epic-design-project-blog

[epic-design-project-blog]

Pearson 2027 - An Education Revolution

Week 7

This week the team got a great energy boost by kickstarting our meeting with a delicious pasta lunch, and a fruit and spinach smoothie! Check out the recipe at the end of the post to get a taste of our gemutlich (cosy/hyggi) meeting ;)

Business Model Canvas

The team had a lot of material to share this week, one of the tasks we had been preparing was 1-3 business model canvases each for our digital platform concept. It was really helpful to share our proposals. The business model canvas is a framework that helps you pin down yey partners, activities, resources, channels, costs, relationships and of course the all important value proposition!

The team had some great proposals for revenue streams, which is always the tricky part for designers to pin down as we often put the concept and value proposition above all else. 

One team member had the brilliant idea of companies paying Pearson to appear highest in user feeds as an education provider. Another pointed out an alternative model where universities pay for subscription. All team members thought that having the classic freemium-premium model was one of the best, tried and tested business models. We concluded a free, trial version which could be used for 6 months would be appropriate for our platform - so users could try out all the features and see if it was motivating them to learn before committing.

We reflected that there could potentially be a lot of key partners linked to the platform to share great content, uniting with Pearson to grow their user base. It is important for Pearson to work with companies with common goals about learning, empowerment and accessibility. These partners could include youtube, TEDx and Linkedin for example. 

These partnerships are also necessary for the data collection which is needed to make a personalised learning journey. For instance, we envisage the Pearson Ai taking a lot of important content about user skills, interests and experience from their Linkedin profile - then using this to project their possible future careers.

Organic Learning

A*** talked us through a beautifully illustrated and metaphorically based outline of our value proposition she had been working hard on. The idea of linking learning to growth had come up a few times but A*** really made this metaphor blossom!

A*** visualised the learner path as a tree with roots, branches and nodes. Each node was a project, selected by the user to develop particular skills. Completing nodes moves the user forward on the timeline as their learning develops. There are side branches which the user may decide to go down to develop relevant but less necessary skills - skills that might lead them towards another career.

To summarise; the roots of the tree are made up of the core skills of the learner which are already well developed (the roots are generated from Linkedin data and user input). The trunk of the tree is the main skills path and branches are related learning options. 

A*** then divided our potential digital learning service into two distinct platforms:

1. Imagining Growth - Focuses on learning how you learn best and the joy of learning. The map of user peers is key, helping the user compare and discover different paths and methods. User learning and growth is something continuous, evolving and self-directed rather than happening in clear phases.

2. Imaginative learning - Focuses on visualising the learner’s future, the user path and goal setting. The Ai directs the growth of the user’s tree in phases based on completed tasks or projects.

Evolving Peer-to-Peer Support

We returned to our discussion of what features are most relevant to guided learners and what actually motivates learners. E*** explained her analysis of our qualitative research. She concluded milestones were one of the most important features for guided learners. This is because are confused about their direction or are so overwhelmed by where they are headed they struggle to stay motivated and structure their learning. Therefore, breaking learning and big goals down into manageable chunks is key.

After looking at the graph we also concluded that peer-to-peer support is really key. In many educational platforms there is a P2P community - that’s not new. However, a lot of communities do not work well at motivating users (MOOC’s for instance, which have a huge dropout rate). What we need is a strong, connected community that is motivated to support each other and in turn motivates users to learn.

We decided there should be the potential for:

Learning buddies

Small learning groups (5-10)

Small groups may meet physically if they are local, but in most cases would interact online

The wider, extended community of 1,000′s of users that can be followed and connected with

Model / lead learners in your field

Mentor learners - who finished your track already and can be asked for advice

The Pearson Ai would connect users to their ideal learning groups based on learning patterns, availability and skills being developed. It would be possible to connect with learning groups for support, advice or collaboration and to see their projects and outcomes.

Roots and an underlying theme

The team concluded that generation Y rarely plans more than 6 months to 1 or 2 years ahead - although they may have a long term underlying goal such as to start their own company or do a PhD. However, their “concrete” future vision is much more short term. Therefore our timeline should reflect that.

E*** pointed out that there should be a thread underpinning the learning that guides development and growth of the tree as time moves forward. This underlying thread would direct the Ai controlled tree using the interests, career goals and core “root” skills of each user. The tree itself is adaptable, changing the learning “branches” based on user choices and learning patterns. The Ai will also produce guidance and advice related to what it learns about each user.

Learning: Data, Methods, Strategies and Techniques

A*** reflected on our discussion and the fact that we had talked about a lot of content which should be categorised and clustered to focus our offering. We concluded that we shouldn’t try to cover every possible problem with our platform.

Therefore we divided the topics of our discussion into:

Learning Data - user skills, interests etc.

Learning Methods - project based learning, phenomenon learning, task based learning

Learning Strategies - visual learning, audio learning, mixed media learning

Learning Techniques - gamification, incentives, learning buddies

We summarised that our idea focused on an Ai generating targeted learning techniques for each user based on their data. Their learning would take place in a project based context with a unique p2p community.

Video Production and Smoothie Interruption!

