all right you guys, let's talk about your passions and let's create something from nothing and you determine what you want that to be. She'll put criteria in there, like it has to have some value to the community, it has to solve some problem in the community and that is wide open. And so that's where you were thinking, I can just come in and that's the way it is and I come up with it, we guide them to their passions or strength or just knowledge in general or something more specific and a lot of the schools are going down this road is they will create an inquiring or a big question about it. How do we or how do you sustain health in community? And so now it has to come community, health oriented, as well as in one specific teacher wanted to make sure that it could be a proposal for a science project. So now he's put in a special spin on that and now it has to be science focused. So you can put in all kinds of criteria if you wanna go whatever you guys wanna do, let's do it, they're gonna go through the same process is if we give them a bounded piece to something that's wide open, they'll go through what's the knowledge that you have, what's the knowledge out there, what are the ideas to solve this issue or problem or opportunity and then how are we gonna go about it? What's the product? What's the service? What are the issues that you're going to fulfill when you give that solution back to that community member, organization or teacher? So are we mostly, are you mostly working with high school students or what age group does this model fit the best with? I think, again, it depends on the teacher, depends on what you wanna do. When I first started, I had second graders to fifth grade and it was phenomenal. So it worked out well. I mean, the things that they came up with was phenomenal stuff. Like what kind of projects did they do? One girl loved gymnastics. So she opened up a, in theory, she opened up a gymnastics shop. This was before, many years ago, 10, 15 years ago, before gymnastics shops were even part of the community service provider. One girl wanted to paint. So she sold one painting that was her market. It was an older man with a lot of money and all she wanted to do was sell one painting. So she came up with a paint. So these were third, fourth, fifth graders. And then, but in this day and age, it's hard to get teachers to understand, to do these things because they have so many other things that they have to teach. Although I personally believe it can be taught, it's very difficult to do that if you don't have the certain mindset. So it does take a certain pedagogical mindset. Now, I would say the best time to do it is middle school through high school in this kind of educational landscape. The reason is, is because community members really relate best to that age group, to the teachers can see the products that can come out. And I think you can really reason with a middle schooler or a high schooler instead of having them go hog wild. You can put boundaries around them just like any business has resource constraints. It's the same thing. So I think I believe in this landscape, you're middle school or high school. I would love to do it from kindergarten on out. So it sounds to me though that, well, one of the things that they talked about in the most likely to succeed model was trying to convince the parents that this was a viable learning methodology was very difficult because the parents were so wired into what they know, right? Which is my kids have to go through the standard curriculum. They've got to pass their exams so that they can get into the best schools, right? And that's the narrative that everybody's been taught. That's the model. And now when you're trying to do something that's a little bit different, you've got the parents that you've got to convince. Probably the students are all probably the ones that are the most adaptable and want to try this, but you've got the parents. And then I would think that you maybe also have the teachers because the teachers are so constrained within the educational system of what they've got to deliver. So what type of, I guess, friction or how have you encountered any of that type of friction? And what have you done to overcome that in order to present this as a viable learning model? So you've pinpointed so many issues within our educational system, but not only in the educational system within society itself. We are so bent on tests to get into the best schools. I have to perform on a test. I have to get good grades. I also have to perform not only throughout my school to get a GPA of 4.0 or 5.0. I also have to perform on all these other batteries of academic intelligence. But as we all know, when we get into the workplace, there are many, many ways that we are able to give our strength and to be part of a team that is really essential for business and for communities to sustain itself. So you have an issue of that whole societal testing requirement, but what has happened is research has proven that if you can create this rigorous project that sustains over time, that allows kids to rewrite, explore, research, do experiments, come up with creative ideas to solve problems, decision-making and constrain their resources and then present it to a community of partners or just to parents, they have found that this type of learning is the kids tend to perform better than the academic ones that are only with lecture. Now, we're talking about in general, right? There's always gonna be some that's always gonna be very high scoring students, but that's