Context | Goals | Solutions
Over the course of three months, going through a design process, our team developed a project to tackle the challenge we were presented to design a Learning Experience related to sustainability, specifically about waste reduction or waste management.
Going through the iterative design process we developed a non-formal self-care workshop targeted toward the graduate students at Boston College. Our goal was to interest students who were not previously interested in sustainability by shifting the traditional perspective of looking at the issue.
We decided to create an experience where learners would learn about sustainability in an enjoyable setting: During the workshop, students would receive sustainable and affordable materials from which they were prompted to create three self-care products and fill them in their new sustainable packaging. While making, students would engage in conversations around sustainability and consider the benefits of making their own self-care products instead of buying them not only for the environment, and their health but also for their financial situation with the help of the Self-Care journal that we designed.
Design Decision
Research
One of the first steps in our design process was researching, seeing what is out there, how others are tackling similar challenges, and what we can learn from it. Being new to the topic, we devoted a considerable amount of time to the process to be able to understand all the components of the challenge. When it comes to sustainability, we knew that it all boils down to one thing - action. That is the reason that we wanted to develop a project that will, in fact, move people to action, and help them develop dispositions towards a more sustainable lifestyle. In order to achieve the goal, we needed to understand what are the specific things that move people into action and what stops them.
motivation
We used motivation as entryways to introduce students to sustainability prom a positive lens. Our specific population was motivated to meet new people, unwind during the exam period and save money: we made sure to incorporate those specific motivation components to keep students' engagement throughout the process.
mental model building
prior knowledge and experiences of learners is important in mental model building. We made sure to bring students expertise in their personal lives and connect it to the new information provided: for example, when learning about sustainable and safe ingredients, learners reflected back to their own products at home and looked up the ingredients in them. Students also used their habits to link new ones to them; in the last component of the workshop students were thinking about all the instances of their own self-care rituals they could link the process of making new batches of self-care products.
Design Decision
Learner Population
Taking what we learned about sustainability, we proceeded to understand better our population and see how we can use what we learned from the research with our specific group of learners: Undergraduate students at BC have a very big social community, where learners interested in various initiatives create student organizations such as sustainability interested ones and organize events for their peers! Graduate students, on the other hand, do not have those opportunities as they live off-campus, and are busier but still need such opportunities to engage in events with their peers. Taking into account the specifications of graduate student life, we have designed the experience to fit their needs and lifestyle. Graduate students at BC, as students living off-campus, are looking for opportunities to save money, new ways to live more sustainably and meet new people throughout the process.
Design Decision
The Components
The Components
To make sure the workshop was a success for the learners and would help us reach out learning objectives we paid attention to what learners would do during the workshop and how we would support them in the process.
Our concept was for the learners to interact with sustainable materials to make their own self-care products. The decision was made by looking into our population of learners and realizing that they prefer to participate in hands-on experiences and like creating something for themselves and taking it home with them.
We made sure the sustainable materials the learners would interact with were both the ingredients and the packaging to help them shape their mental models about sustainability.
We wanted the learning to transfer into their everyday life which is why we made sure the components that were chosen were simple, affordable, and easily found in one's pantry.
Our learner population also pays attention to saving money which is why we chose to concentrate on self-care products and give them skills and materials to make them in the future, thus avoiding buying them from the stores and saving money.
All these components were chosen to make sure learners' mental models would expand regarding sustainability and how easy it is to integrate into one's life, as well as show how beneficial and frugal it can be for oneself.
We made sure the process would be scaffolded by the self-care guide we created for the learners. The guide had the following components to make sure learners would reflect on what they learned and have a useful resource after the workshop.
Mental model building and chunking were facilitated starting from the cover of the journal. We made sure to show the learners that sustainability starts from the ingredients and ends in the packaging of it by diving into the journal and the workshop process into "inside" and "out".