The meeting came to an abrupt pause as the team refuelled on a delicious smoothie!

We then took a leap forward from concept development to the implementation phase! Deep breath - this means getting ready to make a video about our final proposal. 

K*** took pen in hand and fastidiously sketched out the first set of storyboards for our Organic Learning Platform. We thought it was important to have a clear, user-centred narrative with Has featured heavily in the video - showing the stresses and strains of being a transitional, as well as the great benefits and motivating features of using the 2027 Pearson platform! We aim to communicate this with a mix of live action and illustration, the illustrations will highlight all the key features of the platform in context.

Our homework for this week was to find video benchmarks, review data on learning motivators, write the video narrative script, visualise the storyboards in more detail and of course write this great blog!

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Smoothie Recipe:

2 apples

2 bananas

1 tablespoon of honey

handful of spinach leaves

Oat milk

pomegranets

Chuck into the blender and blender and blend away for a beautiful and drinkable green concoction! I look forward to seeing you next week.

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Week 6 - Linsensuppe

NO SLEEPY SUNDAYS!

We start our meeting at 1pm on Sunday, no lazy afternoon for us! As usual the team is full of energy and buzzing with ideas. We have a productive and fast-paced discussion defining the agenda before one team member finally reminds us we need a bit of fuel and should get down to cooking. Today it is a nostalgic student dish, a classic low budget eat out we used to get whilst studying late at University - lentil soup! To dig in to this healthy food yourself scroll to the bottom for the recipe.

TEACHER ROUND 1 - REFLECTIONS

It has been four days since the TEACHit meeting and Has has already had a lesson with K*** and A***. Even as we were planning our next moves H*** was undergoing another TEACHit session with programming tutor F***. Ko and A*** shared their initial insights whilst Eloise summarised her expectations for her first lesson the following day:

• Team member 1 (2D Design and Visualisation teacher) - Felt that at first the session was strange because she is not used to taking the teacher role where she is instructing a friend. However, both student and teacher relaxed as they got into the swing of things, especially when another student joined the class bringing some humour and a laid back attitude with her. It sounded like Ko had a successful class, Has could do some freestyle sketches alongside a peer without feeling judged or under too much pressure.

• Team member 2 (Time Management & Presentations teacher) - An interesting and well planned first lesson which mixed lecture style teaching with time management worksheets. Has was unfortunately recovering from his illness in the first lesson but has been dedicated in filling out his time management sheets each day. We look forward to seeing how these help him reflect and analyse over the coming weeks!

• Team member 3 (Research and User Testing) - E*** expected the first lesson to be a bit pressured for both the teacher to deliver great teaching and the student to do well. The team discussed how to reduce this by having more than one student or equalising the teacher-student power balance by having the student teach and become more of a collaborator or learning partner.

The group reflected on the role of the teacher once more and whether they should teach-learn with one student or with multiple. We considered the possible alternative teacher roles:

• Lesson facilitator (prompting and directing the other learner)

• Learning partner (equal - where both teach/learn)

• Learning co-creator (negotiating the lesson, developing lesson plans together)

• Learning buddy (Less 1-to-1 teaching, but more backseat support, following/giving feedback on each others progress remotely)

• Learning groups (p2p learning with template blocks and content blocks but no 1-to-1 sessions)

The team considered how teaching template blocks may reduce the pressure for the teacher and student. These would help teachers format each lesson and reflection with preset questions, reducing the amount of time and energy the TEACHit participant needs to pour into lesson strategising and planning.

MOTIVATION IS THE KEY!

The next point on our agenda was looking again at what the unique, core value of our proposal was. We realised that again and again the word “motivation” kept cropping up. A*** asked the key question, is creating a tool/system that provides motivation to learn more important than offering high quality content? The team ruminated on this, considering our digital benchmarks such as iTALKi, MOOC’s and digital learning apps. We also analysed our own experiences of heightened motivation and those of the ‘guided-learners’. What lies beneath a motivated learning experience? Contrasting the indy-learners with guided-learners and their needs has given us some idea.

We have also read that self-paced learning is on the decline, that it is a huge industry but only those providers offering one-to-one mentoring, mobile based gamified learning or a combination of both are doing well. We concluded that indeed, motivation is more important because self-paced learning often fails, despite filtering information to provide high quality content. It fails because students are not motivated to learn on these digital, self-paced courses. But why not? There are many factors:

• Lack of peer pressure (sense of competition / reputation) • Lack of peer support (communal problem sharing / solving) • Lack of deadlines & time pressure • Lack of clear milestones • No clear evidence of learning • Lack of social pressure (from parents / teachers) • Lack of expert mentoring / guidance to offer direction • No certificate or strong enough “reward” at the end (e.g. diploma) • No guaranteed outcomes (e.g. a job / higher income) • No overarching/guiding goal if you are a lost learner • The context - learning at home can be distracting

We acknowledged it is vital that our system is not simply another self-paced learning platform where learners are set-up to “fail” by all the above challenges.

P.S. Biscuit in above image is definitely good motivation!