probably outliers, right? The majority is in the middle. And when I don't get the A or the B, you're talking about confidence. You're talking about, I don't know what my passion is because I'm not good at math or science, but I'm good at drawing, but that doesn't have value when I take a test. So what we're finding and through the most likely to succeed type of campaigns or awarenesses is that we can do it, we can do it all. We can have science and math classes in regards to methodologies, but to really apply what we learn within these subjects, we need to practice and we need to do and we need to be creative and innovative. And when you do that, the depth of learning is huge compared to, I'm just gonna remember this equation and once I take the SAT, I'm a done deal. So the depth of the learning is so incredible that we're finding more teachers willing to take that chance. It's not an easy road to go down, but the rewards are phenomenal, exciting and innovative. It's just exciting to see these kids create products that they never knew about when they came into the project and then they're actually teaching others to do these things. So it's really exciting. It's an exciting time as well. Well, I'm reading a phenomenal book right now called the Adaptability Advantage. It was written by Heather McGowan, who is a futurist and they're really talking about what, how are humans, how are we as humans going to thrive in this 21st, what they call the fourth industrial revolution with automation coming in where we're probably most likely going to be working and we are right now working side by side with robots or some type of bot-like type of technology and how are we going to do this? And it has to start, I think, and she's right and says so in her book as well that it has to start at a young age with education and teaching these types of skill sets to students because we are going to have to be continuous learners. And that's the one thing that unfortunately, we're still in the manufacturing age educational process where the days of you will learn one subject and you have the same job of 40 years and then you retire with your gold watch or them days are over and chances are in the fourth industrial revolution, you're probably going to have five or six different types of jobs and you're going to have to rapidly learn on the fly. And it sounds to me like that's what this model is really set up to do is to try to give these kids the skill sets to be able to go in and be creative and adaptable and flexible. And because we only have a few minutes, we have about 10 minutes left, I want to make sure that we talk about Maghugs which is, I'm just really excited about this app that you're doing because it's hitting on something that I think is really difficult to reinforce. So I'll stop yapping and I'll have you talk about like what is Maghugs and what are you trying to do with that app in order to change behavior? Sure, one of the key pieces, if you don't mind putting up the Peva slide the bowl, I'll go through that really quick minute, answer some of the things you asked about in the previous thing. So if you look at this and you start at the bottom, what happens is to be able to be innovative, creative and use some of your strengths and passions which is at the top of the bowl, you have to start off with connection and a sense of belonging and you have to have some sort of skills and knowledge. Okay, and the only way that you can get that is by creating an atmosphere of connection, connection, ignition and inspiration. Okay, so if you don't do this, what happens is you'll go back into the educational landscape that we are in and you'll wait for the answers and take the test and know nothing else. So as we educate our students, we really need to have that middle role, connection, belonging and skills. And so when you talk about Maghugs, Maghugs is that connection and the sense of belonging to you. It really takes a look at that bottom part that is essential to any kind of learning. If you have no connection to anyone, you have no connection to knowledge, no connection to love or anything that is human. So therefore you need that. And Maghugs is about mindful, accepting and giving hugs where a student can really feel that, oh my God, I'm valued. I have some sort of value to this person that's telling me that I did something, I had impact on somebody else and also I'm able to go, I am helpful and no one can take that away. So Maghugs really hits home on the bottom foundational piece of social, emotional, knowledge, skills and attempts to bring that student together with another person by impacting through their behavior on someone else. In other words, I'll give you a hug. Oh, how does it work then? How does that work? So perfect, Ruby, you invited me here onto the show so I could really share about Maghugs and focus reality so other people could really understand the educational landscape and maybe what our kids really need. That is really helpful. That is so helpful, way to go. So that is a hug. It tells Ruby you did something that impacted me and your viewers and in a way that you are helpful and you are giving of your time and your knowledge. Now- How was that message delivered? That message is delivered from teacher to child via and either a text message or an email or if that child doesn't have any kind of technology, he or she gets a note sent home with him or her or a phone call. Oh, wow. So is it like just in time type of immediate feedback or is it then like at the end of the day? Like how does, because it's