1908 - Teacher User Needs Exploration
- Walter Lim
| Designer: | Nicola Donaldson |
| Scope: | Reimagine how voluntarily can provide teachers with digital technologies support |
Onboarding of teachers to the Voluntarily app.
As a teacher at times I can feel bombarded with new tools and initiatives.
Classic examples of this are the MyMahi app, Education Perfect, or even -gasp- the robotics and coding introduced by OMGTech. All of these things sound cool and valuable when they’re presented to us - I’ll open it up and sign up when instructed at a one-off staff meeting or professional development - but after a few weeks these things just seem to disappear from my school’s radar and I forget about them too. As a teacher I want to know why this one is different so I know whether to invest my time in giving it a go.
User Needs:
As a teacher, I want to understand the benefits of Voluntarily so I can decide whether to use it or not.
- Ability to connect with a wide pool of volunteers
- The ability to ask for help with ANYTHING (examples)
- Get in experts to areas you’re unsure about
- Have support with the new digital curriculum while you’re learning the ropes without having to pay for professional development
- As a teacher, I want to be able to check whether my first idea is actually possible to ask for help with, if it isn’t one of the examples, so I know that I can get what I want out of it.
- Ability to use Voluntarily as evidence for my Professional Teaching Standards
As a teacher, I want to know the time commitment required by me for Voluntarily so I can judge whether the benefits outweigh the cost.
- Completing an application is quite a quick process
As a teacher, I want to know my school has endorsed me and allows me to use Voluntarily so I don’t have to complete paperwork or be worried about school procedures.
- Perhaps each school’s principal and board can sign up for their staff to use Voluntarily. This may be a slow process but if Volunteers were coming into a school regularly, it’s probably the most stream-lined solution. Then once a school has endorsed the use of Voluntarily, they can have procedures in place and complete a lot of the ‘information for volunteers’ for their own school, leaving teachers with less to do and no liability.
- Volunteers are police vetted and checked etc..
As a teacher, I want to have a say over who comes into my classroom and how they interact with my students so we’re all safe.
User Needs | Functional Specifications |
Understand the benefits of Voluntarily | (Marketing) Visits to school staff meetings, short clips on first pages and before login, testimonials, etc. Onboarding for teachers on sign up to be clear. |
Check whether my first idea is actually possible | Display examples of requests, the ability to search for examples, ability to ask a question. |
Have an idea of the time commitment | Show how long the sign-up will take, making a request will take, the follow-up conversation (is it via email, text, phone?) |
Know my school endorses me to use this | Have teachers select from schools who have signed up to the app, throughout the sign-up use templates the school has established.. |
Choose volunteers and set expectations | Ability to choose volunteers and explore volunteer background/profile, see they have passed a police check, set expectations (from a suggested list - tick sheet?) or from a base set their school has decided, ability to add to that? |
Before sign up:
School board endorses the use of Voluntarily in the school?
Visiting staff meetings of schools to introduce it?
Getting the benefits across to individual teachers (see above for functional ideas).
Sign up:
User Needs | Functional Specifications |
Shows that my school is happy for me to be doing this | Schools are already entered (eg a dropdown or autocomplete once starting to be typed in) and teacher selects their school - then, the end of their email address could also automatically be completed: e.g. select Tamaki College then your email will definitely finish with @tamaki.ac.nz |
Process to be quick and easy, prefer not to input mobile phone number | Uses school email address. Verification? |
To be shown how to explore examples of Volunteer requests | Examples of good onboarding: InVision? |
To be shown how to set up a request | |
To see what to expect or do once a Volunteer.. volunteers. | How will I be notified? What if no-one replies? What is the next step? What if I don’t like them? |
After sign up (days)
Is anyone looking at my request for a Volunteer if I made one?
How do I know - will it come to me email, or will it only alert me inside the Voluntarily app?
If I haven’t made a request by now, will I ever? What would prompt me to make one?
Teachers love Fridays
Teachers love wine and chocolate lol
Teachers love to talk about how hard they work
I’ve made a request for help and no-one is volunteering, what happens now?
I’ve made a request for help and too many people have volunteered, what happens now?
No contact for a week or two?
As a teacher, I often forget about products or companies that my school originally promoted to us even if I’ve signed up.