VALUE PROPOSITION - BASED ON USER INTERVIEWS

We have been over the value proposition a number of times now! But it’s so important to get this right and make sure we know what is truly unique about our concept before moving forward.

We used ‘The Value Proposition Canvas’ which we had started with the week before. Each team member had outlined the gains, pains and customer jobs (i.e. tasks to be done) for each of their interviewees, including indy-learners and guided learners. These three components directed the Gain Creators, Pain Relievers and Products & Services that we highlighted as most relevant in our service.

K*** was well prepared, clearly articulating each gain and pain reliever the digital education platform would offer her interviewees. She then explained, based on her empathic understanding and ethnographic insights, which service the digital platform could offer that would most interest her users. E*** and A*** followed suit, presenting the interviewee learning needs and the unique value proposition for each potential users.

What services are interesting for Indy-Learners? • Using the timeline to refine/develop their goal (Sales rep) • Personalised/flexible learning (Sales rep) • Networking opportunities  (Sales rep) • Career advancement opportunities (Sales rep) • Peer to peer support / connection to people (Financial worker) • Gaining skills and experience (Financial worker) • Local connections - internships or volunteering  (Bank worker) • Project based learning (Bank worker) • Connecting to companies (Bank worker) • Intensifying a skill area e.g. facilitator (UX designer / tutor) • Becoming a temporary expert for their career (UX designer / tutor) • Sidetracks - opportunity for exploration (design researcher) • Industry insight / connection (design researcher) • Having a portfolio/cv maker (artist) • Automatic promotion (artist) • Market trend indicators (local & global) (artist) • Benchmarks & peer inspiration (artist)

What services are interesting for Guided-Learners? • Goal maker (PhD, game designer, media student) • Sidetracks (PhD) • P2P support / community (PhD, game designer) • Mentoring (PhD, designer) • Identifying current skills (designer) • Mapping careers based on skills / new skills needed (designer) • Local trends - skill relevance (designer) • Milestones - string focused (media student) • Changeable overarching goals (media student) • Hard skills development (media student, game designer) • Evidence of learning (game designer) • Structured learning process (game designer)

We realised a big issue for guided learners was anxiety - in relation to uncertainty about the future as well as the sense of being lost and lacking direction. At times this anxiety was created by a high number of options but uncertainty about the right choice. This turned the team back to a question that had cropped up earlier in our research - how can we make the right learning choices when we don’t know where we are going? For guided learners, defining the overarching goal (the “why” to learn) and clear milestones (the “how”) to get there is key. They are seeking the “why” and the “how”, whereas Indy-learners already have the “why” but are maybe a tad fuzzy on the “how”.

E*** will analyse which of these listed services would be the most important to guided learners based on data analysis of our qualitative research this week!

VALUE, VALUE, VALUE - GET IT RIGHT

Analysing and sharing our insights this way was very helpful in getting us to focus on the core value of our service. Individually we wrote down the top three core values and each then made an elevator pitch of the core concept behind our idea. This linked to those service offerings we had identified as most relevant.

A***’s Top 3 Values:

How to get relevant and targeted skill building 

Place based targeted trends opportunities/networks

Future visions

E***’s Elevator Pitch (Pearson advert style): Manage your learning journey with the new Pearson platform! Use smart Ai to match you with the best local career opportunities. Personalising your career vision with Ai will motivate you to develop your skills and reach your goals! We guarantee p2p support, embedded reflection, evidenced progress and high motivation!

These were great methods to focus our idea! We rounded up our day outlining the composition of our system; Data, map, content blocks and learning content. 

We agreed to make a lot of headway with heavy-duty homework! This week we set ourselves the task of rewriting our elevator pitches, list the top 3 values of our concept, fill in 1-2 business model canvases and make 1+ user journeys about how our interviewee would use the platform.

__________

Linsen Suppe Recipe:

• Red Lentils • Brocoli • Carrot • Ginger • Onion • Garlic • Celery • Basil • Salt • 1 Lemon

[epic-design-project-blog]

Week 5.2 Thai Green Curry or - Let’s get this learnathon started!-

The day had finally come when all those involved in the TEACHit prototype would get together to plan the month ahead... We were all excited know what our learner, H***, had already done and what his goals were. Also, we were happy to expand our weekly meetings to the rest of the gang involved in this very nerdy and useful experiment! F***, our programming teacher, joined the crew just when the dish of the day was being served. This time it was green curry with chicken and rice. A Thai delicacy that we all love to cook up on occasion, ever since it was introduced to us by our proficient chef Ko, originally from that region. (Recipe at the bottom of the page)

After the food fest, we went to H***’s room to hear him briefly present what he’s been up to these past couple of months regarding his thesis, and where he wants to go with it. 

He clarified that he would like to create  working prototypes of 3 mini-games meant to get users to critically consider corruption issues in developing countries. 

He set up clear goals of what he would like to accomplish within each area of teaching. This would serve as a further basis for the teachers to base their “curricula”, preparing the materials and content for upcoming lessons in relation to learner needs. 

 You can take a look at the whole presentation here: 

https://sway.com/tPfbTFtu4CwaWll4

You can see how we were all immersed in thought about how to plan our courses during the presentation...

