top of page

SELECTIVE: interpersonal skills + academic practice app

Winner: Michigan Virtual EdTech Pitch Competition, 2022
95% Teacher Satisfaction Rating
92% Student Satisfaction Rating

Teacher user flow: activity creation and assignment

This flow takes the user from log in through choosing an academic platform to creating the Selectivity, grouping students, and assigning it.

High School Principal

I am most concerned with student apathy. They are withdrawn, difficult to reach, hard to get ahold of...The anxiety and depression increase is apparent."

Middle School Spanish Teacher

They need their hand held...before they were much more autonomous...They don't know how to interact with each other."

Assistant Superintendent

[My biggest concern is] social-emotional learning and trauma-based relative to the pandemic and the community."

Final Homepage Mockup

To simplify the usability, I condensed all of the main actions to the header. 

Goal Statement

Our EdTech learning platform will let students practice academic content while encouraging interpersonal communication which will improve academic performance and interpersonal skills and engage students in the school environment.

100% of the interviewees expressed concern with the interpersonal skills of students!

Introduction

In the aftermath of COVID, teachers encountered significant hurdles in re-engaging their students. With the return to in-person learning, behavioral issues and widening learning gaps complicated daily instruction.

​

Given the chance to develop a concept for an EdTech pitch competition, I set out to design a tool that helps teachers boost student interpersonal skills while maintaining a focus on academic achievement.

Problem Statement

Teachers need a way to seamlessly integrate academic practice and interpersonal communication skills for students. In response to the increasing trend of isolationism and difficulties with human interaction following the COVID pandemic, strong interpersonal skills are crucial to success beyond high school.

Solution

We created Selective, an revolutionary online program that integrates interpersonal activities with existing online academic tools.

​

I led the research and design process detailed below and developed the app, while my partner supported in all aspects.

Honing in on our users

Our problem was one that desperately needed solving.

Filling the gap

Ours is the only product to add interpersonal activities to already existing content practice. 

Realizing our vision

Selective will integrate with content practice tools.

Approach

Honing in on our users

As educators, we saw a massive decline in our students' interpersonal skills when we returned from quarantine.

​

  • Interviews with educators from around the country verified that the learning gaps and social-emotional issues aggravated by the pandemic impacted all teachers and students.

​

  • Creating user personas and subsequent problem statements clarified the issues teachers were facing.

​

  • I conducted a second round of interviews, focusing on additional stakeholders--administrators, superintendents, and parents--to broaden our view.​

My competitor analysis verified we had identified a gap in the market.

Define

  • The affinity map based on our interviews led to six key themes and four priority insights we wanted to address.​

​

  • How Might We questions narrowed the focus of our solution.

Affinity Map

  • I led an ideation session to develop solutions. We funneled ideas into a solution with:

    • Crazy 8s

    • Storyboards

    • Worst Solution Ever

Filling the Gap

Filling the gap

There were so many stellar academic products on the market already, so we realized that the best way to solve our problem was to create a layer of interpersonal activities that integrates with the online academic practice tools teachers already use to help students communicate and have fun with each other. 

With the competition just around the corner, I needed to design our product, so I created:

  • the main teacher user flow of creating and assigning a Selectivity.

  • the information architecture.

  • the site map.

  • wireframes, both on paper and digitally.

  • the mockup, making color palette and design decisions.

  • one teacher user flow in a low- and a high-fidelity prototype.

​

Most importantly, my partner and I designed a variety of interpersonal activities, our Suite of Selectivities, to appeal to a wide range of teachers and students.

Realizing our Vision

One

Student mental health was a major concern.

Two

Students lacked the will and ability to interact with their peers.

Three

Teachers were under enormous pressure to close the learning and interpersonal gaps.

Four

There was a decrease in attention span and focus.

Priority Insights

Wireframes

I created this rough wireframe and a lo-fi prototype to explore our concept through the teacher user flow.

Learning from this experience

  • Business World: Amazing mentors guided me from the education space to the world of business and marketing.

​

  • Simplicity: Creating the pitch and iterating after every session with various advisors helped me develop the crisp clarity necessary to sell our concept. 

​

  • Co-Founding: Co-founding a business that is starting to take root has been a journey! We have just begun, but have an exciting future in front of us. 

Up Next

  • Continue to create low-tech versions of Selectivities and field test them.

  • Use data from field test of low-tech versions to earn more capital via competitions.

  • Finish developing MVP and distribute for testing.

  • Fill out founding team with a CTO and begin creating high-tech version of Selective.

For our initial mockups, we chose a calming blue theme for our design. These mockups follow the lo-fi wireframes closely.

Initial mockups

Where are we now?

  • We verified our product concept by field-testing low-tech versions of our Selectivities.

  • We launched our website and online store.

  • The app is currently in development.

bottom of page