2Be - future of education

Project description

For this project, we had to design a tool to enable VMBO students at school or/and home to personalize their own form of education in order to keep them motivated to fulfill the system learning goals. The current school system is designed for the “average student”, but this average student does not exist.

Context

School has been the same for hundreds of years. If you walk into a high school now, it will be exactly the same as you might remember it. This has to change.

We grow up to become unique individuals. It is formed from an early age by culture, knowledge and experience over the years. Finding your own identity and preferences starts as early as elementary school, but one of the most significant changes happen in high school.

But everyone in high school is expected to learn the same way and achieve the same goals. It's a one-sided education package and interpretation focused on the different levels (Kader, MAVO, HAVO, VWO), driven by roster limitation and occupations by the executive institution. As a result, students experience limited freedom of choice.

Results

During our research we found out students are not setting personal goals for themselves or know what they want to do. But they also do not get the opportunity to explore their options and try out things they might like. The current system only creates more stress for the students as they need to make choices in the end but are not given any time and space to explore options for themselves.

We created a concept that challenges the current educational system. With 2Be, we propose a new way of learning that is more focused on the individual. Students are able to work towards their own goals instead of just passing subjects and getting a grade. It is more about their soft skills, talents and personal development. 2Be also focuses on the personal growth of a student so that they can improve in subjects that they are already good at instead of seeing that as a “completed subject”. We proposed a prototype to support the concept.

Also we did not forget the teachers within this concept. Within 2Be, the teacher's job is changed. Teachers will not be spending their time on preparing endless lectures and giving lectures for hours on end. They become experts instead of broadcasters of information. Their skills and expertise can be used to help students develop and gives teachers the opportunity to work together with students instead of just standing in front of a classroom.

Methodology

We started to formulate research questions, for example:

• What are the requirements for students to pass their subjects?
• What do the teachers have to do and how do they feel about students getting to choose more?
• What are the effects of making the wrong choice when they are young adults?
• What are the psychological effects of having more choices?

We answered the questions through literature studies. After this phase, we interviewed the students to get insights into their thought processes. We also interviewed the teachers and sent questionnaires to both students and teachers to better understand the struggles they have within the current system. We did a lot of brainstorming to develop ideas and a narrower concept idea. By making a concept flow, it became more clear. For the 2Be concept, we created persona’s and used those for a prototype to envision how our concept could be used and in what context. At the end of the project, we made a high fidelity prototype using Figma.

About the project group

he project group contains four different educational backgrounds: ICT & Media Design, Communication - International Music & Event & Entertainment, Communication & Multimedia Design, Industrial Engineering. We worked Agile and worked with the Scrum method. We spend around 24 hours per week on the project for a duration of 12 weeks, including three demo’s and three sprints.

Video

Downloads

• 2be_final_paper.pdf