4/8: The Learning Experience as a System — Concept Refinement
Synthesizing our research and ideation to connect our theory to practice
The Previous Models
Based on our previous class and looking over our previous learning model, we wanted to take another look at how to best represent our learning experience and progression to be more accurate to an optimized practice.
Our initial models, while driven by finding patterns within the design systems and how they may connect together, ended up as two separate and distinct models without a clear way of bringing them together. As we discussed and reflected on our models further, we had also noticed several areas for improvement as we refined our thinking:
- Becoming less linear: The flow model being combined with mastery and scaffolding worked well together, but the CCAF elements felt as though they did not fit in well with the overall linear progression of the model. We would like for learners to be able to go back to activities and get more feedback on them when needed instead of just moving through each stage once, an element that had not been reflected in the model.
- Bridging the two elements together: When talking with our group, we realized that the mastery model more closely aligns with the progression of individual, more component skills that would be repeated for each topic rather than a general model for the overall experience. This was a key breakthrough, as it allowed us to see this more linear process in a cyclical way for each chapter, deciding to see it as a more “close up” model of an aspect of learning rather than being representative of the entire experience.
- Highlight how user goals change over time: In speaking with Stacie and looking over the stages of the development of mastery, we found that it may be more helpful to duplicate the cycle of practice and feedback to allow for multiple areas of goals to be present and illustrate how that impacts the type of learning, feedback, and practice that are shaped by this progression of goals. Learners at different stages of mastery have different goals that they hope to achieve through the experience, so the model should reflect this and its impact on the content we provide.
The New Model
In the new model, we center our experience around the structured flow of goals after realizing the importance of goals as motivators, as well as how user goals will shift over time. Susan Ambrose et al.’s principle of motivation is fueled by the highest level long-term goal of achieving confidence to independently managing personal finance, coupled with values like independence, maturity or personal growth, confidence, and a resilience to challenges create the driving motivation for our experience, taking the user through the entire process to accomplish this. The mid-term goals are a series of Ambrose et al.’s practice and feedback cycles in combination with their stages in the development of mastery, creating different goals at each stage that the user takes on as they process towards mastery — unconsciously incompetent individuals seek to find the gaps in their knowledge, consciously incompetent individuals seek ways to fill in the knowledge gaps they have found, and consciously competent individuals seek ways to independently apply this knowledge without the support of the experience, achieving unconscious competence when accomplished. Lastly, the short-term goals are the individual component skills and chapters of our experience to be accomplished and mastered, following a slightly more linear format as previously discussed through Julie Dirksen’s flow model, coupled with her scaffolding model to show how individuals may need different levels of scaffolding depending on the skill being learned, each of these moving along their own progression lines as they work through the experience. Overall, this model strives to be a more cohesive representation of the framing of our learning system while incorporating further complexities through how the models interact with one another.
The Facets of the Experience
As we were looking deeper into our designed system, we found ourselves looking deeper into the finer details of how our system can be formatted to handle some of the unique challenges of our problem space, specifically in the number of topics we would hope to cover coupled with the diversity of prior experiences of our users. Talking through the form of our experience, we decided to focus our efforts on a personally customized and paced layout to counter these problems, looking to a digital format so that it can account for this level of variability while also being easy to access when needed.
Through this diagram, we worked through the issue of allowing learners to have greater agency over their experience by including a number of choices (marked in yellow) in their “life” that change what topics that are covered to match their needs. For example, a learner who isn’t interested in college can choose not to go in their simulated game and avoid having to learn unnecessary information, like about student loans.
Each of the blue bubbles represents a “chapter” or topic of knowledge for them to encounter, each of these typically taking the form of a pretest (optional but rewarded if taken) to evaluate how much scaffolding they might need for this section. This then shapes the learning portion which will involve key information that someone should know to adequately get by in this topic, followed by mini-game-style activity to asses their understanding and apply what they learned. The chapter will not be the last time that they use this knowledge, however, as after they have completed the chapter, random events pertaining to this information have a chance to come up to “check-in” and see how much the learner has retained, their performance indicating whether they may need to go back and refresh their skills or not.
Lastly, the green box in the upper left corner indicates some “passive skills” that will be learned at the beginning of the experience and applied throughout the play time, typically as common skills that most people use across their lives like credit cards, managing costs, and insurance. This can take the place of the reward system in the game where your performance on the tasks determines your funds as well as characteristics like FICO score, totaling up to provide you with your final score at the end of the experience. Many of these elements may be optional as to not overwhelm the learner but rather enrich the experience and reward those who seek out additional information and skills, always being accessible through a menu screen any time they would like to make any changes or investments.
Final Thoughts
This last class was incredibly helpful to our group, as it answered some of the more complex and difficult questions regarding our experience like motivation, form, and goal setting. Moving forward, I think we hope to keep this momentum going through our work and narrow down our focus to a part of our system that we can sufficiently explore, like a specific chapter or the user progression through the various stages and decisions.