We wanted learners to reflect on their previous experiences and build on their knowledge by asking them to look up the ingredients and the packaging of their own store-bought self-care products and compare them with the very simple and safe ingredients we were suggesting.
Reflecting in general was a big part of the project, which is why we made sure to have blank spaces to reflect on each page.
The population of our learners suggests that they do everything to save money, that is why embedded a financial component in the workshop, where learners would reflect on all the money they spend on store-bought self-care methods and how much they would save if they continued making the DIY products at home.
To sum up, we consider the specifications of our learner population, we wanted to show that living sustainably is easy, inexpensive, and fun at the same time by scaffolding carefully with the materials we use, the prompts we give, and the questions we pose.
Critique
Social Justice: Although we made sure that there are various ways learners could express themselves throughout the process by either writing, speaking, or typing, we were not prepared that the physical space would not be accessible at all. Besides not accounting for that the materials we provided for making self-care products and the process of making them would not allow anyone with physical differences to participate.
Addressing learning objectives: Graduate students usually join the workshops in a drop-in manner; We designed the experience so that the ending matters for reflection and learning to happen. it would be better to redesign the workshop so that the learning component would stand on its own without necessarily having all the students with each other from start to finish to achieve the learning objectives.
We intended the workshop to be non-formal, but after looking back, we observed that we unintentionally had some components that made the environment more formal. We were standing in front of the learners and were very traditional in instructions while they were seated, students were looking up to us to start conversations. As a future iteration, it would be better to use the specifications of the approach we choose and make sure they are well integrated.
We did not plan sufficient time to receive coherent feedback from learners in our second iteration. It is essential to make sure that you get reach feedback and iterate on the product more, so it would have been better to spend more time on designing the feedback component in a way that learners feel comfortable and have time to reflect on components that hindered their successful participation in the project.
It took us several iterations to make sure we had our learning objectives and ways to get there. As this was our first experience using a systematic approach to designing for learning, we had a challenging time keeping our objectives in mind and thinking about how would our experience help learners get there.
What I did well
Variation among learners: As we spent time learning about our population of learners, we made sure to include elements in the experience that would make sure various learners could comfortable participate in the experience and learn: we made sure learners could express themselves in various ways throughout the process both personally and communicating with other learners
Learning Technologies: I think we were successful in creating learning technologies that would scaffold the experience for the learners. The self-care journal that we developed not only helped the learners throughout the process to learn, reflect and wonder about but also as an additional push and support if they wanted to incorporate the sustainable self-care process in their daily life
We were successful in learning about our population of learners and using that knowledge to embed engagement in the experience: Throughout the experience, we could see how the components that we slowly embedded in the experience were keeping the learners engaged and motivated throughout the experience. In this project, we had big stress on understanding who we are working on and what motivates and engages them.
What I learned
Objectives and Details
As a learning engineer, I started appreciating small details: the main objective of the design is essential, but the small details in the process that might seem trivial actually can either make or break your project. Keeping the harmony between having the objective in mind at all times and considering small details as essential in the design is important in the design process. This experience was a good lesson for me to never overlook the details of the project that I will be working on.
Learning about your learners
As individuals have traits and characteristics, certain groups have shared ones as well. I learned the importance of learning about your learner population as it gives important insights that will make your experience engaging for them. I have also learned that you get to know your population not only in the research phase but also while observing them in testings, which, also can contribute to your knowledge about them.
From Problem to Solution
I started to appreciate designing going from the problem to the solution. Before this experience, I would usually start designing by searching for a solution first. Although it is possible to design from that perspective, you get a better result when you start thinking about the problem you are trying to solve and designing your solutions based on it. It gives a chance to look deeper into the issues and eliminates the possibility of having a product that does not address your problem and learning objectives.
If you are interested to learn more about this project, here I have recorded the details, and lessons learned from each testing and critique I have done for this project.
*This project was done during the first semester of my MA program: Special thanks to the LE cohort, professors, BC Murray House for graduate students for their support.