Designing a flipped classroom tool for teachers to track student progress

Timeline

4 weeks

Role

Product Designer

Company

schoolhouse.world

Khan World School

Team

Product Manager

Engineer (2)

Design Manager

Introduction

Schoolhouse.world is a Sal Khan (Khan Academy) ed-tech initiative that builds teaching tools. Khan World School (KWS) is an online school of 200+ students and teachers.

Both students and teachers at KWS use Schoolhouse.world for learning and teaching.

Problem

KWS encourages a flipped classroom approach. Teachers deliver synchronous daily seminars but students engage in self-paced mastery of course material.

Because learning is self-paced students progress independently of each other. Therefore, teachers must track the progress of their students.

Outcome

The MVP was shipped in August of 2022. It will be piloted with teachers at Khan World School in Fall 2022, a full-time online school of 200+ students and teachers from around the world.

Group students by class

Most teachers teach more than one class or subject. To manage students between multiple classes, teachers can create classrooms for their respective students to join.

Monitor student progress

Teachers would like a high-level understanding of overall class progress. The table visibly displays certification progress for every student in the class.

Zero-in on individual students

Sometimes, there are students that struggle more than others. To obtain more insight into the individual needs of their students, teachers can view individual details for each student.

User research

The project team talked to teachers using Schoolhouse.world about their current experience, and I defined the key insights.

We discovered the current experience was unsatisfactory – Why?

Information overload

Most of the time, teachers only required a high-level understanding of overall class progress. Currently, teachers received individual progress reports from every student they taught, which meant the information they reviewed contained too much detail.

No visibility

Self-paced learning meant students must be continuously monitored. With the current experience, teachers had to request updated progress reports from every student every time they wanted an update.

Designing the classroom experience

Our approach was to group students into classrooms.

Because most teachers taught more than one class, they currently monitored a mixed pool of individual progress reports from students in different classes. Classrooms would group students by class. We knew teachers typically relied on class rosters (lists of students in each of their classes) to keep track of their students and there was no need to change existing systems.

But in designing the classroom experience, I encountered a problem. Our user database didn’t keep track of whether a user identified as a student or as a teacher.

Classrooms had to be designed for both roles with the goal of a teacher to create classrooms and the goal of a student to join classrooms – How?

Option 2 was shipped. Eventually, we would want to scale this feature so it can be used by peer tutors and their students, not only professional teachers. Peer tutors are teachers, but are also students of other peer tutors. The tabs help these users keep their two roles distinct.

Designing the progress monitoring experience

Teachers needed to know at any point, and for any student, which unit tests were not attempted, in review, completed, or rejected. How can we keep all this information scannable?

Option 2 was shipped. It was important for teachers to see per student progress so they can focus on individual students who are struggling.

Iconography

I also curated an icon set for the progress monitoring experience. I first had to decide which icons would be used to represent each of the statuses – not started, complete, in review and rejected.

I also decided how these icons would be grouped together.

Learnings

Share work early, even if it’s sketchy

At one point in this project, I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my work with team members because I felt like I hadn’t made any decisions and was still exploring options. Upon sharing however, I received very valuable and directional feedback.

Collaborating in parallel with engineers

At one point in this project, I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my work with team members because I felt like I hadn’t made any decisions and was still exploring options. Upon sharing however, I received very valuable and directional feedback.