Teaching Process

I knew a lot about teachers from my research. The more I learned about my niche audience of progressive educators the more I started thinking about them as designers. If a teacher aims to be effective, she begins by designing a lesson. She prototypes the lesson by teaching it in a classroom. She receives immediate feedback from students and can measure her success through homework and test scores. She can use this knowledge to better design the next lesson.

I had been thinking about my project as a service throughout my whole process. At that point that framework helped me determine how the product would behave over time. My initial map turned into a useful service blueprint, a strategic document that illustrated why a website and an app would be the best solutions for the goal of the service.

With my basic strategy determined I started thinking about the details of what the service would do. I knew the core of the service would be the ability for a teacher to reflect on her professional practice. It’s a valuable step, espcially for progressive educators who are working in the wild west of education. Inspired by my own use of 750 Words, I started thinking about the ways that text interpretation could be used to provide dynamic feedback to users who entered private self reflections.

I also knew that many of these teachers are isolated in their practice of new methods, and I saw an opportunity to create a community around practitioners. Many of the problems they face are unique to these new, creative methods and are not solved by simply thinking alone about it. I wanted to include a social layer on top of the private self reflection piece to accommodate teachers helping one another.

Over time, the reflections and stories on cultivate will be a searchable library of new teaching methods and the problems and solutions associated with them.

I needed to think through the functionality of both pieces of the service. I started sketching proposed workflows for a teacher using the website and app, helping me determine a lot of the features that would need to be present.

With a blueprint and workflows in place I was able to create a sitemap of pages that I would need to create the ecosystem of the service. Since teachers are often working at their desks, I knew the website would need full functionality.

It was an easy task to narrow down those pages into a relevant subset for the iPhone app. The core of the app would fulfill a teacher’s need for quick, on-the-spot reflection and feedback during breaks between classes. It made sense to put the personal reflection at the front of the iPhone app.

I began sketching wireframes to represent all the elements on each page. The process of sketching wireframes according to my workflows helped me articulate the flow between pages and better understand the rhythm of the design.

After my first pass, I tested the wireframes for the iPhone app. I quickly discovered a series of issues in the flow and was able to make revisions to the architecture and navigation.

Finally I designed a logo and visual identity for the service, finishing my thesis work by creating an informational website and prototype for the iPhone app.

Visit the Cultivate prototype website
Read the full documentation

Video from the final presentation

The final presentation was held May 5, 2011 at the SVA Theatre in New York City.