TEACHEM

A digital tutoring assistant to manage shifts, lesson plans and monitor students’ progress and homework.

Timeline

  • 16 Days (> 2 Weeks)

My Role

Team

  • Solo Project

  • Prototype designer

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED

Tutoring can include an overwhelming workload of creating lesson plans, assigning and marking homework and ensuring that students are steadily improving.

Tutors who self-source their clients or teach in professional classroom settings are burdened with the tasks of organisation and maintenance. There is an increasing need for a simplified method for carrying out such roles to support tutors and increase work efficiency.

THE SOLUTION

Create, Plan and Assign.

Creation of lesson plans in advance organises files and holds them in one reliable place

  • Pre-planned lesson plans saves time as tutors can allocate it for multiple lessons and reuse them for several students

  • Enables planning for upcoming lessons to ensure gradual student improvements

Lesson plan management

Organised databases for homework that needs to be marked and completed

  • Filters for subject, completion status and date allow for easy identification of specific homework

  • Tutors can clearly see marking workload and prioritise students who have been waiting for longer

  • Assigned homework section shows the students who have overdue or incomplete homework, allowing tutors to keep track of their progress

Reviewing and creating homework

Tutors can monitor a student’s overall progress and their improvements in specific subjects or areas

  • Having a visual tracker assists the tutor in knowing which areas to focus on during the lessons, facilitating further improvements

  • Tutors can share the student’s progress with their parents, who can then observe their child’s studies and communicate any concerns with the tutor

Tracking progress in specific areas

USER RESEARCH

Tutors want to be efficient yet still make a noticeable impact.

I utilised Purposive Sampling to gather 8 tutors of mixed gender (ages 22 - 56). 4 participants were independent tutors who self-source clients or work through an agency, and 4 who work for a formal company and teach in classrooms. Semi-structured interviews: 12 questions, 3 topics - (Challenges with managing student homework, Methods for creating lesson plans, Monitoring student progress).

Key Insights

USER PERSONA - THE NEW TUTOR

Lisa Crimpson | 25 Yrs old | New independent tutor - Stressed, Overwhelmed, Kind

Lisa is looking to change her career to teaching and has been self-sourcing clients to tutor on the weekends. She mainly obtains clients from posting on relevant websites or social media, and has recently made quite a user base. However, she has been struggling to balance her current part-time job with the ad-hoc requirements of her tutoring. Lisa values her free time and socialising, however, spends hours marking homework and creating lesson plans every week. List finds it difficult to have to determine what lesson plans to assign each students yet still ensure they are improving. Moreover, she wishes she could digitalise the homework marking, as she still receives physical submissions from students.

User Story

  • Maintain a good work-life balance and maintain personal hobbies

  • Quickly plan lessons ahead for shifts every week to have more free time

  • Keep track of homework and mark as efficiently as possible

Goals

  • Dislikes having to search for new ideas for lesson plans

  • Struggles with marking high volumes of homework and giving meaningful feedback

  • Dislikes having to search through folders on laptop for specific files

Pain Points

IDEATION STAGE - LOW-FI USER FLOWS

DEVELOPMENT - KEY HI-FIDELITY SCREENS

The final prototype and design decisions.

Dashboard displays upcoming shifts clearly for efficient planning

  • Colour is utilised for easier distinguishing between subjects/students, promoting an aesthetic and minimalistic design

  • Upcoming lessons are prioritised with a calendar view for easy future planning

Lessons plans organised by titles and structured into timed blocks for easy navigation

  • Separation of content promotes seamless coordination of lessons

  • Flexible content block rearrangement allows users to customise their lesson plans and reuse sections for faster lesson creation

Subject-specific progress reports and charts simplify tracking and facilitate report writing

  • Addresses parent’s concern about their child’s progress

  • Pre-generated responses for student progress reports alleviate tutors from repetitive writing tasks

Homework feedback is easily provided using markup tools and comment features

  • Digitises the process of physical homework marking, allowing for easy storage and sending

  • Consistent icons across platforms ensure easy recognition and recognisability

PROTOTYPE WALKTHROUGH

SUMMARY

My reflections... and what would I have done differently?

Facilitate the creation of lesson plans and homework marking - Thinking of a way to expedite homework marking and lesson planning was a bit tricky, as it is difficult to avoid teachers having to mark physical papers. Hence, I tried to make organisation a priority for users to avoid having to leave files everywhere; however, the impact of this on efficiency is still uncertain. In the future, I would emphasise means to facilitate these processes rather than just management methods. Perhaps the incorporation of AI to plan lessons based on the user’s feedback would be quite handy!

Clarify homework marking - The distinction between “Submitted” and “Assigned” homework is a bit vague, so using better terms to separate them such as "Finished submissions” v “Awaiting completion” would better clarify the databases. Additionally, I would consider merging them into one table to make it easier for tutors to scroll through using filters.

Further link student reports with progress reports - The student progress charts were meant to make writing reports easier, so to make the content flow, I would introduce a feature for the tutor to be able to include a summary statement of the student’s overall or specific subject process for visual evidence in the reports. I think this would also encourage the tutor to make sure they complete the progress tracking after every lesson, ensuring the student receives consistent feedback.