Mapping the Emotional Experience of Digital Education (Elementary)
We visited three Title 1 schools and observed how they used digital learning software in an effort to understand how to make better products. We also observed children at home while they played video games to better understand what motivated them.
Outcome:
Our research helped us hone in on reading, rewards, and framing in the prototyping stage of design.
Our Team:
Garrett Hedman, Meredith Wilson, Christine Zanchi, Elysa Greenberger, Sara Stump
Erase the Line Between Game and Learning
Before: Games as Rewards
The software would give games to children as rewards for doing well. Children tended to avoid these games and only played them when they were checking out of the lesson—they weren't motivating.
After: Games + Learning Combined
Children asked for more "math and reading" in their games—learning was fun, and the games were taking that away. The few moments educational games were included were often children's favorite parts, with them paying more attention and caring more about getting the answers right.
Be Challenge-Centered
Before: Easy Leads to Confidence
The number-one complaint from students was that their lessons were "baby lessons"—too easy. Further investigation showed that students were often getting problems wrong but still labeling the lessons as too easy.
After: Give Challenges They Care About
This led to a six-month project where we looked at creating "weight" in problems to give a stronger sense of achievement when students answered them correctly. Things will always feel easy when there are no stakes.
Lean In to Failure
Before: Sweep Failure Under the Rug
When children got a problem wrong, they were given the correct answer and quickly moved on to save face. Children felt robbed they couldn't solve the problem again after they started figuring things out.
After: Failure Generates Attention
It's when children fail that they pay the most attention and are most apt to ask for help or advice. In future iterations, we only offered advice after they got something wrong—and children started paying much more attention.
Traditional games went on too long and didn't reengage students.
Kids are most ready to learn when they answer wrong, but teaching rarely starts there.
This fourth-grade girl fell in love with the simple game of getting a frog over logs because it was a game and learning combined.
Children have a considerably different perspective on what it means to "know something."
Children didn't feel like they were getting things wrong--a key piece to helping them feel like they were learning.
We wrote and gave a SXSW talk on this exact insight: the feeling of learning is key.
We had to come to terms that for most children, reading assignments quickly became boring.
MOXO Sensors showed arcade games were not engaging students as planned.
This is the first thing students saw when reading. How might we make an introduction to reading better?
We saw questions were engaging students in a meaningful way.
Prodigy was engaging kids through the game, not the learning.