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READING BUDDIES
- Design a teacher-facing report for Magnetic Reading program
Magnet Reading is a teacher-led Reading Comprehension program for grades 3-5 student which includes a teacher resource book, a student book, and a teacher-facing report. This project is to help design the teacher-facing report to connect all the learning pieces - to help the teacher better prepare for their lessons and better identify the opportunity to support students at different levels.
Scope and Duration
3 design phases
Aug 2020 - Nov 2020
Team
1 Reading Product Manager
1 Digital Product Manager
8 Engineers
2 QAs
1 UX Designer - Me
1 Visual Designer
My Contribution
User Needs Research
Design Conceptualization
Wireframing
Prototyping
User Testing Cohost
Tools
Sketch
Axure RP
MAGNETIC READING PROGRAM
Based on the learning theory that all students can benefit from grade-level text reading regardless of their levels, instead of providing different level texts for different levels of students, Magnetic Reading features "Paired Reading", to encourage different level students to read the same text in pairs in the teacher-led classroom.
Beyond that, there was also an ambitious plan: to expand this print reading program into a data driven experience, which is to use student assessment data to inform the decisions in the teaching process. This is the goal of this project.
The image source: Curriculum Associates Reading product team
So, How should this data experience look like?
and how could it fit in Magnetic Reading program?
USER NEEDS RESEARCH
Design and product team worked together and identified the questions that Magnet Reading report should help teachers answer:
– Which content might be hard for my students?
– Who should I pair together for reading?
– Who is ready for the new standard?
– Who should I keep and eye on? Why?
As the first step to figure out these questions, I mapped out the lesson flow within a unit in hopes of finding a pattern.
Magnetic Reading includes 6 units at each grade level. Each unit explores a grade-appropriate science, social studies, or social-emotional theme. Each unit has 6 sessions with some sessions dedicated to reading and some others focused on comprehension and mastering the standards.
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Based on the lesson flow and the primary focus of the report, I mapped out all the user touchpoints - where the report can come into play in the reading program implementation.
It became clear that we need this report to serve two basic purposes:
1. Used before the class: get a sense of how the students are doing, if they need scaffolds/prerequisite lessons.
2. During the class: use this report to quickly put students into pairs based on their Lexile reading measure score.
EARLY IDEAS
Then I explored some ideas and see how to combine this two function in one report:
(1) Student grouping for personalized instruction (2) student pairing list for in-class paired reading
After a couple of trials and internal feedback collection, the team tended to separate the two functions and let then live in different spaces. At the same time, we kept exploring the pedagogical guidance. The learning content greatly shaped the basic structure of the report.
USER TESTING
At a point the team couldn't decide on what information to present to the user before they launch the reading pairs. We were debating on whether the report should be more prescriptive and just tell the user what to do, or more descriptive and show them the student's readiness on the reading texts.
At the same time, I was also not so sure about whether the reading pair model is something that the teacher wants. The team decided to do a user testing to clear the uncertainty. 6 teacher participants were recruited for 1 on 1 (Zoom) interview with our researcher and me. Both versions were presented and participants were prompted for their preference.
Testing Findings
01/
Version A (icons) wins for its simplicity actionability, but it feels a little lost when clicks in to the reading pairs
02/
Participants liked the student readiness data, but thought it'd be more helpful if it's report on single student as opposed to the whole class
03/
Participants loved the reading pairs, and 3 of them indicated that they would love to have it projected in front of class (but have the Lexile score removed in projection mode).
RETHINKING THE USE CASE
It seemed like we were so close to the answer, until the users nudged us saying "hey, we want to use this in the classroom. You need to think about this use case." I knew we wanted the teachers to use our digital product in the classroom. It'd be great help for them if we can make this happen and make it seamless. Although we have mapped out all the touch points, there is another piece that's missing: the situations - in which context the teacher will be most likely using this report. It is important to understand the different factors that could influence teacher's needs.
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If we take a step back and think about the classroom, it probably looks like this.
The teacher will probably need to do read-aloud activities with the non-decoders. Instead of printing out the pairing list and read it aloud to the students, how nice it would be if she only needs to click a button, and have all the kids find their reading buddies?!
The Solution
INTRODUCING MAGNETIC READING REPORT
In a teacher's world where everything is demanding their time, Magnetic Reading Report gives teacher's time back by making reading lesson prep simple, effortless, and data-driven. It informs teachers of their student readiness for the lesson in ways that are understandable and actionable.
Student Grouping makes sure every student gets the right learning scaffolding
Reading Pairs allow the students work in pairs - saving teachers time on class management while get the best result
Visual Design: Trade Loeffler
Switch texts and see each student's readiness for the reading (see the color change)
Prototype demo - colors are not identical with the actual visual design
Demo reading buddies in class with just one click
(Sensitive student information is removed for this mode to keep student privacy)
THE LAUNCH
Game Changer for Reading Class Teaching
Magnetic Reading product was launched in summer 2021. While most schools are still easing into the new semester post pandemic, some early users have already given the whole program and the report very positive feedback. While we're still in the early implementation stage, we hope to collect more data on the product success in the near future.
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Here are what teachers said about Magnetic Reading:
“I love the reading pairs!!! I used to spend so much time setting these up.” - Kathryn O.
“I wish I had this! Wow - absolute game changer!” - Nora L.
“Teach forward!” - Elizabeth B.
“Class Lexile - so powerful and useful!” - Maggie B.
NEXT STEPS
The next release of the report, we are planning to allow the user to have the freedom to change the pairing based on their knowledge about the students or special situations. At this moment, all the pairing and grouping are recommended based on the data we have for each student. If the user wants to make change, they still need to handle it offline. In the future we hope to incorporate this experience into our product.