Overview
Audience
Our target audience is past and present educators looking to find more information for starting their own micro school.
My Role
My role in this project included extensive research on micro schools and pod learning. I designed the whole site for the project and wrote all the informational text.
Scope
As this was a course project, there was no budget allowance. It had a strict timeline of one month, and was completed in September of 2022.
Problem
The main problem that I worked to solve is that all around the country, teachers are leaving the classroom because of various reasons; they aren't able to earn a livable wage, school shootings are becoming more prevalent and their list of responsibilities are seemingly endless. We are now facing a teacher shortage in many states, and the ones who suffer the most are the children.
Solution
By making this information resource for teachers, they are able to build the tools and knowledge to create their own micro school/learning pod so that they can set their own wage, curriculum, and give students a truly safe space to learn and grow.
Process
Research
According to the National Education Association's survey conducted in February of 2022, a sobering 55% of educators are thinking about leaving the classroom earlier than they had planned to. This is a stark contrast to the 37% that had planned to do the same in August of last year. Exasperated by budget cuts, already low pay, the pandemic, and surmounting responsibilities thrust upon them, the mass exodus of teachers is becoming increasingly dire.
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As a former educator myself, leaving the profession after just five years because of the absolutely abysmal salary (and all other aforementioned reasons) this topic became of great interest to me. As we are *at the time of writing this* entering into the 2022 school year, it seems like more and more news articles are emerging each day about teacher shortages, and what that means for the communities and districts they served. I had heard of learning pods, or micro schools from a friend whose cousin enrolled their children in one during the pandemic. This teacher got to have it all. She only had five students, she got to set her own salary, and she didn't have to deal with administration and their endless demands. It got me thinking. I decided to do my own research to to see if I could help solve part of the problem that our country is currently facing, an extreme qualified teacher shortage.
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I created a survey geared towards past and present educators and posted the link in my social media. 11 educators responded to the teaching survey. From that, the majority (63.6%) said that they were planning on teaching again in the 2022 fall school year, while 36.4% said they would be leaving the field. While it is lower than half, it is a jarring reminder that teachers just aren't happy in the classroom.
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Teachers who are leaving
Teachers who are staying
The research was clear. I needed to create a site that not only allowed teachers to continue to do what they loved about teaching, but also that gave them the flexibility and power to create their own schedules, pay, and curriculum.
User Personas
My three user personas are Alexander, Rachel and Missy. Alexander and Missy are both teachers, but are frustrated with the current state of education. They do not want to leave the field of education, but want to use their talent on their own terms. Rachel is a homeschooling mother that wants to expand on her current home classroom by offering it to children outside her immediate family. All three users would benefit from the resources found at My Little Schoolhouse.
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Journey Map
User Stories
As a teacher, I want to have the autonomy to make my own schedule and set my own prices for teaching.
As a teacher, I want resources to help make my own micro school.
As a teacher, I want to learn how to find families in my area that are interested in pod learning.
As a teacher, I want to be able to market my school as a Project Based Learning school.
Sketches
At this stage, given the research I was doing and the amount of information I needed to present, I knew that the site was going to be heavy content. I needed to present a lot of information without overwhelming the user with walls of text. I started sketching different ways to display the content.
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Information Archetecture
Site Map
User Flow
Brand Development
Style Tile and Typography
For the Style Tile, I chose two main colors, the green and yellow to base my screens off of, as well as a few textures and pictures that I felt helped set the tone for the site. For the text I chose an off black color, and for the screen background I chose a very pale yellow white. I wanted to create a calming soft aesthetic that still promoted growth and learning.
Prototyping
Wireframes/Low-Fidelity Prototype
For this set of wireframes, we are taking the user through the site as they are gathering information on setting up their pods. For these screens I was focusing more on the flow of finding the information needed to make decisions regarding pod learning.
Iterations
It was really important to me to create a site that is interactive. I made a dashboard and profile for our main user persona Alexander. At the beginning of the flow, it has a near empty profile. But after he goes through and collects information, he is able to fill out his profile so that he can market himself to teachers.
Components
High Fidelity Prototype
User Testing
Next I tested the functionality of the high fidelity prototype with five different users. The prompts I used for the testing were modeled after my User Persona, Alexander.
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Scenario: You are a teacher who is thinking about leaving the classroom next year. You still want to teach, but you want the freedom to set your own schedule, pricing, and classroom size. You find My Little Schoolhouse, an informational resource website made specifically for teachers wanting to learn more about setting up a micro school and creating a profile to market to families.
Tasks:
1. Log in to the website. (We have created one for you and it will populate on the screen when you click in the field.)
2. You need to gather as much information as possible to help you set up a profile to market yourself to families. First where would you go to get holistic information on pod learning/ micro schools?
3. After that you need to get ideas on how to set up your pods location. Where would you go?
4. Next you want to see more information on specializations. Where would you go?
5. Next gather ideas on how to set up your schedule.
6. Click through the pricing page to get more information on what you could potentially make for your salary.
7. Find at least three ways to market yourself.
8. Edit your profile. For your specialization choose STEM and Project Based Learning. For Preferred grade levels choose 4-6. For desired pod size choose five students. Save the information.
9. Finally write your ‘about me’ section to introduce yourselves to potential families looking to hire a teacher (don’t worry, we have written one for you, just click on the empty box to have it filled in).
Results
Overall Success Rate
100%
Everything had gone as expected for all of the participants!
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To gain more insights, I asked some follow up questions.
Question 1: Is there anything that you would have preferred be different in this flow?
One participant said that they would prefer that the information be available to everyone, not just to the ones who sign up for the site. This could be an easy fix, and plus, knowledge is power and should be available to everyone.
Question 2: Is there anything that you would have like to have added to this flow?
One participant said that they would have liked there to be a parent portion as well as the teacher portion. Excellent! This is definitely something that I thought about doing when I was in the beginning stages of planning my site. When it came down to it, it was not within scope, but if I had more time I would love to be able to have this be available for parents as well, where they could search for teachers based on grade level, specializations, etc.
Question 3: How was the navigation? Was there anything unexpected that you encountered?
One participant suggested that there should be a 'back to resources' button at the bottom of each of the sub pages so he could easily get back to that page. I added this to all sub pages in my final prototype.
I also changed the home page to show some more information on it so that people could learn a little about learning pods before deciding to sign up.
Final Prototype
Conclusion
This was a very rewarding project for me because I care so much about education and have such empathy and sympathy for teachers. It is my hope that this type of site could help change a teacher's outlook, and instead of having them feel lost in a corporate world after quitting teaching, they feel empowered to take control of their job by giving them the tools to work for themselves.
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If I had more time and resources, I would like to expand my site to have a parent portal, where families can sign up and get information for finding teachers and what to expect. I would love to make a feature that allows teachers to search families based on their preferences, and families search teachers based on their experience, price and specialization. I would also like to make an interactive map of teachers and families looking to connect so that families can find other families looking for pods in their area.
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This may be a very real future in education if things continue to go the way they have been in the past and present. It is sad that it has to be this way, but at least now teachers can do something about it and continue to educate the ones who really matter here- the children.
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