After H***’s presentation, we did a round of explaining our own goals and wishes to the group. Most of us were happy to help a friend develop their ideas, but we were also hoping to gain some new and useful knowledge ourselves. We found out that simply by thinking about what we would be teaching within the next month, we were prompted to think about the knowledge we had (or didn’t have) in a new light. It also made us consider what sort of NEW knowledge the teachers would want to gain from the course. Learning how to animate seemed to be the category that was missing, yet would be vital to developing a good working prototype of a game. Perhaps we could get a one-time guest lecturer to give us all a quick lesson in this domain?

Often, when we become familiar with a certain knowledge or mindset, we forget what it’s like to NOT posses it, what constitutes this knowledge and what the underlying premises it implies. Solely by making a list of the concepts we want to teach, we reframed and “refreshed ”our existing skills and mindsets. And throughout the month we’ll keep asking ourselves whether that still holds true, and whether teaching is primarily a good way to consolidate existing knowledge, or does it help build and develop that knowledge in new and unexpected ways. 

Here we have our hardworking teachers, posing for their fans. We’ll see if the faces are still smiling after our midway meeting!

The last thing we decided to do was create a timeline with a little Has avatar at the beginning, setting off on his long journey. This “learning map” would hold information about when classes took place, how well Has was feeling before and after each lesson, and other important information. It is still a work in progress but it is very useful as an additional prototype for the ”learning map” concept we are developing for the Pearson competition.

We left with a sense of accomplishment. We had communicated a lot in this short time with a large group, and we managed to get everyone on the same page. Quite the bottom-up learning institution we have established here! Excited about the journey, we embark on it with eyes focused on the future. 

Until next week!

Thai Green Curry recipe

Of standard ingredients you will need:

1-2 chicken breasts

veggies of your choosing ( we used broccoli, mushroom and 2 peppers but carrots also work great!)

 300-500 gr coconut milk. (the more there is, the more “soupy” the dish will be)

a handfull of basmati rice

of the not-so-standard ingredients you will need*:

tai green curry sauce(careful,  it’s HOT)

3 strands of lemongrass

one piece of galangal

10 lime leaves

* all of these can be found in your local asian shop!

How to put it together:

Fry the chicken, along with the more exotic ingredients, in a deep pot for 5-8 min. Add the coconut milk, and after it starts to simmer, add the rest of the (chunky) pieces of veggies you’ve previously cut up. 

Serve on the side or over rice placed in a flat plate. Eat with a spoon!

This spicy dish is definitely one our our favourites- it’s quick and easy and guests love it without exception! We sadly didn’t take any pics, but we leave you with this stock photo that greatly resembles our final result ( just without the chills and the parsley ;)

[epic-design-project-blog]

TEACHit Preparations

Week 5

For once there was no cooking by the team in our design meet-up. We were treated to a hand made, authentic Italian risotto prepared by a chef from Argentina! We topped it off with a glass of French, red wine each and a Magnum for desert. To see his recipe scroll to the bottom of the post.

K***’s Service Masterpiece

On a full stomach we sat back and listened to K*** talk us through two brilliantly illustrated, users journeys showing how different users would utilise our digital education platform: 

The first journey involved an individual who discovers an opportunity to enter the therapy field in his local town. He uses the digital platform to build up the skills he needs to develop this career path. Through the digital platform he is hooked up with local experts who are able to offer him internships, mentoring and situated learning. He goes to the local therapist’s clinic for instance, to sit in on a session and build professional experience.

The second user journey illustrated how a user could build their skills in a more independent and self-initiated way through the platform. The user formed a learning path with a digital timeline of goals and milestones. To build the necessary skills that the timeline showed she needed, opportunities in the voluntary sector were highlighted. By gaining skills and experience in volunteer work the user was motivated to learn by doing meaningful work in their local town, subsequently helping their community as a positive by product. E*** and A*** were intrigued by the user narratives, A*** pointed out how valuable this local, voluntary work could be and how skills might be endorsed by the NGO or company the user volunteered for.

K*** also showed an illustrated vision of the learner timeline which would be created when the user signed up to the platform. The learner timeline is a record of all the skills of the user and also outlines future skill tracks and milestones which will help the user achieve an overarching goal. The goal could be “become a nurse”, “enter the design field” or “start own company” for instance, whereas milestones are more specific and might be “finish thesis” or “complete drawing of cartoon”. K*** mapped out how the user could identify a goal through a number of pre-set tags such as “become an expert in...” then “the design field” as a sub tag for instance.

Key Questions

K**’s service concepts were great food for thought! Our team review of her user journeys boiled over into a discussion about the ethical issues surrounding volunteer work and skill validation. We questioned:

• Does volunteer work undercut paid professionals?

• Does this matter if the learner is not an expert and the quality of their work is less? Expectations will be lower from the receiver of the learner’s service.

• Is volunteering for local projects or NGO’s more motivating because the learner feels like they are supporting a good cause?

• Who decides which NGO’s and companies will be linked to the platform? Does Pearson decide or is the platform open source and community led?

