Job Training Cirriculum: January 2013 Update by Design Impact

Learning Systems at Quest Alliance January 14, 2013 Eva Miller, Design Fellow Design Impact

ÂŠ Design Impact 2012

Quest Alliance Creates programs and services to prepare youth for a better future: Quest is a non-governmental organization that designs job training solutions for young people who have been failed by India’s educational system. English language and vocational training matter, but the true heart of Quest’s approach is life skills and work readiness, with a growing emphasis on active learning methods. Students understand themselves better, grow in confidence, and see work and education as a path to greater goals for their lives. Works with partners to deliver programs and services: Quest Alliance does not want to be in the service delivery business and creates partnerships with industry, education, and vocational organizations to deliver their programs. They also train facilitators to assure Quest’s educational philosophy becomes reality in the classroom.

Quest Alliance offices in Bangalore, India

Create a system for learning that scales: Design structured information that works across all programs, from a single piece of active learning to an online environment that supports learners, facilitators, partners, and Quest staff

The project challenge

ÂŠ Design Impact 2013

ONE: Diary/Field Study to better understand the daily lives of our initial audience for a learning management system: facilitators

TWO: Create a content framework that encompasses Quest’s educational philosophy and clarifies active learning

Milestones from November 3 to January 15

THREE: Begin to define the features of the learning management system we’ll need

Identified… Facilitators who match the desired audience from earlier work with staff: “eager/overwhelmed teachers”

Three from the Equip Youth vocational education program and two from Skills to Succeed program Screened them and collected background information Created a paper diary for participants Asked them to keep the diary for 7 days and make 3 entries per day ONE: Diary/Field Study

Waitedâ&#x20AC;Ś We began in late October, but many participants had delays because of festivals, holidays, or planned breaks between program batches Some do not teach every day, so it took 2-3 weeks to get enough entries from them Facilitators found it hard to schedule a time for me to visit their classroom, review the diaries, and walk through a typical day for them (field study). This took an extra 6-7 weeks to do ONE: Diary/Field Study

ÂŠ Design Impact 2013

Emerging themes… Time. Some neglect home life, many come home late, too tired to prepare for the next day. Travel is often an issue and can take as much as 3-4 extra hours every day. Most report preparing over 2 hours a day. Product opportunities: structured materials follow a pattern and take less time to “decode.” In active learning, most of the “content” is provided by the students, which lessens the need to commit a lesson to memory ONE: Diary/Field Study

Emerging themes… Keeping students engaged. Students don’t come or come late, and many can’t focus long on the lessons Product opportunities: connect curriculum more firmly to work preparedness, use more active learning methods, and run student design sessions to improve curriculum and see what is most relevant to their lives.

ONE: Diary/Field Study

Emerging themes… Student-Facilitator bond. Students crave the facilitator’s attention and the relaxed classroom atmosphere. Product opportunities: create continuous feedback through the system to give students attention that promotes performance. Support communication through social tools that can use mobile technology, like SMS messaging, but collect conversations in the system.

ONE: Diary/Field Study

Emerging themes… Support. Some wonder if their organizations know or care what they are doing. Co-trainers lean heavily on each other. Product opportunities: create online community that gives facilitators more colleagues with whom to share issues and ideas. Allow peers to review each other’s work. Make key leaders at the partner organization part of this community or create more continuous reporting to put success stories in front of them ONE: Diary/Field Study

Emerging themesâ&#x20AC;Ś Perfectionism and passion. All spend several hours every day to be wellprepared and take it hard when class goes poorly. All expressed their love for this work and how rewarding it can be. Product opportunities: we can reward passion by calling out extra effort and letting other facilitators see this appreciation publically. We can help reduce the pressure to be perfect by minimizing process-heavy curriculum and using more active learning, instead. ONE: Diary/Field Study

ÂŠ Design Impact 2013

There is still one more diary and field study to collect—the last facilitator finally started to make entries. I also feel we should have another male facilitator complete a diary and field study to balance out this group. But there may not be time to do this.

Most of the field study interviews with facilitators are transcribed. All need to be analyzed for patterns and insights that can be converted into a “Day in the Life” facilitator journey. This is an experience map that calls out pain points and opportunities for our product.

ONE: Diary/Field Study

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Festival season, holidays, weddings, and end-of-year vacations often meant I could not make progress because people were away for extended periods. I did not foresee this and could not plan accordingly. I had to move ahead with other design activities while waiting for diaries and appointments for the field study visits

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The loss of a month means trimming the project plan. This will remove the iterations of internal and external workshops to perfect our content model. These can continue, but the design work will have to move forward with initial findings only.

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Facilitators seem ripe for burnout. Most in our study are new to this field, but already seem over-burdened, though some report they are getting more comfortable in this role. All have other responsibilities at their organizations besides delivering Quest classes.

Concerns at this point

Content Framework Design Sessions Giving shape to Questâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational philosophy