Repository navigation
MS3
In MS2, we did interviews and made journey maps. We looked at five different problems:
- Student Brigade
- Campus Interactive App
- Recyclable & Reusable Materials Marketplace
- Wellness Made Fun
- Gaps in Childhood Learning Processes
Why we chose Gaps in Childhood Learning Processes:
- It helps poor rural schools where students fall behind
- Teachers told us: no tools to test students, information is everywhere, no internet
- The journey maps showed teachers are the key people who can fix this problem
Our team had a brainstorming meeting.
Diverge = create many ideas
Converge = choose the best ideas
We did this process:
- Look at what we learned in MS2
- diverge
- converge
- Pick the winners
- Connect the winners back to teacher problems
Our team sat together. We asked: "What are ALL the ways we can help teachers assess students, group them, and plan lessons? No idea is bad."
We wrote sticky notes with 42 different ideas:
Ideas about Testing Students: Quick quiz that scores automatically, recording students reading, drawing to show learning, students check their own progress, paper forms, testing in small groups
- Ideas about Grouping Students
- Ideas about Activity Planning
- Ideas about Helping Teachers
- Ideas about Tracking Progress
- Ideas about No Internet
Figure 1: All the sticky notes with 42 ideas from our team
After we had 42 ideas, we had to choose which ones are best.
We made a scoring table. We gave each idea points (1 to 5) for five things:
- Works without internet: Is this important? Rural schools have NO wifi.
- Cost: Can we build it? Is it cheap? Low cost = high score
- Helps learning: Does this actually help students learn better?
- Can we build it: Can our team make this in 4 months?
- Teachers will use it: Will rural teachers actually use this?
Every idea got 5 numbers. We added them up. Total = 25 possible points.
Our Score Table:
| Idea | Works Offline | Cheap | Helps Learning | Can Build | Teachers Use It | Total/25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper form + checklist | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 24 |
| Teacher picks groups | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Digital report card | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 22 |
| Voice recording test | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Pair weak and strong | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 24 |
| Video showing activity | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 21 |
| App for teacher sharing | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
| App groups students auto | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 20 |
| App for offline testing | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 21 |
| AI predicts student success | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| AI help for teacher | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| Quick quiz auto score | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 18 |
| 500 activities library | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 20 |
| Video tutorials | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 18 |
| Lesson plans step-by-step | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| Track attendance | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
Our Choice:
We picked all ideas with 18 or more points.
We want long shot ideas that might have less than 18 but they have some friction with our current goals such as:
- AI needs internet
- Teacher sharing app needs internet
- Voice recording needs good phone
Figure 2: The best ideas put into 4 groups
All 42 ideas came from MS2. Here is how:
From Sofia (foundation person) interview:
Sofia said: "Teachers need tools that work when there is no internet."
This is WHY we gave big points for "works offline." Ideas like AI and teacher app got score 1 or 2 for offline because they need internet but there are still usefull for sofia.
From Aty (teacher) interview:
Aty said: "I keep information about students on paper. It is messy. I lose things."
This is WHY we liked ideas like "digital report card" and "attendance tracker." They solve Aty's real problem.
From journey maps:
Both teacher journeys showed: test student → make groups → plan lesson → teach → check progress
So we organized our 42 ideas in 6 categories that match this journey. Ideas that help many steps got high scores. From the 42 ideas, we selected a shorter list for MS2 based on which ones best matched the teacher journey and Aty's core problem. The full set was kept as reference; the reduced list was what we scored and prioritized.
To decide which problem to focus on for the semester, we applied the Divergence–Convergence Pattern taught in class. During the Diverge phase, our team explored several solution directions around the same core problem gaps in childhood learning processes in rural and under-resourced schools ranging from a fully digital classroom progress report, to an ML-based leveling system, to a collaborative platform connecting educators and foundations, to an AI assistant for lesson planning.
During Converge, we evaluated each direction against the empathy maps and interviews we had already gathered including the interview with Sofia and the journey maps built around educators and confirmed that the role of the educator, not the child directly, was where the platform could have the most leverage: educators are the ones responsible for guiding and adapting each student's learning path day to day, especially where resources are limited.
The Four CategoriesMost
- Rational: Practical ideas that are easy to implement and fit existing processes
- Most Delightful: Concepts with the highest potential to impress or emotionally engage users.
- The Darling: The personal favorite idea of individual team members or the group.The
- Long Shot: Unlikely or radical ideas that carry high risk but offer massive upside if successful
To deepen our convergence process and guide feature prioritization, we applied the Four Categories framework. This let us evaluate our features beyond raw functionality, weighing feasibility, user delight, innovation potential, and long-term vision. Each feature was classified into one of four categories as The Rational Choice, The Most Likely to Delight, The Darling, and The Long Shot.