• How is the learning validated? Is there a stamp or certificate provided by Pearson or is it peer certified through reviews and recommendations? What if the learner’s work is of poor quality and they receive a bad review even though they have tried their best?

This final question about certification stimulated a lively debate amongst our team about our own peer review experiences with taxi services, code camp, italki, tandem partners and other services. The team shivered as we joined the dots between the desire for recommendations and “fake-nice” behaviour which was outlined in Black Mirror. Keep an eye out for an in depth post on our digital learning experiences coming your way soon!

The Learner Timeline

We moved on to mapping the learner timeline which we agreed is a core component of our concept. 

We realised this timeline is incredibly flexible, it can: 

Help “lost-learners” who don’t know what they want to do to identify potential career paths. by mapping their skills against people on linked

Help people who know what career they want identify the key skills they are missing

Support learners in reflecting on how they learn the best by using Ai to visualise your “learner style stats” and make suggestions

Link you to the community by highlighting comparable learners on the same skill tracks as you or find you a learning buddy to motivate you 

Highlight sidetracks and other career possibilities by showing the careers of comparable learners or identifying other learning routes based on the learners interests

Supports motivation by helping lost learners form a clear, overarching goal (which can change over time) then breaking that down into milestones - bitesized paths on the skill track which are clear and manageable

Reinforces learning through reflection by mapping out your learning patterns and filtering other potential routes

We reflected on the fact that Ai playing a key role in the learner timeline made it seem like anything and everything was possible! We knew the value of our concept could get lost so we decided to pin down the minimum viable product - in other words, the value proposition.

Value Proposition - From Losties to Indies!

The team decided, once we set aside the bells and whistle the key ingredients of our timeline are:

Help the learner set their goal and break that down into clear milestones

Support reflecting on learning i.e. learning through reflecting

Document & celebrate success, motivating the learner

Fluid/dynamic/smart leaner planning

Identify the unique way each learner learns best

E*** described the learner timeline as a meshwork in the sense that it is not a clear, straight path but may have sidetracks or twists and turns as the learner changes their goal or changes career direction. We know that the career ladder no longer exists in the conventional sense - with employees at the same company for 50 years working their way up from a junior to a senior position. Transitionals may change their career up to 10 times in their lifetime, within or outwith the original field they were trained for. Why doesn’t learning reflect this? 

A*** pointed out that perhaps a learner journey should look more like a tree than a straight “track” with many possibilities branching off it, just as she had visualised in her moodboard.

E*** went on to compare the learner timeline as offering the capabilities and tools to “guided learners” that “independent learners” already have. In other words: 

Those people that learn best are those who have a goal and can access the skills and information they need to learn to achieve that goal. 

When learners do not know what they are aiming for their learning stops making sense and they feel demotivated! 

Number 2 is a pretty grim situation we have all experienced at one point or another. The feeling is summed up very well by one of our interviewees:

“When I was an undergraduate... I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. In a modular a type of education the teachers of different content and modules didn’t communicate - so sometimes content from different teachers would overlap and I thought it was a waste of time. Or I didn’t get why I was being taught that. I didn’t know the overall goal of that year so I really didn’t like it.” - Female interviewee, age group 30-40

Combining the timeline with the TEACHit model is a way to test the effectiveness of the timeline and the hypothesis that the best way to learn is through teaching. This is also supported by our desk research and learning theories.

TEACHit Aims and Expectations

The team is excited about the upcoming TEACHit bootcamp, February will be full on for our learner H***! However, we realised we need to make sure to evaluate our level of success against our goals. Our learning goals for TEACHit are:

Does peer-to-peer education motivate you to stick to your goals more than other types of education?

How effective is project based learning and clear goals at motivating the learner?

Which learning activity is the most successful (e.g. reflecting, teaching, situated etc.)?

There are other questions we will keep in mind, but still need to decide whether they are a core value of our proposal or not:

How does active compare to passive learning in terms of effectiveness?

Is learning by teaching effective?

How do we implement learning in a “meshwork” format rather than a “ladder” and is it more effective and relevant to the user?

How important is the community connection for motivation? This could be in the form of a learning buddy or partner for instance.

TEACHit Templates

Our final activity for this design session was to reflect on our teaching and research methods for the learning sessions with TEACHit learner H***. We decided there should be communication between the teachers, a mid-point review and templates used by both the teachers and learners to help them reflect. Our question template asks the student/teachers questions such as:

How did you prepare for the lesson?

At which point did you feel most engaged and why?

At which point did you feel bored and why?

Which learning method did you find most effective?

Did the learning session meet your expectations?

We are looking forward to making a second paper prototype of our timeline which will test and ultimately co-create with our learner H*** in the coming weeks. For now, over and out!

