Online Trainings

Interactive online courses for Science Action Club's after-school educators.

process

interviews -> requirements gathering -> persona development -> service design -> needs validation -> low-fidelity prototyping -> concept validation -> design system creation -> high-fidelity prototyping -> usability testing -> production

team

Katie Levedahl, Laura Herszenhorn, Andrew Collins, Cesy Martinez, Rik Panganiban

duration

2017 / 4 months

Problem Statement

Science Action Club's afterschool curriculum has three units: Birds, Bugs, and Clouds. Each unit is associated with a number of sessions, and each session has a number of associated activitiies. A number of these activities require the afterschool educator to have a technical understanding of scientific concepts as well as competent group facilitation skills. However, in reality, a lot of afterschool educators are not career educators and have little experience with either science or school-age children.

Outcome

Science Action Club's online courses are teach afterschool educators around the nation the skills they need to lead activities with middle-school-age young people. They cover relevant scientific concepts, tips for facilitating activities, and short knowledge checks. After an educator completes an online course, they are directed to take part in an in-person workshop with other educators in their region.

Selected Assets

A selection of assets from the prototyping process are presented here.

[Figure 1] The three units in the SAC curriculum.

[Figure 2] A high-level outline of a SAC online trainings.

[Figure 3] The outline of the Bug Safari training, which has 12 activities in it.

[Figure 4] In context, the introductory slide for Activity 9.

[Figure 5] A zoomed-in view of the summary slide upon completion of Activity 11.

[Figure 6] A zoomed-in view of an interactive knowledge check, one of four in each curriculum unit.

[Figure 7] A zoomed-in view of a 'Take a break' slide, one of three placed in each course to make sure that the educators remember to step away from their computer from time to time.