Acuity

Exploring how to help educators better understand and support student’s diverse learning needs.

Role

Lead Designer
Research
Branding
Development

Created For

Undergrad
Thesis Project

Created In

8 months

Created With

Figma
Mural
VS Code

Overview

Many students struggle to learn effectively within the educational system and often educators don’t know how to help.
‍In fact, only 30% of general educators feel strongly that they can successfully teach kids with learning disabilities. All students learn differently and creating individualized learning plans for each student can be a challenge. For my undergraduate thesis project, I looked at helping educators better understand the needs of their students and the challenges that they face so that they can better support students who are struggling.

Problem

Diversifying Learning Content 💡

Traditional educational systems frequently overlook the need for diversified learning content, resulting in a lack of curriculum that caters to the diverse needs of learners. Additionally, educators are often aren’t prepared to address these diverse needs. This gap in support further exacerbates the challenges faced by students with varying learning abilities.

Solution

To target this issue I designed Acuity, a classroom management tool that allows educators to keep a record of student observations and habits and provides them with personalized recommendations for teaching methods and strategies that target those behaviours. This allows educators to add methods and activities to their lesson plans that directly cater to the needs of students who are struggling, ultimately increasing their learning effectiveness.

Design Process

Research Phase 1

Understanding Diverse Learners

It was initially clear to me through my personal experience as a tutor that there are many gaps within the education system for supporting individuals with learning difficulties. My goal during the first phase of my research understand these gaps and what challenges exist for students with learning difficulties in the educational system.

Learning About the Neurodivergent Experience

What societal barriers exist for individuals with learning difficulties?
How do their difficulties affect how successful they are in the education system?
What support currently exists for people with these difficulties? How available and how effective is that support?

Finding Answers

To better understand the barriers these students are facing, I conducted interviews with students who grew up with learning difficulties, I observed one-on-one tutoring sessions with children with learning difficulties, and I did a literature review of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines to understand best practices for optimizing learning for all learners.
‍

I then used the triangulation method to find themes across the different results. This helped me to identify several reoccurring issues that cause challenges for students with learning difficulties in the educational system. The common themes that I found were:

Support

Those who have received more support for their learning difficulties had a better understanding of their difficulties and a better overall relationship with school.

Curriculum

Curriculum often does not support different learning needs or cover helping students to develop the executive functioning skills necessary for effective self-regulation.

Neglect

Many students feel that not many people in their life understand the need to address their learning difficulties and feel uncomfortable asking for support as a result.

Research Phase 2

Shifting Focus to Educators

After better understanding the experiences of students with learning difficulties, I realized that educators have a more significant impact on their educational experience than I initially thought. Because of this, they have immense potential to support people with learning difficulties. This understanding led me to shift my focus from students with learning difficulties to educators as my primary user group.

Learning About the Educator's Role

What role do educators currently play in providing support for individuals with learning difficulties?
What strategies exist within the school system to help students with learning difficulties?
How prepared do educators feel to help students that are struggling?

Getting into the Classroom

In this phase I continued to conduct interviews, however this time I spoke with educators, specifically working with the elementary age group. This helped me to gain insight into how the educational approaches teaching children with learning differences and strategies that teachers implement. I also did an observation session in a public school classroom to learn more about classroom dynamics and the lesson planning and execution process. Ultimately this allowed me to see what is feasible to execute within a classroom environment.

Getting into the Classroom

In this phase I continued to conduct interviews, however this time I spoke with educators, specifically working with the elementary age group. This helped me to gain insight into how the educational approaches teaching children with learning differences and strategies that teachers implement. I also did an observation session in a public school classroom to learn more about classroom dynamics and the lesson planning and execution process. Ultimately this allowed me to see what is feasible to execute within a classroom environment.

Gaps in the Educational System

For the second phase of my research, I received insight into the different strategies that are implemented within the educational system to adapt content for those with learning differences. I discovered some gaps that exist within the educational system in providing support for these students.

Support

Teacher’s frustrations aren’t necessarily not noticing that students are struggling, but rather that they are not sure how to help them once they have noticed they are struggling.

Strategies

It is important for educators to restructure the way they teach to better support their students. However, this can often be difficult, and many do not know effective strategies to do so.

Inadequacy

Many teachers often feel unequipped to support students who are struggling but hesitate to seek help due to the expectation that they should know how to handle these situations.

Challenge

How might we help educators better understand and support students who are struggling within the education system?

Designing the Solution

Addressing the Problem

I wanted to help educators teach students more effectively by monitoring student behaviour and understanding student needs so that they can cater content towards the individualized needs of their students. To achieve this goal I wanted to provide them with an application that allows them to

Easily keep a record of observations about their students
Extract insights about their learning habits based on those observations
Receive suggestions for learning activities to incorporate into their lesson plans which target the learning needs of their students

Mapping the Teacher's Journey

Before beginning development, I created a user journey map to better understand the needs, thoughts, and expectation of the teachers and administrators who would use the application. Using data from my research, I charted the various touch points and interactions that each user group would have with the system. This helped me to construct a basic structure and define necessary features for the application.

User journey map of a teacher setting up their classroom, adding a note, browsing notes and suggestions, and saving an activity

Visualizing the Core Tasks

I also created a user flow diagram of the core tasks. This helped me to understand what steps would need to be taken to complete each task and what features would need to be prioritized in the application.

User flow diagram of the process of saving suggestions for a specific student

Concept Wireframing

By utilizing insights I gained from diagramming the user journey and flow, I identified that recording student observations, forming insights about learning habits, and receiving suggestions about learning strategies would be three key features that would be essential for enabling teachers to successfully reach their goals. I then created a rough prototype of what each feature would look like in the application.

Key Feature 1

Recording Student Observations

Wireframe of pop up for creating a new note for the student

Key Feature 2

Form Insights about Student Learning Habits

Wireframe for student home page after notes have been added

Wireframe for student info page where you can see data gathered on the student's behaviour

Key Feature 3

Receive Suggestions for Learning Strategies

Wireframe for pop up for specific learning strategies

Creating a Visual Identity

Following the development of rough prototypes, I moved on to create mood board to establish the visual identity and branding of the application. This included exploring different visual styles to inspire the design direction, as well as choosing a colour scheme, typography, and name that resonated with the application’s purpose and preferences of the user group. This style was then applied to create more iterations of the prototype in higher fidelity.

The Solution

Acuity

My solution is a classroom management tool that allows educators to keep a record of student observations and habits and provides them with personalized recommendations for teaching methods and strategies that target those behaviours. This approach can transform the impact of learning content by removing barriers for students in the learning process and giving all students an equal opportunity to succeed.

Manage Your Classroom

Create a digital record of your students and organize them into classes.

Mockup of Acuity home screen with suggestion of the day, classrooms and access to recent notes

Understanding Student Habits

Keep a record of your student observations to better understand their reoccurring habits and challenges.

Mockup of student notes page when several notes have been added

Personalize Learning Content

Receive suggestions for learning activities to incorporate into your lesson plan that are personalized to your student's needs.

Mockup of the learning strategies suggestions page