_______

Risotto

You will need (serves 4):

1/2 onion 1 pepper 150g Chicken in pieces 150g Parmesan Butter 1tbsp Vegetable Stock 6 mushrooms Olive oil Dash of red wine (optional)

[epic-design-project-blog]

Bibimbab or “motivators are generators”

We started off this meeting as we do all of our epic design project meetings: with washing and copping raw veggies. We try to keep it healthy, as well as colourful with our meeting meals, and today’s was no exception. Our cooking ninja K*** was quick to guide us through this delightful Korean fusion meal (recipe at the end of this post). As we digested the fruit of her labours , we started writing down keyword descriptors of our 10 interviewees on one post-it, and their key quotes and insights on another, the aim of which was to present to each other, in a condensed manner, the outcomes of our interviews and any potential patterns we might have inferred from the data.

It was great to share what others have told us about their educational and working experiences. For an hour or so our all-ladies team took turns telling short stories of who the users we interviewed were, and how they saw the world as it pertained to education and change. Needless to say, this data is invaluable for the further development of our ideas. Our interviews are gold, and we were the miners, digging away at the answers we received. 

To make the information even more usable and presentable, we'll be making some data visualisations of it for next time (so stay tuned).

After that, we went no to share a couple of “scenarios” each of us prepared to help envision what our solution would look like from a user perspective. E*** presented her simply and vividly illustrated timeline of Lucy passing through different stages of her career life until 2027. This helped highlight were she might be in need of supplementary education services, which could be reached in tandem with the mentorship of a company employee... novel idea!

K*** then showed her concept of what an “end of life assistant” service would provide. Admittedly a detour from the educational topic, it was never the less a fascinating one. K*** had thought about the details of what a family about to lose a member might be in need of and how those needs could be fulfilled. A great case of service design! Check out her portfolio for more examples of good service design. 

Aleks then told 4 stories in which the protagonist stumble upon a helpful platform for assisted, peer-to-peer learning. Two aspects that were particularly interesting for the rest of the team were  a) the idea of using an existing network of peers to “nudge” you towards completing a project, b) the idea of an “educational timeline”- an dynamically changing, AI generated learning map for meeting future goals based on past skills and experiences. Something we will look further into for sure!

Our third activity was to then chart out the motivations/reasons for changing or staying in a “job state” from our interviews. There were many different reasons why our 10 interviewees chose to “go transitional”, and in the end we managed to cluster them into:

internal drivers 

negative incentives

and our interviewee’s we managed to cluster into two prominent groups, based on their preferred level of guidance, and long term goal setting ability and management.

independent learners

guided learners 

We thought it might be a good activity to also make customer profiles (part of the value proposition framework by Alex Osterwilder), where the pains and gains would correlate to the different motivators we perceived. We think this might help us match the best value propositions to actual user needs!

For next time, we’ll finalise the user profiles and come up with adequate value maps for each. We’ll be sure to share them here with you next week!

Bibimbap recipe

you will need:

some leafy greens- preferably spinach 

sticky rice (of the sushi kind)

a couple of eggs

some minced meat mixed with chopped garlic

and most important (and hardest to obtain), Korean hot red sauce. Find it in your local asian shop!

what you do with it:

Prepare the rice in a boiling bowl of water until soft. 

Then, after frying the veggies and greens in a pan, and getting them all scrumptious, fry those eggs you have ready, sunny side up. After those are done, sauté the meat so that it’s not raw when you mix it all up with the rice. 

Put the rice in the bowl, and scoop up the other ingredients as you move down the kitchen counter, where everything has been displayed in wonderful order (this means Korean sauce is at the very end). 

As the Germans say, Guten appetite! 

See ya’ll next time. 

[epic-design-project-blog]

TEACHit and Teach them to Fish

Week 3

This week the team enjoyed a sweet pancake Sunday brunch to kick start the meeting! We were joined by special guest and co-chef H*** to make a range of delectable, fruit and cream covered pancakes. For a pancake recipe and topping ideas check out the ingredients at the bottom of the post :)

TEACHit

Throughout this week team member A*** was hard at work designing an initial lesson mock-up for our first concept prototype entitled ‘TEACHit’. TEACHit is a digital learning platform for adults based on the theory that one of the best methods for information retention and understanding is teachin.

The team agreed to employ an agile methodology throughout the project. This means testing different ideas as soon as possible so it can be validated or developed rapidly based on user feedback. We will prototype the experience of a TEACHit student at the start of February. So watch this space, we are going to act as teachers and can’t wait to get started!

Filtering Interviews - a lot of great insights!

We all aimed to interview at least 3 people this week and next week - thank you to all our amazing interviewees for taking some time to talk.

As always interviewing is stimulating and incredibly inspiring but also of course, time-consuming. Transcribing the interview, then filtering the details and sifting through for the most relevant insights takes a lot of womanpower. The team used a thematic colour coding scheme and an ‘Interviewee Summary Card’ (see image below) based on ethnographic research methods to help the team hone in on the important content.

As you can see from the card we decided the most relevant information was (dun dun der) the interviewees...

Best way to learn

Top motivations to learn

Drivers to change job/career

Most important factor when choosing a job

Biggest highlight in higher education

Biggest challenge in higher education

A summary of their lifestyle

We wanted information that would tell us about the user lifestyle to indicate which contexts Generation Y users are most likely to need education. Their learning drivers, educational highlights and low points will inform our development of a great learning experience! Finally, we want to analyse their skills, career choices and motivations for change because Generation Y are predicted to change jobs at least 10 times in their lifetime and those are the transitional points when they are most likely to need to learn new skills. This is one of the reasons we refer to our Generation Y user group as transitionals!