To further refine our decision, we grouped features into functional areas as progress tracking, level assessment and grouping, communication and collaboration, engagement and motivation, insights and analytics, and connectivity and access support. This confirmed that the problem space was not only relevant, but structured and feasible within the scope of the semester each functional area has at least one Rational Choice feature that can ship early, with room to grow into the Delight, Darling, and Long Shot features later.
To make sure this prioritization holds up beyond our own assumptions, we're building empathy maps for the range of people who interact with this problem, not just the primary educator user as classroom educators, school leadership, foundation coordinators, and family members at home. This broader lens is what surfaced features like Simple Parent Notifications and the Nearest Connectivity Point Finder, which wouldn't have come up if we'd only mapped the teacher's perspective.
Based on this classification, our initial development focus is on The Rational Choice features, since they directly address the most critical pain points inconsistent leveling, paper-based records, and unreliable connectivity with high feasibility and immediate value. With the establishment of a stable core experience, we would introduce the features of The Most Likely to Delight in order to enhance engagement and motivation among teachers and families. The Darling and The Long Shot features open up possibilities for differentiation and growth in the longer term and will be looked into in subsequent versions when the product design is more advanced and more user data is collected.
With all of this in mind, all documentation and design decisions from here forward refer only to the joint tracking platform for educators and foundations in rural and developing areas
/>
The solution consists of an offline-first collaborative platform for educators and other educational collaborators, focused in primary education, where they can follow the progress of schools, classes, and their students. Through the platform, they can assess, organize, plan, and monitor the learning process, both in remote and rural areas and in urban schools. Although the solution can be used in different types of schools, it is mainly focused on supporting rural and underserved schools that have limited access to educational resources, support, and internet connectivity.
The platform allows educators and foundations to manage information in a more organized and accessible way, while also making it easier to share and update information between schools, foundations, and other educational institutions. This creates a more connected and continuous way of monitoring the whole learning process, regardless of the school's location or internet connectivity.
The platform will consist of different features and tools organized into separate screens, each related to a specific area of the learning process: the Today tab, focused on general statistics and an overview of the learning process; the Groups tab, focused on organizing students; the Assess tab, focused on evaluating students; the Session tab, focused on planning learning sessions; the Attendance tab, focused on tracking attendance; and the Sync tab, focused on synchronizing information with collaborators.
The solution solves the selected problem by not only providing schools and foundations with an offline-first tool that prioritizes schools in areas with no access to Wi-Fi or an internet connection, but also by making the management and access to information about schools, teachers, and students much easier. Previously, managing this information was difficult due to the physical tools and different processes used to collect and organize it, especially in schools that face educational inequalities.
On the other hand, the solution not only addresses the digitalization of this information, but also provides a more adapted tool that makes the information more intuitive to understand, rather than relying on long reports or spreadsheets that ultimately do not provide a complete view of the academic process. This is especially important in schools that need greater support due to limited resources or difficulties managing and following their educational processes.
It also goes further than simply recording information by actively supporting teachers throughout the learning process. Instead of having to rely on multiple sources or research points that might not be adapted to the current situation of the students, the platform provides organized information that can be used to better understand their learning process and support their needs, including the needs of educators.
Finally, the platform not only provides information but also helps foundations and collaborators update it, creating a continuous process in which information can be followed and improved over time. This allows the solution to have a real impact on students' and schools' learning processes rather than simply storing information.
Since the platform supports different areas of the learning process, we will present the examples in a somewhat chronological order, showing how the solution can be used throughout a school day and how the information can later be shared with foundations or collaborators.
1.Taking attendance: The teacher needs to take attendance at the beginning of the class, so they can record it directly in the Attendance area of the app. This allows them to keep the information organized and monitor students' participation over time.
2.Organizing learning teams: The teacher needs to separate students into learning teams, so in the Teams area they can create groups based on the students' different learning levels. This allows the teacher to organize the class according to the students' current needs.
3.Assessing students: The teacher can evaluate each student's individual learning process in Math and Reading in the Assessment section of the app. This allows the teacher to record their current learning levels and follow their progress over time.
4.Planning and following a session: The teacher can use the Session area to plan and follow the structure of each learning session. This helps them organize the activities according to the learning needs identified through the assessment process.
5.Sharing information with the school or collaborator: The school directive or collaborator can access the information recorded by the teacher once it has been synchronized through the Sync section. This allows the information collected by the teacher to become available to other people involved in the educational process.
6.Following the school's learning process: The foundation researcher or educational collaborator can use the collected information to follow the progress of the school, teachers, and students. This gives them a more complete view of the learning process and helps them identify where additional support may be needed.