Success for EdTech entrepreneurs goes beyond creating a valuable product for customers. Research shows that adults seek products that provide a sense of unity and support. In the fiercely competitive industry, it’s crucial to create a comfortable learning environment that goes beyond informative content. As a learning experience designer at Refocus, my job is to make our educational products more comfortable for the students and help them get better results after education.
But what exactly does this environment entail?
A learning environment refers to the complete physical and virtual surroundings where students learn. This includes the entire learning process, from user interface to tone of voice in course materials. Every aspect of the ecosystem significantly impacts a student’s ability to retain information.
Creating a comfortable learning environment involves more than technical solutions. It requires a user-focused experience that motivates, engages, and fosters productivity. Educational materials must be easy to use, intuitive, and provide clear instructions and accessible resources. Additionally, it must be adaptable to different learning styles and needs, offering personalized feedback and support.
This article delves into how to create an ecosystem that supports student learning, growth, and success.
Students need to feel as a part of community
According to studies, 55% of adults seeking additional education are looking for skills to increase their salary and career opportunities. These learners may already feel a sense of isolation or anxiety as they navigate the challenges of a career change. So, creating a comfortable learning environment that fosters unity and helps them feel supported is essential. If people know that they are not alone, they will be able to study more productively and achieve better results. Moreover, a sense of community has a direct impact on the completion rate, which is one of the critical metrics of educational providers. When students know that there are people who would support them, it’s much less likely that they will drop out.
So, it’s essential that even when studying remotely:
- Students have e-met each other and seen the faces of people from their cohort.
- Students learn in an environment where they can interact informally or help each other.
- Students regularly set their goals and get their motivation renewed, which is especially important when education spans 8-10 months.
- Students were assisted in building trust with the community managers: people who are always there to support them when they face difficulties or find it hard to believe in themselves.
However, there’s always a problem with striking the right balance between providing too many time-consuming activities and not giving enough community support. Adult learners are often busy juggling work, family, and other commitments, making participating in real-time synchronous activities difficult. Furthermore, prolonged screen time can lead to fatigue and disengagement, which would ultimately have a negative effect on the completion rate, and synchronous activities are also more expensive.
To address these challenges, the motivation process is designed to strike a balance between synchronous and asynchronous activities. For instance, learners can engage with the course materials at their own pace while still having opportunities to connect and communicate with their peers and instructors in a flexible manner.
The most important of these activities is onboarding. In our case, it’s a life session with different time slots, allowing students to attend at a convenient time. During this, they meet their cohort and community managers and learn more about the course and platform. For example, we use Discord as the main communication platform, which is very convenient. However, it’s not the most user-friendly for newbies, so it’s important to cover how to use it.
Onboarding involves goal-setting
Moreover, it’s essential that students have the opportunity to take introductory modules before the onboarding. Otherwise, there’s a risk that they would lose their motivation to study, which is strongest after buying the course. When we changed our onboarding process, we saw a significant decrease in refund rates.
Informal activities can help foster a sense of community
Reflection is the key aspect of learning
One of the essential aspects of our educational process is reflection. It allows learners to assess their progress, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and gain a sense of satisfaction from their achievements.
It’s important to better understand their educational experience and develop a stronger sense of ownership over it. When you’ve been studying for quite a while, you may lose your sense of progress. Taking a break to think about “before” and “now” allows students to fully understand what they learned and get dopamine from their accomplishments.
We understand that it can be challenging for adult learners to make time for reflection, especially when classes are held online. That’s why we developed reflective questionnaires that can be completed at the learners’ convenience, at their own pace. This approach allows them to reflect when it’s most convenient for them without disrupting their already busy schedules.
Another essential aspect of a comfortable reflection on the educational process is the freedom to make mistakes. It’s common for adult learners to be afraid of making mistakes and receiving “poor grades,” as school children might do. However, we believe that making mistakes is an integral part of the learning process, and we encourage our students to embrace them. That’s why we allow learners to retake assignments as many times as they need to get them right. This approach not only alleviates the fear of failure but also promotes a growth mindset and a desire for improvement.
To make sure that students are allowed to make mistakes while still acquiring knowledge in a productive way, it’s important to distinguish these two types of assessment:
- Formative assessments take place regularly throughout the learning process. These provide ongoing feedback to learners, which helps them understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
- Summative assessments are different because they take place at the end of a certain period and are dedicated to one topic. These assessments should ensure that learners receive recognition for their accomplishments and can apply their newly acquired skills in the workplace. These can come in the form of group projects, final projects, and job placement — during them, students should still receive support while learning to become more independent.
By promoting reflection, we encourage learners to take ownership of their educational experience, and we help them develop the skills and mindset necessary to succeed in their future careers. After completing a course, students are most likely to become junior-level employees who would have senior colleagues to ask for advice. Consequently, the skill of assessing their strength by themselves and knowing when to ask further questions is crucial for their employment.
Remember that your client is unique
When it comes to creating an effective learning environment, it’s important to consider your specific audience. The world of education technology offers a range of formats, from online courses and virtual classrooms to interactive webinars.
While each format has its own benefits, one common rule applies: students who receive support and feel connected with their instructors and peers tend to be more productive than those who feel isolated.
For example, if one decides to join an offline boot camp to improve their, say, coding skills, they almost have no chance to drop out. They receive support from the community and are basically put into an environment where they want to study. But it’s much harder to organize if the study duration is long and takes place online.
So, what factors should you consider when building an effective learning environment?
- Understand who your students are and what skills they already possess. For instance, if your students are unfamiliar with Zoom or other virtual conferencing tools, it’s important to provide clear instructions and support to help them navigate the technology. Similarly, if they have no experience with the materials you’re going to cover, sometimes, it’s necessary to add instructions to the most basic things.
However, it’s also important to make your product suitable for people with more experience: they should be able to easily skip topics they’re already familiar with.
- Consider your budget. Of course, as an educator, you want to provide your students with the best possible experience, which may involve offering one-on-one support or customized learning plans. However, it’s important to balance your ambitions with financial realities to ensure you can deliver a high-quality experience without breaking the bank.
As I mentioned before, the more synchronous activities and support you offer, the more expensive your product will be. It is possible that if you provide too much support, the cost of your product will be too high that even your target audience wouldn’t be able to afford it!
- Test and evaluate your learning environment to see what works best for your students. This could involve experimenting with different formats or conducting surveys to gather feedback from your audience. Moreover, it’s wise to have a look at simple statistics: which formats of interaction are the least used? Maybe, it would be worth dropping them and using the budget for other improvements instead.
By collecting and analyzing data, you can continuously improve your educational offerings and ensure your students receive the support they need to succeed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating a comfortable learning environment is crucial for EdTechs to succeed. This requires more than just providing informative content but also considering the entire user experience and designing an environment that fosters motivation, engagement, and productivity.
Creating a supportive environment that makes students feel like they are part of a community and allows them to make mistakes and grow is critical to their success and your company’s growth and revenue indicators.
Author:
Ania Varakine, LX designer at Refocus, a student-centered approach enthusiast