What to learn?

Using initial insights from our desk research and our interviews we had a brainstorming session about further concepts for digital education platforms. We got stuck on the challenge of whether our service should teach every skill or focus on one industry or skill. As one of our interviewees pointed out, something designed for everyone often suits no one!

What will the digital service be like?

Based on interviewee aims, learning drivers and goals we determined four models for the digital education platform:

1. A company led, project based learning platform

2. A digital learning platform which is peer-to-peer and involves physically meeting in local public buildings or spaces in learner groups or one-to-one.

3. Competition led, project based learning platform

4. Independent, exploratory and supported/structured learning platform

The Three Horizons Model

E*** shared a method called The Three Horizons Model to analyse relevant future trends in education. Trends are divided into three categories:

• Horizon 1 (H1) - Business as usual and mainstream e.g. Universities, PhD

• Horizon 2 (H2) - Alternative, newer models increasing in popularity e.g. MOOCs, iTalki and Instructables

• Horizon 3 (H3) - Weak signals or very new models that few people have experienced e.g. Emotionally enhanced learning, ubiquitous learning

Reflecting on H3 trends or learning methods gave us a snapshot of what concepts seem radical now, but could be mainstream in future! It’s important to keep these H3 opportunities in mind as we design for 2027.

Transitionals in Transition

We returned to our discussion of the interviews and how our interviewees use technology and what the challenges are that they face. We realised that interviewees could be broken down into three types of learner:

1. People driven to make a big career “jump” or are “pushed” into another area that needs totally new skills because they want something new or because they are forced by the job market.

“The hardest part is that you have to keep on reseting - setting aside the knowledge you’ve gained in order to learn something new.“ Project interviewee, male, 25-30 years

2. People “stepping” into another profession who are able to transfer and utilise their core skill whilst developing other skills

“Using Adobe, indesign, illustrator I am using a lot in all of these jobs. In an internship in Cologne and a job in Glasgow. In all of these jobs, you always use indesign, illustrator, photoshop.” Project interviewee, female, 25-30 years

3. People who are “stumbling” who don’t know what they want to do OR want to do something different but also don’t know what they want that to be.

“i didn't want to keep doing it- so I switched completely. I was Fuelled and motivated when I studied  cultural studies in cologne. Turns out that wasn't really it as well… but thought hang in there...” Project interviewee, female, 25-30 years

A*** made a fab illustration summarising these learner types and clearly communicating the change experience. As you can tell from the “step” metaphor, it is probably the people who are “stumbling” or “jumping” that need the most learning support to stay motivated to learn and understand their direction.

Teach a Woman (or Man) to Fish

We concluded the session by discussing the idea that it is most important to learn how to learn so you can adapt to different contexts in the future. Ko astutely pointed out we should “teach a woman (or man) to fish” rather than teach skills. The skills are not as important as learning how to learn because we have no idea what skills people will need in 2027! We reflected on the fact that there are tons of coding and UX courses online now because in 2017, that is where the jobs are. In the future these courses may become defunct.

A Digital Memorialist, an End of Life Therapist and a Virtual Reality Architect walk into a bar...

Our next step is to develop scenarios of the four digital learning models we developed based on our user needs and future jobs from 2027. We will use our interviewees to design the user journey of when and why they would use digital education to achieve their career goals. We searched the web for jobs of the future and selected a Digital Memorialist, End of Life Therapist and VR Architect.

______________________

Pancake Recipe (For 10)

You will need:

100g plain flour

2 large eggs

300g milk

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Caster Sugar

Bananas

Toppings:

Sliced apples

Berries

Mango

Whipped cream

Maple Syrup

Peanut butter

[epic-design-project-blog]

Who are we looking at?

Week 2 - Part 2 (the apple of our eyes)

After our desk research and discussion on what’s possible in the future, it’s time to put our fingers on the area we want to focus on.

Lay it out

We lay out findings from the desk research that we find interesting and try to find a common thread. Our mutual interests lie in the realm of alternative, non-traditional learning.

The Transitionals

We try to think of the target group that we are interested in and has potential to conduct research with. This bring us to the group of people who we’d like to call ‘the Transitionals’. The transitionals are those who are working in a different field of profession than what they were educated for. Transitionals can include individuals who are employed in fields of work that are either insecure, prone to disruption or automation in the next ten years. They may also be in job roles which are rapidly evolving due to technological progress. This means transitionals need to be ready to “reskill” or “upskill” through conventional or alternative education on a regular basis throughout their career. This will be a societal challenge in 2027 and beyond because of the increased international demand for educational resources the need to constantly “reskill” will cause.

What’s next?

We are excited to talk to the transitionals to get to know their valued skills, their motivations, their views on educations and how they acquire the skills they need for the changing scenes.

[epic-design-project-blog]

What does the ‘www’ tell us about the future of ed?

