COLLABOARD
Collaboard is an asynchronous project management platform for group based projects in the high school environment. It is a supplementary resource that the school can purchase for both teachers and students.
Project Duration:
October 2020 - March 2021
Tools:
Adobe XD
Photoshop
Keynote
Overview
With this new shift to virtual education in the past year, students have been missing strong collaboration now more than ever. Finding a way to make online group work and projects more engaging and motivating is crucial to the future of education. Collaboard is that solution. It is used to teach high school students how to manage responsibilities in a team while staying motivated and connected with the teacher. By setting up clear objectives, communication, progress monitoring, and defined roles on the app, it gives students the opportunity to better manage a project and stay motivated throughout.
Testimonials
"As a middle secondary educator, I could see Collaboard being used on a very regular basis. Student collaboration and cooperative engagement has been one of the biggest missing pieces throughout the pandemic, and an app like Collaboard gives students a real opportunity to change that. The ability to communicate academically without constant, awkward teacher surveillance, as well giving students the power to delegate responsibilities and monitor their progress could produce really successful results. As a special educator, I could also see this being incredibly accessible."
— Jack Devitt
Josephine Locke Elementary School
"My senior zoology classes do quarterly projects (individually and in teams) and the Collaboard app could be a game changer in helping students both organize and take ownership when they are collaborating. It would have been especially helpful this year during the remote/hybrid scenario, for both the student teams and for me, as I was limited in my ability to gauge how their projects were progressing. I am very excited to have my students use it in the near future!"
— Dave Monti
Riverside Brookfield High School
"I think this app is an excellent resource for cooperative learning projects. Having a one-stop shop for students to organize their project tasks, communicate with their classmates and allowing teachers a digital platform for student feedback is a brilliant and useful tool."
— Mark Szczepkowski
Nazareth Academy High School
Process
With this project, I began researching current tools and platforms students and teachers used in their day to day, and spoke with Emma Mercier, an assistant professor in the Department of Education. I learned from some of her challenges with remote teaching and developed my project statement: "How can I promote meaningful collaboration in the virtual classroom for high school students?" From there I conducted student interviews to learn more about their pain points in the virtual learning environment. After synthesizing all the data I collected, I came to the understanding that there were four distinct attributes for successful group work: 1. Communication 2. Having Defined Roles 3. Progress monitoring 4. Having clear objectives. These key attributes, along with the knowledge I learned from existing platforms, and student experiences, shaped my final design.
Final Design
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