from teacher to student, right? So the teacher is observing the behavior and then providing some type of feedback, positive feedback to reinforce the behavior to the child, the student. So how did the teachers use it? So the teachers would use it could be immediate, right? Or it could be after the fact or it could be during a report or a conference, right? A parent child conference. We would hope that it would be immediate if possible or right after class. So it could be sent out to the child and or the parent and the parent. So it's one of those things that depends on how we can use it. We would like it immediate because it immediately gives a frontal lobe hit or a hit to the frontals to say, oh, I was helpful. Oh, I did invite her on and my viewers are really now becoming aware of some of the issues within our school. And so we want that, especially because if you look at connection, belonging, that's where it comes from. It's giving value to someone else. So are teachers using this of the Maghuggs app now? Do you have that in teacher's hands and what's there? How are they adapting to it? Well, we went through this summer, we went through some manual processes trying to make sure that the teachers would even use it or thought it was helpful. We got some thumbs up from some teachers. It is still in prototype right now. I'm hoping to take it to a software developer and trying to get it into a more of an application where the teachers can actually use it and see if they're, although it might be a great idea, are they gonna use it? And that's always something that we have to deal with. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because we've been talking about positive enforcement for, I don't know, how many years? 50, 50 years. And so it's not a very easy thing to do because what we tend to focus on, some of the negative is easier to do that, a lot easier. But I think it's because we've learned that versus trying to relearn how to focus on the impact a student can have on others around them. Yeah, and I think that, I mean, we've been working with software development projects for a while and we know how difficult adoption of a new product is. And so much of it is based on training the user to use it on a regular basis. And so that hurdle, like how do you train the teachers to remember to take the phone out of their pocket and actually start to text when they observed little Mary over there doing something really cool? So that's gonna be the challenge, I guess. And they probably will get a lot of user feedback as you get that app into their hands. But the whole concept sounds pretty cool because behaviors are probably the most difficult to, you can't, you know, like on a test score, it's either black or white, either you pass the test or it's very easy to quantify. But when you're doing behaviors, they've got that there's a lot of research about how they have to be reinforced and rewarded immediately. I hate to bring up the example of a dog, but, you know, that's how we do dog training, right? I mean, if you give Fido a dog biscuit 30 minutes later, they're gonna go, oh, thanks for that. But they're not gonna connect that to the behavior that, you know, and so a lot of it is that immediate instant feedback that I think is gonna be so valuable. So rooting for Maghugs, because I think it's an incredible concept. And I think that I don't think there's anything quite like it that I've heard of anyway in the school system. I haven't heard of anything like it. And I think the thing about Maghugs is even if you, so I agree with you, immediate would be wonderful. But even if you forget, what Maghugs did do this summer is it really helped teachers to change the way they look at students. Yeah. So when I was asking them, what was the behavior? They're like, okay, I'm not sure. I don't know what he did, but you have to find a behavior for him. Oh, okay. So they switched their lenses and started talking about the behavior. Oh, he opened the door for Donna. So she didn't have to put down her books. Oh my God, that was helpful. They never noticed a person opening up the door for Donna that always came in with a big bag of books. No one noticed those kinds of things. So it starts to model and help them, even if they never do Maghugs, they're still sending hugs to their students. And that's the real goal, hidden goal of mine. I want you to use Maghugs because you're gonna learn and you're gonna teach the kids, oh, she's watching that. Oh, I never realized I was that helpful or that valuable or I belong or I connect. Yeah, I want them to use it. So we're gonna have to, on that note, we're gonna have to, unfortunately we've run out of time, I could talk to you for probably another three hours about this topic, Sheila. So I just wanted to remind everyone, I'm Ruby Menon and this is Hawaii Reimagine on Think Tech, Hawaii. And Sheila, how can people find out more, is there a website they can go to? Find out more? Yes, it's focused with an edreality.com. Awesome. Focusreality.com. Thank you so much, Sheila, for your time and for your amazing work in education. We need more people like you in the education sector. And thank you all for being here. And please check back on our next show, which will be on Wednesday, December 16th at 3 p.m. I'll be talking to Yvette Ellis from Charge Your Help, an innovative startup that's based in Los Angeles that is building an app and training people to provide on-demand repair of electrical vehicle charging stations. So until next time, please be safe and be kind to one another. Aloha.