Week 2 - Part 1

After the holiday, we are back again with our desk research on the future of education. Although we have set out some keywords and questions from the brief, for the desk research, we set ourselves loose on the world-wide-web, staring at our screens to take in trends on the topic and interesting case studies that are already up and running.

Here are the key points we found interesting...

What is changing / will change in education?

Technology will allow learning to take place anywhere, anytime and in different forms - which means it is more personalised in the sense of space, time, learning pace and approach

Learning will be project based which builds up critical thinking and problem solving skills

Test and evaluation will change forms. Students will be evaluated on how well they can analyse, synthesize and apply the knowledge

The role of teachers will surely change, they will no longer be the one who pass on the knowledge but will become a mentor or guidance (since students can ask anything from google anytime)

School, as in space, will become a place to practice, explore and experience hands on skills. It will be more focused on the interactive learning activities

Trends and technology that will drive the demand for jobs (therefore influencing education through)

Increased self-employment

Technological Change (internet of things, 3Ds printing, etc)

Globalisation

Demographic Change

Environmental Sustainability

Urbanisation

Increasing Inequality

Political Uncertainty

Worker Mobility

Starring at the screen is never too tiring, so keep on reading!

Here are links that we found these interesting points from. Read on to see more details!

Future of education by Thomas Frey

http://www.futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/the-future-of-education/?nocache=1

9 things that will change in education in 20 years

https://elearningindustry.com/9-things-shape-future-of-education-learning-20-years

Quotes on future of education by different scholars…

http://blog.ed.ted.com/2016/02/12/whats-the-future-of-education-teachers-respond/

Pearson’s research on the job market scenario

http://www.pearsoned.com/higher-education/products-and-services/services-and-solutions-for-higher-ed/services/smarthinking/

Minerva School - case study

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/9993/what-is-minerva-project/

Can I successfully learn a language online? 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/21/can-i-learn-a-language-online

It’s a wonder how could we still be hungry after Christmas holiday.

Yes, we could, because human... And because of this one recipe A*** found on her new fancy cook book. 

The epic burger with MANGO!

You will need:

burger buns

minced beef 500g

Pepper to taste

Salt 1 tbs

mango

lemon half

lemon zest

chopped parsley

mayo

jalapeño (chopped)

lemon (other half)

honey 1 tbs

This is how you do it:

Get the meat part right, combine salt and pepper with the minced beef. Shape them into a paddy ready to be fry away!

Prepare the highlight, mango, while your friend is flipping the paddies. Cut the mango into thin stripes. Add lemon zest, half the lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Not to forget, the chopped parsley. Mix together well and move on to prepare sauce.

Here’s the sauce. Mix together mayo, chopped jalapeño, another half of the lemon, honey, salt and pepper to taste. 

Get on the assembly line now, lay the paddy nicely on the bun, follow closely by is the mango and top it off with the sauce!

We hope you enjoy this surprisingly-burger-can-be-refreshing recipe!

On the next post, part 2, we’ll tell you about ‘the apple of our eyes’.

[epic-design-project-blog]

How can hanging out with friends become productive? - we make a project!

Week 1

This week is a kick off of our project (four weeks ago from the day this post was published). We are three design graduates trying to move forward in our career and interest by coming together and get into the competition hosted by D&AD and Pearson. This blog is our documentation of delicious food, fruitful discussion on the topic of education - future working scenario, and of course; our project documentation! 

The box of brief

First things first, in our first meeting, we read through the brief from Pearson and extracted the keywords that we would explore further on in our research. What we extracted from the brief can be categorised into three groups; values, trends and questions. Here goes...

Values of education:

Education is flourishing and there are growing (globally) demand for quality education

Accessibility for education is easier -for different targets, be it students or those who are improving relevant skills (in local community as a public facilities or entrepreneur)

Fair quality in cost effective through online channel

Tear up the rule book / education as we know it

Focusing on ‘the experience of learning’

Reinforcing the critical thinking and strategic thinking

Trends:

Education is the global conversation, how to respond to the growing demand?

New way of living, new way to learn - education is only a click away (moocs)

Informal education

Questions:

What roles will technology play in the future of education?

How to accommodate the growing number of population, and demand for education?

What opportunity to improve at scale?

What are the pain points in existing education for students?

Can technology be used to learn from its users? (like facebook tailoring our feeds according to us)

How might brands have a role in the future of education?

How might the cityscape play a different role in education?

The Brief: Key Questions

Identify an issue, challenge or opportunity presented by the global scale of education in 2027 – ten years from now.

Design a product, service or campaign to address it.

What does education really mean tho?

We believe that education means more than the matter of passing on or acquiring knowledge. Therefore, we brainstormed and try to think of what does education mean, so we can take other aspects of education into consideration later on.

Social status / social molding

Individual and societal progress and achievements

Inspiration and direction

Education comes with community, institutes, people, materials, government and standardisation

Silo / top down

By products like friends, social interactions

Provide sense of security

Enlightenment & curiosity

Connection to the world

Wait, where’s the fun part again?

Full stomach is the drive of our brains... More #foodporn to come!