Momentum: Cultivating self-regulation skills in high school students
In Collaboration with City of Bridges High School
Timeline
3 months, September - December 2022
Team
4 Design Researchers
Co-design process with client
Role
Design Research Lead, Project Manager
Client
Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Pen & Paper
Overview
City of Bridges High School (CoBHS) is a progressive high school in Pittsburgh, PA that grounds learning in real-world experience and tailors education to each student’s individual interests.
One of the unique aspects of CoBHS is the Personalized Learning Plan (or PLP) - a student-driven project in which students choose a topic of interest and follow a plan to guide their learning. It offers an enjoyable way for students to explore personal interests and potential post-graduation paths.
My Role
I led UX Research in a team of 4 designers to research deeply into problems faced by students and educators at CoBHS with PLPs, and devise a solution.
This project was less about arriving to a highly resolved solution, and more about the process of finding the right problem to solve and evaluating ideas in a user-centered way within a short period of time.
TL;DR
The Problem
While the PLP is a great learning opportunity for students, a lack of accountability and self-regulation often prevents them from starting or completing a PLP, while educators struggle most with documenting and keeping track of student progress.
The Solution
Momentum is a digital check-in and progress-tracking app that promotes student accountability and self-regulation while providing teachers with clear insight into student progress. This visibility enables educators to offer timely, personalized support, fostering a more effective and tailored learning experience.
The Impact
We saw a high desirability to make Momentum a reality, not only in CoBHS, but in other learning environments as well. Over 90% of students & educators we spoke to expressed interest in using Momentum and conducting a pilot study at CoBHS in the upcoming semester.
“You cracked the nut of a valued technology solution for COB that listened closely to the needs and culture of the school and found meaningful opportunities at just the right level of complexity.”
Solution Deep Dive
We chose the name "Momentum", drawing inspiration from both its use as a verb, representing movement, and the concept of "moment" in a temporal sense. With the app, students not only track their progress, capturing the temporal moments of their learning journey, but they also propel themselves forward, making continuous progress and improvements— keeping the MOMENTUM alive.
Student View (Mobile)
1. Easily check-in with a 2-click widget.
The simple widget design supports our goal of a low-effort solution. At the start of each PLP block, students are prompted to check-in; if they need help, they receive an estimated check-in time.
2. Track PLP progress
During or after each PLP block, students are prompted to complete a progress check-in by responding to a daily prompt.
3. Facilitate feedback from teachers
After submitting their daily PLP check-in, students can view teacher feedback once it’s posted.
Teacher Desktop View
View the student check-in queue
After students submit their PLP check-in form, teachers see a queue of those requesting urgent or brief check-ins and can follow it with a timer. They can also toggle between daily and weekly views to track form submissions and progress uploads.
Leave feedback for students
Teachers can click student profiles to view daily progress and leave comments, which students can see on their end. They can also review updates and comment through the notification panel.
“It would be great to see this built and piloted at the school next semester. I really think it could be a game changer for students and educators (at CoBHS).”
Design Research Overview
To guide our design process our team asked ourselves: How might we help students develop personalized systems of productive time management, goal setting and task planning which they can use in high school and beyond?
Over the span of 6 weeks we conducted design research to gain a deep understanding of CoBHS, its students and educators.
User Research Insights
Documentation: Teachers currently use physical documentation to track student progress, but the lack of a uniform system poses a management challenge.
“I have a little brown notebook and go around to the students and write it down…the problem is that it is a singular physical object.”
Past Efforts: CoBHS previously used Headrush - a documentation tool for tracking goals and progress, but it didn’t work well for students due to its cumbersome nature.
“Headrush was supposed to do documentation, but it was more frivolous than productive.”
Goal Setting: Students work with teachers 1-1 to set personalized goals, but don’t always achieve them. There is an opportunity to further build self-efficacy among students.
“There’s many spaces in the day for 1:1 interaction. Part of that is helping to build the internal culture of agency and self-efficacy.”
Student Learning Management: There is no prescribed method for students to plan or document their PLP progress. Students choose their own system, ranging from physical notebooks to Google Calendar.
“The freedom is nice, but it makes it easy to fall behind.”
IDEATION
The Design Opportunity
We found the most potential in helping students with goal setting, progress tracking and documentation.
Concept Development
By collaborating with students & educators to ideate and test concepts, we better understood their needs & how potential solutions could integrate within the CoBHS community.
Students were excited about a low-commitment progress tracker, and teachers were interested in saving time by knowing which students to check-in with. Both parties were weary of a mandatory goal setting tool as it might be more cumbersome than helpful.
Service Blueprinting
To map our vision, we created a two-layer experience map aligning the current PLP process with our envisioned state: the top journey map shows shifts in students’ motivation during a PLP, and a bottom service blueprint highlights key student and teacher touchpoints with our proposed solution - Momentum.
USER TESTING
Bringing Momentum to life
We created wireframes and mid-fidelity prototypes to test core interaction moments with students and educators. We wanted to:
Determine if the tool addressed student and teacher needs
Uncover missing features the users would like to see
Evaluate overall usability and ease of use
For the educators, we tested the process of using the tool to view student check-in status, access the check-in queue, and review student progress. We presented two versions to users; the teacher preferred the vertical queue and week-based structure of Option 2 as it felt more in line with their current processes.
User Testing Feedback
Users valued the simplicity of the tool and were excited about integrating Momentum into the existing PLP process. Below are two notable insights that guided our next design iteration.
Feedback and Progress Annotation
When uploading a progress image, users would like to annotate the photo to add more context to their work and illicit feedback from teachers.
“It would be nice to draw on a photo just to show what’s going on. So that you’re not just submitting a picture of your laptop.”
Curate Prompts
Teachers would like to curate the daily PLP check-in prompt to reflect a current focus. For example, asking about final presentation at the end of the semester would be useful.
“Schedules changes throughout the semester. So, it would be nice to show different things at different times.”
FINAL DELIVERY
What was the outcome?
We were excited to publicly present to showcase our design concept “Momentum” to CoBHS students and educators, and Carnegie Mellon University HCI staff. We saw a high desirability to make Momentum a reality in CoBHS! The challenges of tackling personalized learning progress and self-regulation using a low-effort tool resonated with much of our audience. With Momentum:
Students receive optimal support from teachers
Students are able to more effectively complete a PLP and/or show improvement in their learning management skills
Teachers are more confident and knowledgeable about their students progress & learning
What our audience said:
“This is a dire need and can double as a documentation tool and process journaling tool. Really effective and simple.” - CoBHS Educator
“It would be great to see this get built and piloted at the school next semester…” - CoBHS Principal
“It’s efficient that this tracks multiple students’ progress. This has the potential to extend beyond CoBHS to adult learning environments, where documentation is a big issue.” - CMU Professor
I’m so grateful for the collaboration with City of Bridges! Without the enthusiasm and valuable insights of students and instructors, we would not have been able to conduct such a rigorous research process and arrive at a nuanced solution.