June 13, 2013

College and Career Readiness Begins with Starting Conversations

Jun. 13, 2013 at 08:00 AM | By Laurie Cordova | Comment Count

When it comes to college-and career-readiness, there are gaps in student knowledge. At Hobsons, we partner with schools, districts, and other organizations to solve their most challenging problems. This means we have to consider everyone involved; from the superintendent charting a district’s progress, to a principal who’s accountable for his school’s graduation rate, to a student who needs guidance becoming college-ready. It’s high stakes and often anxiety ridden, but starting the conversation about solutions-focused student products can be as simple as grabbing a pack of post-it notes, a group of kids, and asking a few questions. They’ll tell you exactly what they need to know and that they want you to listen.

Working in product development, I see firsthand that our products are only as valuable as the students we support find them. This means that I need to know how to create something based on the needs and goals of every student.

So how do we find out what students need?

We conduct research sessions. During these sessions, we work with students to prove or disprove our assumptions to determine if a tool really helps them in the way that we intend. We also brainstorm with students to create college-and career-readiness tools or content from scratch. Other times, we start a simple conversation about where students are in the college readiness process. By doing so, we can identify pain points through their stories and then use those pain points to develop solutions.

In a recent user research session with the Starfinder Organization, a wonderful group that works with students to succeed through educational, personal, and soccer development programs, I turned to sticky notes to discern what sort of motivational pieces Hobsons should include in our college-and career-readiness products to encourage students to excel and persist throughout their learning lifecycle. I asked our student focus group to do two things:

1) Write one thing on a post-it note that explains why or how you’re motivated to succeed in school and post it on the wall.

2) Write one thing on a post-it note that you don't know about college admissions or life after high school and post it on the wall.

There wasn’t a student in the room who didn’t use at least 5 sticky notes.

It’s probably no surprise that admissions criteria was a big unknown or that girls and money motivate high school boys. There were also a lot of students who were unclear about how scholarships worked - an obvious area our product development team needs to spend time on content-wise.

What was really surprising was when I saw how many students referenced to the idea of being respected and making people in their lives proud. It brought to mind current products like Roadtrip Nation and why it is so vital to provide students with examples of how people from similar backgrounds overcome adversity to become leaders in business, STEM, politics, education, law, medicine, entertainment, architecture and much more. Providing these examples is so crucial to student success because they initiate conversations that encourage students to begin identifying interests; take action on those interests by setting goals; and then use those goals to open doorways to future possibilities.

It’s amazing to watch students engage in an activity that I use frequently in my own work to organize my thoughts, priorities, and questions. Those of us in product development swear by the power of brightly colored sticky notes (and the opportunity to get out of our seats and throw one on a wall). The students really enjoyed knowing that they were influencing product development at Hobsons and appreciated being treated as experts when asked about user experience and products that they like.

It’s all about starting the conversation. By going to the source, our students, we education professionals can best ensure students are prepared and motivated for success.

Want more on student engagement? Check out this article, "The Power of Student Engagement."

Don’t be shy! We want to know your thoughts on student engagement. What methods have you used to get students to talk?