#designforeducation

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?

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!

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

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.