Designing modular language resources for Secondary school students.
Cengage Australia
Introduction
Cengage Australia wanted to create a new digital solution to support student learning for their Nelson Secondary language series, including Japanese, German, Italian and Indonesian. The new digital resource would have to complement the textbooks to provide a holistic learning experience appealing to different types of learners.
My role in this project consisted in leading user research to understand user needs and requirements for the digital platform, as well as developing a product vision and long-term roadmap. I also worked with the interaction designer to shape the design of the product and led user testing to gather feedback from customers.
These resources can be accessed through the NelsonNet platform.
My role
User research
Product strategy
Content strategy
Co-wireframing
User testing
The research process
The main goal of the research was to understand the current language learning journey for teachers and students. This included mapping how different language skills are taught (such as listening, reading, writing and speaking), defining how digital and print resources are used in different stages of the learning journey and prioritising customer problems to solve. To this end, I led a research project using a mix of quantitative and qualitative techniques.
Competitor analysis
Teacher and student surveys
Teacher and student interviews
Card sorting
Empathy mapping and personas
Customer journey mapping
Research snapshots
What did the research reveal?
At a high level, there is a scarcity of centralised and curated language-learning digital resources aligned to the Australian Curriculum. In particular, content for certain language skills, such as syntax and listening comprehension, is lacking.
Solution requirements
1. Easy access to a wide variety of resources for different learning styles.
2. Resources that are modular and easily integrated into teaching.
3. Ability to visualise and track student progress.
4. Using gamification to engage students.
5. Alignment to textbook and the Australian Curriculum.
6. Focus on listening comprehension and syntax skills.
Defining the platform vision
Together with stakeholders, designers and developers, I ran a workshop to define a vision for a digital platform aligned with the textbooks, based on the requirements uncovered in the research.
Introducing the Learning Space
The final solution consisted in creating an ecosystem of digital language resources (available through the NelsonNet digital textbook) that align with the Australian Curriculum and complement the content of the textbook. They target all language skills, with a specific focus on syntax and listening comprehension (as that content is lacking in the market).
These resources are bite-sized and modular in order to be flexible for various teaching contexts and, most importantly, they are gamified to be engaging for students. Last but not least, they link to a reporting platform so that teachers can track student progress.
Creating the quiz modules
The decision was made to prioritise the quiz module as the first stage of the new language ecosystem. The goal for these activities was to have a modular structure where different question types can be easily reused across a variety of languages and subjects. My role here was driving product requirements, mapping the content structure for the quizzes so that each question meets a learning goal, collaborating on the wireframing and leading user testing sessions to incorporate teacher and student feedback.
The final result
The new quiz modules were released for all key language series including Japanese, Italian, Indonesian, and German. The innovative use of modular digital resources aligned with the textbooks was so well-received by teachers that Cengage decided to invest in creating similar resources for other subjects such as Maths and Physical Education. In addition, it secured buy-in to develop the other resources we had planned for the ecosystem, such as games and interactive videos.
Listening Comprehension Quiz Example
Chapter Quiz Example
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Based in Melbourne, Australia.