Differentiation Digitized: Using technology to reach every learner in the classroom
One of our Quizizz teachers once shared a small incident which happened in her classroom:
“My students were writing an essay about the most challenging historical event to live through. I noticed that Emma wasn’t doing anything, just had her head down. Since I knew she loved music, I asked her to write about why her favorite band was the greatest. She still had to make an argument, just about music instead of history. Her eyes lit up, and later her dad told me it was the first essay she’d ever written!”
One can almost visualize Emma’s innocent face and her eyes lighting up. Every single student in a classroom brings different gifts and challenges and as a platform which empowers educators, we at Quizizz wanted to recognise those differences and use our judgment to respond to them in our product experience!
A quick look at the image below suggests that on an average, at least 15% of students in a US classroom have a special need, 10% are non native English speakers and another 20% are in general lagging behind their grade level.
A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t cut it when addressing such diverse needs.
Effective teaching involves accommodating different learning styles, interests, and speeds. However, translating this theory into practice is challenging. This led us to deep dive further into what it takes to manage diverse student needs in the classroom.
We listened to our Quizizz teachers to understand the problems they face in executing differentiation strategies:
1. High effort in modifying material
Teachers often manually modify materials to cater to diverse needs. For instance, Spanish-speaking students might need translations, while others behind their grade level might require simpler questions or alternative teaching methods. This manual customization is a time-consuming effort for teachers.
2. Manual technology aggregation
Teachers manually install various assistive technologies into students’ devices, such as read-aloud software, dyslexia-friendly fonts, and visual aids. Managing these tools and teaching students how to use them adds another layer of complexity for teachers daily.
3. Feeling of inclusivity
Teachers try as much as they can to keep all students part of the same classroom. They never want a student in need to feel different or demotivated. Keeping the feeling of inclusivity intact poses another challenge for teachers. How to provide specific accommodations discreetly. Tough right?
Differentiation at Quizizz
Recognizing these challenges, we designed differentiation features on Quizizz. Here’s a glimpse into our journey of building this feature, which might interest product managers and educators alike.
Phase 1: Research [20 days]
We spent 20 working days deepening our understanding of differentiation to discover the following:
- Diverse student needs: We read articles about autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent behaviors to understand what could be the right experience for these students.
- Differentiation Laws: Implementation and unique attributes of the US Laws such as IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and Rehabilitation Act.
- State of the Union: We also explored how teachers currently manage differentiation and the support they receive from schools and parents.
Phase 2: Problem Identification [15 days]
For a new problem statement like this for which you might not find previous data on your platform. Problem sizing and identification was done through strong primary research and competitive research. We met with teachers in 30 mins video call, understood their process and pain points and validated at scale using surveys.
The problems that were identified from this phase are listed in the previous section.
Phase 3: Solution Design [15 days]
- Identifying MVP feature set: We identified around 40 potential accommodations per our research and narrowed them down to six based on immediate student needs.
2. Knowing the RDS: RDS is an abbreviation for rate-determining step. In our case, the RDS was teachers defining which accommodation which student will need. As the number of students in need increases for a teacher, this step might become time-consuming. Thus, reusing accommodations once set became our top priority
3. Building on top of current mental models: We realized adoption of a new capability like this will run into the following problems:
- A feature might have the potential to fundamentally elevate your product’s core user experience but expecting users to find a new feature and start using it frequently is usually a slow process.
- Especially for Quizizz, where traffic is seasonal, you are building it in January and have a window of only 3 months to experiment with anything before the summer vacation begins.
- We decided to reuse current rostering mechanisms already built on Quizizz. This reduced half the effort for teachers to bring their roster on Quizizz and assign accommodation for each student. It reduced the target segment size but at least we could learn the max potential of the feature in a short time.
Student needs we support on Quizizz today
Today, Quizizz supports 12 accommodations, with plans to add more. These accommodations ensure that students receive the necessary support.
We received heartfelt messages from teachers about these features since the launch!
Two common themes emerge across all of those messages:
- Just knowing your students is enough: None of these accommodations created any extra work for the teachers, they did require that they had relationships with their students, know their strengths, challenges, and interests.
- Respect given to Student Privacy: Teachers appreciated that Quizizz provides support discreetly, ensuring students feel included in the classroom community and not singled out for their needs and interests.
In conclusion, the journey of creating differentiated learning experiences on Quizizz is a testament to our commitment to every student’s unique learning journey. By listening to teachers, understanding diverse needs, and integrating thoughtful features, we’ve built a platform that doesn’t just accommodate differences but celebrates them!
Our goal is to ensure that every student, like Emma, finds their spark and feels included and empowered in the classroom.
As we look to the future, we remain dedicated to expanding our accommodations and enhancing our platform, always with the learner’s needs at the forefront. Thank you for being part of this journey with us, and we look forward to many more success stories as we continue to support and inspire every learner!
