How to Innovate the Education System

Heading into my sixth week of my User Experience Design course at General Assembly, I was pretty excited. General Assembly decided to implement a new project, an extra one, regarding social impact. More than just adding a feature on an existing business or platform for monetary gain, this project was about making a change at a local level. I had an awesome group, John Pak & Mina Rebecca and a topic I was pretty passionate about, welcome to Project 4: Innovation in Education.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Designers will use the power of human-centered design to effectuate social change. Designers must recognize the challenges around implementation and deliver an actionable solution with clear implementation plans.

(Since this project requirements are more aren’t digital than previous ones we were given the chance to narrow down the scope of the topic. We created a brief related to what we wanted to accomplish).

Duration:

14 days

PROJECT CATEGORY

“From 2011 to 2013 in California alone there has been $6.9 billion in cuts for K-12 education. The education system in the United States is failing and is in dire need of reform.

The United States is consistently falling in ranks compared to other smaller countries and one of the factors that stands out to why this is happening is the lack of top tier teachers. In Finland, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, all considered the Top 5% of education performers…teachers are highly respected and it is reflected in their salary and their social status in society.

Teachers are the foundation of our educational system and the United States needs to raise the financial support to classrooms, raise the qualifications to become a teacher, and improve the salaries of teachers. The education system can then compete and recruit the best graduating students to become teachers and allow current teachers to sustain a quality life. By having the greatest minds to create, guide, and most importantly teach our children into greater minds only then can we create a domino effect that effects all reaches in our society. It will take time to reform, however, we must start somewhere. Our initial goal is to assist teachers by helping to ease their financial burden starting with their community.

METHODS

Competitive Comparative Analysis, Interviews, Survey, User Flows, Sketches, Digital Prototyping, Wire framing, Usability testing, and Iterations

Tools:

Pen, Paper, Whiteboarding, iPhone, Computer, Google forms, Balsamiq, Keynote, Sketch, and Invision

RESEARCH

Early on in our brainstorming discussions, Mina, John and I were very adamant about trying to change to public school system from encouraging Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset. Our research and discussions went on for several days including, interviews, surveys, and other relevant news resources.

We believed that the curriculum needed to be changed or revived, but we were unsure where to start and how to implement that. We were focused on the idea of fixed vs. growth mindset believing that a change in the curriculum could be where the impact could occur. These were some early thoughts but it led us to our first interviews to hear what was really happening in schools.

What is Fixed vs Growth Mindset?

“In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success — without effort. They’re wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work — brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.

Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports. It enhances relationships. When you read Mindset, you’ll see how.”

Check out more from Carol Dweck

Interviews

We decided to conduct interviews with local teachers before creating a survey, frankly because we were not sure what to ask or how to gear the questions for a survey. We reached out to interview a local second grade school teacher in the SMMUSD (Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District) system she was extremely helpful and informative and shared with us critical information:

“I spent over $4,000 last school year putting together a leveled library for my students. If I hadn’t spent that money (out of pocket), my students would have suffered. I absolutely considered not spending that money, due to my salary, but did not want my salary to effect my teaching methods. I did what was best for my students, rather than what was best for myself.”

— Brandy Ackerson, 3rd grade teacher

Classroom materials are vital to learning, especially for the elementary level. Imagine trying to learn how to read without the right books, or ones that are falling apart. Another thing that Ms Ackerson stated was that her students’ reading level ranged from kindergarten -5th grade. The state disregards the fact each individual student has their own way of learning or may be on a different reading, writing math, and science level than the rest of the class. Regardless, each teacher must adjust the way she teaches, in order to assist the students with the help they need in order to fulfill state standardized testing. In order to fulfill the testing standards teachers commonly fund learning materials from their own pockets.

FACT: The average teacher pays anywhere from: $500 — $4,000 on school supplies every year.

The biggest take aways from the interviews made us realize that beyond the strict curriculum the teachers were suffering from exhaustion, financial stress, and pressure from the principal and government for better tests scores.

