Beagle Learning’s online learning platform uses deep student question asking to train and quantify 21st-century skills, such as critical thinking and problem solving.

What traction do you have so far?

• In 10 institutions, being used in 23 courses this semester
• 100% instructor retention from Spring 2017 semester
• 1,030 users in the Beagle Learning online learning platform
• Research partnership with Arizona State University Action Lab to develop quantitative scoring of critical thinking using learner’s questions

Why did you found Beagle Learning?
Beginning over ten years ago James, Turner, and Lindy had conversations about what the best, most high-impact problem was to solve? In the end, we decided it had to be education: If people everywhere had the skills and confidence to solve the problems they saw around them, the world would be a different place.

Story or moment of inspiration to start Beagle Learning?
Each of us have our own story. For Turner, it was teaching a group of high school students in Lexington, KY who were on their last leg before getting kicked out of school. Their teacher had started giving them collaborative projects, rather than putting them in competitive classrooms. Because they had ownership over their learning, a collaborative environment, and an ability to ask the questions they most cared about, they reengaged. They loved what they were doing. Our model of stand-and-deliver teaching isn’t working, but there are models that do work, and that teach collaboration and critical thinking as well. We need to figure out how to make new models of learning effective for students and also manageable for instructors.

What’s a memorable moment in your entrepreneurial journey (Turner/Beagle Team)?
Being accepted into LearnLaunch was a very memorable moment for us as a team. It felt that our hard work has really paid off to be in the eighth cohort and the resources that we have available to us are huge in helping us take the next steps toward scaling Beagle Learning. Beyond that, almost every conversation we have with students is memorable. We always learn so much from them, and it is thrilling to see how excited they get to talk about what they are learning.

What is the biggest challenge you anticipate facing over the next 6-12 months?
Expanding our user base is going to be a big focus that brings with it all different kinds of challenges. The biggest challenge for us will be streamlining our onboarding and instructor support services. We provide hands-on support to help instructors get started with Beagle. We need to put effort into building a clear and efficient process around that work.

Why did you choose LearnLaunch?
LearnLaunch has a myriad of resources for education technology companies that we felt we could not get elsewhere. The programming so far has been incredible. At LearnLaunch we have the network and resources to support the market research, go-to-market, and sales we need to hit our growth targets.