User Needs | Functional Specifications |
To be reminded about the value of the product | Email - could show active volunteer requests nearby, in the school, or featured requests of the week, or hours volunteered in your area, or an article about Voluntarily being used in schools. |
To see how easy it is to request help and have a volunteer show up | Would it be possible to have a ‘starter’ volunteer opportunity set up and ready to run within a 20 min time period? Such as during a tutor class.. Come in with full gear, programme something, leave. Or even a motivational speaker for 15 mins. Have a request set up and the teacher just has to enter the date and time they want (school already entered) and press start or whatever button there is. Science magic trick.. |
When completing a request for a Volunteer:
Information volunteers will require:
- Who is responsible for creating the activity / day plan
- How the responsibility for parts of the activity / day plan will be split
- Age of participants
- Class size / group size
- Particular class rules for the activity / day plan
- Particular safety rules for the activity / day plan
- Emergency safety procedures
- General guidelines for interacting with students during the activity / day plan
- Legal rules for interacting with students during / after the day / online
- Photography and posting on social media
- It’s their first time volunteering
- Where to park at the venue and any additional parking instructions
- Public transport options nearby
- Who they have to report to on arrival and sign-in procedures
- Their contact person if they have an emergency right before arrival
- Where they have to go on arrival (map?)
- What time to arrive for set-up / to meet the teacher
- Expected finishing time after pack down etc
- Check in the night before to double-confirm the following day
- What to wear
- Emergency procedures at the school, e.g. fire or lockdown
Who could this information come from?
| Both teacher and volunteer - teacher if the volunteer is just ‘helping’ or both if the volunteer is an ‘expert’ coming in to run a session. |
| As above. |
| Teacher has to supply. |
| As above. |
| As above. |
| The school / board will have safety procedures. |
| Found in the teachers code, though not very specific. School should supply. |
| School board will have a policy |
| The volunteer lets the teacher know. |
| This would be consistent across all teachers in the school, so can be supplied by the school. |
| School board Contact is likely reception. Each school will have a sign-in procedure. |
| School board |
| Teacher |
| Teacher |
| Teacher and volunteer |
| School board / policy. |
| School board / policy. |
Information the school or board of trustees should supply for any Volunteering at their school:
- Where to park (and/or a map)
- Where to report on arrival
- School visitor sign-in procedure
- Who to contact if they can’t make it on the day
- What to wear
- Code of conduct around students
- Emergency procedures (fire and lockdown)
- Social media / image rights of students
- Legal rules for interacting with students on the day / after / online
Information the teacher should supply for a specific request/event or open-ended request form:
- Age of students
- Class size
- Size of group the volunteer would be working with (1, a group of 5, whole class etc)
- Times or days it could occur between
- Outline of help being requested (helping hands or expert help)
Teachers and volunteers connect...
Teacher User Needs | Functional Specifications |
To be notified that a volunteer has expressed interest | Receive an email with a link to view the volunteer? |
To be able to see a little about the volunteer | Short profile - why they want to volunteer, what their areas of interest are, any qualifications, confirmed police check. |
To confirm that they are both available for the given day and time | Teacher send invitation, have it confirmed |
After connecting with a volunteer:
Information a teacher should supply when a volunteer opportunity is confirmed..
- An introductory message including:
- Time of arrival
- Timing of event
- Specific location in the school of the activity / day
- Specific safety procedures for any dangerous activities
- Normal classroom expectations / procedures
- If requesting helping hands - then the teacher supplies an activity / day plan
- If requesting an expert - the volunteer will provide the activity / day plan
- Early in Voluntarily they may just have to communicate about equipment / resources / planning etc..
- I would recommend that both teachers and volunteers start with ‘helping hands’ sort of activities first...
After connecting with a teacher:
Information a volunteer should always supply
- An introductory message including:
- If it’s their first time volunteering
- Why they’ve volunteered
- A contact phone number?
User Needs | Functional Specifications |
To supply the required information as simply as possible. | Have some sort of template / outline of information the volunteer will require from them. |
To know if the volunteer is brand new and would like extra guidance on the day. |
Before event (day)
User Needs | Functional Specification |
To be able to confirm the volunteer will be there on the day. | Perhaps a ‘check in’ function the morning-of, like for a flight. |
After event
Possible User Needs | Functional Specification |
To share student reflections or work with the volunteer | |
To thank the volunteer for their time | |
To invite the volunteer back again quickly for another time | |
To rate the volunteer on their participation and help or engagement and expertise | |
To report that the volunteer was unsafe or didn’t show up | |
To cancel further volunteering in the future, even if a repeat volunteering time was established.. | |
To be able to access their usage data for later reporting or teaching standards | A personal stats or usage page |