Prototype and Testing
As our team begin to turn our ideas into a concrete prototype, there were many questions that needed to be explored in order to help us develop the template tool that we had in mind for teachers.
We had three iterations of the prototype that helped us shape and design the template tool.
Phase 1 — Paper Prototype
The objective for our first prototype was to LEARN about current practices. We tested on two teachers at Winchester Thurston Upper School to get an insight on their receptiveness to the template tool.
Some of the questions we had were:
- What are teachers’ current portfolio practices in the classroom?
- How do they plan a project?
- How do they give feedback to students?
- How do they assess each step?
- How do they encourage students to reflect?
- How do students currently document their process?
Findings:
We found out early on that our initial idea of template wouldn’t work well. Teachers have many different ways of executing their projects, and there’s no one set template that would work for everyone. For example, ,one of users, Graig, currently uses many different tools and mediums to plan and execute science projects with his students, and his main need was that he needs help to stay organized. David on the other hand plans and tracks his CS projects using Google Sheets.
- Teachers want to unify communication with students — currently use a combination of mediums and it’s unorganized
- Teachers want organization
- track students’ progress and give feedback
- share learning objectives and rubrics with students
- define competency skills for students to develop
- Teachers want a flexible tool that can support the project plan they have in mind
Phase 2— Low-Fidelity Prototype
The goal for our second prototype was to TEST the updated prototype and get FEEDBACK from educators. We built a clickable low-fidelity prototype and pitched our idea to the variety of teachers who attended the MakerEd Workshop @ CMU.
Revisions to the prototype:
- project building tool with step by step flexibility
- simplified project preparation steps
- added teacher’s dashboard
Some of the questions we had were:
- How would teachers use this tool for building and tracking projects?
- What systems do they currently use?
- How would our system be an improvement to their experience?
- What subjects or classroom settings would this system work for?
- Would teachers see the value of using this system?
Findings:
We steered away from the template idea and focused more on a flexible tool that can be used to plan project steps and enable teachers to easily track and assess students. Overall, we received positive feedback on the platform’s benefit of helping teachers keep track of students’ progress, and many of the users we spoke to validated that our tool would be useful for both teachers and students to keep track of their work, and that no tool currently exists that is specifically for tracking and assessing PBL. Additionally, we were faced with a new question — “how will this tool benefit students?”
- the tool needs a way to incorporate all the platforms that both teachers and students currently use (Blackboard for grading, Google Docs, Youtube… etc.)
- there needs to be value for students
Phase 3— High-Fidelity Prototype
The goal for our third prototype was to test and get feedback from both educators and students. We built an interactive high-fidelity prototype and returned to Winchester Thurston to show our participant from the first user study. We also built a mockup portfolio page of projects for students and showed it to high school students to get their feedback.
Revisions to the prototype:
- Student view of portfolio page with previous projects; share & export projects
- hi-fi mockup with content
- Visual design / layout
- link to mockup of teacher’s view: https://collaborate.uxpin.com/896920387a4d672a640e9d8ae252931784bc2ce8#/pages/64587000
- link to mockup of student’s view: https://collaborate.uxpin.com/9f7573ff5e7a969ead8b4029e9a03606253a788b#/pages/64589698
Some of our questions:
- Will this tool help teachers scaffold students to understand the value of reflecting and documenting?
- Benefit for students?
- What type of reflection questions would they ask?
- What type of skills / competency tags would be useful?
Findings:
We validated that this tool will help students track all their projects in one place, rather than having to juggle many different platforms, as well as customize the project based on their needs. The end goals of our tool is that it’s not just a platform that they’ll use for one or two courses, but that it creates internal motivation for students to continue documenting their projects, look back and reflect on their progress.
- Teachers want visibility of students’ thought process
- who’s struggling on which step, what are on-track students’ thought process
- Teachers want to maintain in-person communication with print / export options
- Share project plan with other teachers
- Sit down with student to go over feedback