SURVEY RESULTS

We created a survey and reached out to local teachers in Santa Monica asking them various questions. We uncovered that these teachers felt 70% of the time they were constantly stressed about their income, in correlation to over half of our respondents to have a negative impact on their teaching.

These statistics were very troubling to us, especially since as a society we are all deeply effected by our early education and development. Some of the greatest teachers leave because they are underpaid and can’t afford to support themselves. Schools are missing out on great potential teachers who don’t even consider it, due to the low pay.

Competitive Comparative Advantage

How Are They Doing Things Around the World?

After comparing the leading countries in education the United States falls short on giving teachers the respect and support they need to do their job. Some of the brightest minds in Finland pursue a career in teaching due to the prestige and competitive compensation. Imagine the possibilities if that rang true in the United States?

“Perhaps if beginning teachers were paid higher salaries at the outset of their careers, that are competitive with today’s cost of living, more young, talented, and dedicated people would join the profession.”

— Marianne Pierce, 3rd grade teacher

RESEARCH SUMMARY

Further analyzing we realized that the source of the problem roots to the fact that teachers are underfunded, underpaid & undervalued.

FACT: National Statistics indicated that 92% of teachers pay out-of-pocket for school supplies

Underfunded: Due to standardized testing certain schools are given more money by the government preventing schools from paying for all the resources they need (school supplies, desks, books etc,).

Underpaid: There is a 50% turnover rate of American teachers after 5 years in the field to find more lucrative positions.

We have a pay scale that does not move every year. We are stuck at a pay scale fee 3 years and the top salary is under 90,000.00. This is after over 15 years and only if you have continued your education and have gotten all the college units they require you to pay for out of your pocket. I have a masters in education and after 15 years at this job I get 72,000.00 a year. My friends who when to law school or work in other field with less eduction make twice as much if not more than I do. Remember this is not after taxes. We have to change how we value teachers pay wise and value wise. We talk about teacher scoring them based on how their kids do. I currently have 13 out of 25 students who are below grade level while my grade level teaching partner has only 4. Who is that fair to the students or to a teacher if we where to grade them on how their students preform.

Undervalued: Teachers loses motivation and become stressed, negatively affecting the ways that they teach.

My salary means I have to tutor 6 days a week, I am EXHAUSTED and still in school debt that I will likely NEVER pay off. Let alone buy a house. I have never worked so hard for so little and feel trapped and belittled. The exhaustion from working 12 hours a day (between school, emailing parents-who contact until 10pm+, working after school on lessons, material prep and ALSO tutoring) means I am never my best self. It makes me feel like a failure and that whatever I do is not enough. 9–5 secretaries w/ no advanced degree make more and JUST work 9–5.

Ask yourself — why does this matter? Why should you care?

Teachers have effected us all notably in early education and development. Imagine if you had the most enlightened bright, passionate individuals teaching, instead of becoming lawyers and doctors and other professions are that are considered by American standards to be more prestigious. Schools and children lose out on great potential teachers who don’t consider the field due to lower pay and lack of value.

IDEATION

Increasing Community Appreciation & Value

We were so appalled by the survey results we wanted to do something immediately. After careful thought we realized that this problem was not an easy fix and quite profound. Overwhelmed by the daunting statistics we were scrambling around to figure out something that could make a difference. We thought that a social media marketing campaign would be a great idea, then that turned into a a step by step implemented plan. A bit deterred by the possible effects that a social media marketing campaign could have we knew we needed a more concrete solution.

ACTIONABLE PLAN & #STARTWITHTEACHERS

It took several days but then it was like a light turn on in my head after talking to several people about it over the weekend. I thought why not create a registry (like a wedding registry) but for school materials? After researching that donating money to the school directly can get lost in the system we decided that we needed to avoid any misplacement. By giving the teacher the chance to tell her community what she needs in order to give her students the best education.

