(User Experience)
IBM Watson Enlight for Educator is a desktop application that is a part of the IBM Watson Classroom experience. This browser based application is a planning tool for K-12 teachers with a focus on surfacing actionable insights and information. I worked as one of the two user experience designers on the project.
The Problem
Teachers today have hundreds of data points for each student. From previous years performance to current day, via a variety of learning activities. This information is available in a disparate set of sources, from physical folders to massive spreadsheets. Teachers lack the time to process this massive amount of current and historical data for each student into actionable insights.
Our Solution: IBM Watson Classroom
IBM Watson Classroom is a pair of solutions. An iOS app, Element and a browser app, Enlight. This software gives an educator a comprehensive view of their classes and progress for individual students. Utilizing current and historical data, a teacher can discover down to the standard level where a student is struggling. Watson Classroom serves as not only a window into her students performance but also a place to document progress and connect to relevant educational resources.
Personas
The original research of the product was conducted by the team's two primary design researchers, Caitlin MacRae and Reed Campbell. The middle/high school persona is Jamie, a 6th grade math teacher. The elementary persona teacher is Samantha, a 4th grade teacher.
Research
To understand and empathize with teachers we held a workshop with elementary, middle and high school teachers and administrators. the design thinking actives we completed included Loves and hates, As Is scenario mapping for a day and a year, needs statements and big ideas.
Hills & User Stories
After reviewing all of the insights from the workshop a set of top concerns from the majority of educators rose to the top and became the foundation of our hills. Hills are mission statements that assist in aligning our team and scoping the release. Each hill includes a who (the user) , what (what the user is able to accomplish) and wow (measurable outcome).
Hill 1
Jamie and Samantha can build, share and discover a comprehensive view of her students beyond the walls of her classroom throughout their entire learning journey.
Hill 2
Jamie and Samantha can continuously assess her entire classes comprehension of a given concept and appropriately target instruction throughout the year.
Hill 3
Jamie and Samantha can review, align, add and update evidence of learning for a student or class so that they know what learning activity illustrates the students comprehension of the standard.
Experience Spotlight: Evidence Of Learning
While on the team, I designed many parts of the product, from student profile widgets to co-creating the mastery experience. The experience I had the pleasure of owning was Hill 3. We named this hill, "Evidence of Learning" (EOL). The goal of the EOL experience is to provide Jamie and Samantha the ability to continuously document their student's comprehension of standards by aligning each student's evidence. Evidence is any piece of student work that demonstrates a students comprehension including standardized test, grade book items (tests, quizzes, projects, etc) and teacher observation. By aligning the evidence, the majority of each student's progress recording can become automated.
The Approach
Understanding the source
The source is where the student’s evidence is coming from. Sources include estimation based on analyzed past progress, standardized test, grade book items (test, quizzes etc) and teacher observation (ex. group tutoring). Throughout the workflow the source is stated at key locations to have context for how the student’s knowledge level was determined.
Adding evidence
Two key sources for evidence are the grade book and teacher’s observations. A user flow was created for each of these sources. For items from the grade book a system of aligning the learning activities to learning standards was necessary to distribute each student's knowledge levels to the correct standards automatically. Since grade book items are administered at the class level, learning activity alignment is completed by class.
Student’s are also assessed on an individual basis by their teacher via classroom participation and 1 on 1 interaction. These assessments provide an opportunity for a student to be assessed outside of traditional assessment methods like tests and quizzes. Teacher observations are often completed on an individual student basis, so the area for a teacher to add an observation was designed at the student level.
Each flow, aligning activities and adding an observation, was tested continuously with users, and proxy users to refine the experiences presented here.
Product Design Team:
UX: Myself & Jennifer Wright
Visual: Chase Kettl
Research: Reed Campbell & Caitlin MacRae
Front End Developer: Chengqui Zhu