PERSONAS

Teacher:

Meet Ms Greenfield, 38 years old • 3rd Grade Teacher • Single • Los Angeles, CA •

Background & Scenario: Young, energized and ambitious. Loves teaching elementary, wants to make an impact on her students. Comes from three generations of teaching. She has trouble paying off debt from her masters degree and is financially stressed. After checking classroom supplies she realizes she’s running low on arts and craft materials. Weighing out her options she remembers someone told her about a new app that helps donate classroom supplies to teachers in need and decides to try it out.

Pain Points: Doesn’t get support from principal, struggles financially with salary, struggling to pay off debt, Limited to teaching certain methods due to lack of materials, Unable to expand classroom creativity due to lack of materials.

Devices: iphone / tablet

Donor:

Meet Anthony P., 34 years old • Programmer • Married • Father • Los Angeles, CA •

Background & Scenario: Anthony has two children in elementary school. He is an involved parent who cares about his children. He is generous and tech savvy. He values education and would like to donate directly to his children’s teachers rather than to a school fund.

Pain Points: Wants to be more involved with his children’s school but does not have time

Devices: iphone / desktop / ipad

SKETCHES & USER FLOW

Design Inspiration

We sought out some platforms that already had registries like Target, Amazon and Zola. Seeking out the best practices, easy signups and user flow we were able to combine and create the Start with Teachers application sketches. We decided to go with a mobile experience since the survey revealed that the majority of our users have cell phones. We got to the white board quickly and starting ideating how it should function.

WIREFRAMES

We built our first clickable prototype through Balsamiq. It was a quick way to test out the flow, unclear language, viability of the product and any other bugs. Check out our Teacher and Donor user flows in Lo-Fidelity wireframes using Balsamiq.

USER FEEDBACK

We decided to make several flows two for teachers to add products in store or online and one for a donor to donate.

Teacher flow Iterations:

• We had several remarks regarding the sign up, making sure that the indicators (name, address, school, etc) would not disappear as you typed it in so that users always know where they were.
• The registry and code page on our first user flow was unclear but through testing we were able to simplify it.
• We eliminated the ‘project fund’ options on the main page in order to focus on ‘add anything and barcode’ we did not want to add more features and scope creep making the final product unclear with too many features, making it more difficult to use.
• Process of elimination helped bring harmony and ease to the user flow (like moving the add button from the corner).

Donor Flow Iterations:

• Adding details on the donor flow, like the option to buy multiple items
• Added on boarding to introduce the app and facts to encourage donations
• Added a code to find a specific teacher, rather than search
• Edited the teacher and school search to allow people to donate to school, or teacher they want

PROTOTYPE

Final Countdown

We wanted to keep the visuals simple for our users which led us to the design we chose. It was important to us to give teachers the option to take a picture of the barcode of products. We chose turquoise as the main color, combining both green and blue which symbolize growth, creativity, trust, and dependability.

Check out our user flow in the Hi-Fidelity Prototype.

NEXT STEPS

• Implement a social media campaign with several steps to bring awareness to this issue
• Create a website for the campaign
• Add Group Gifting and to assist donators who cannot afford to buy an entire gift
• Add Project Fund to give teachers the ability to pay for field trips, bigger art projects, and more to enhance her classroom’s education
• More Testing, for both teachers and donors
• Build out each user flow with more depth

LAST THOUGHTS

We were a bit disappointed not to have the time to finish all of the user flows in high fidelity and make everything more look polished before presenting. At one point one our team members fell ill so we were a down a person for a week. This taught me a lot about how to balance work between us and how to communicate with someone remotely.

I had an amazing time researching, ideating and creating this project with my partners. A lot of thought and hard work went into this project and we are very proud with our solution since it actually could make a difference to teachers. The entire experience was very enlightening. Throughout the process I became more passionate over the subject, I’m shocked that this issue is not bigger since teacher make such a huge impact on society. We plan to implement into a real application. Our goals are to help teachers everywhere, to create awareness, and to truly make a difference.