Role of “Empathizing” in Learner Centered Design

Moving from “instructor-led” to “learner-focused” experiences

Most courses are created using the design thinking process (empathize — define — ideate — prototype — test). Amongst others, “empathizing” or understanding learner needs is a necessary but often neglected stage. It becomes challenging for instructors to dismiss what they think is important to the learners and make choices that might not be aligned with student needs. If learners are not ready for the experience provided to them, they will be left confused. This calls for learner-centered design. As the name suggests, it is about keeping the learner needs at the forefront of any experience so that they can exceed.

My first interaction with learner-centered design was through a conversation with a School Principal:

Our EdTech-based program team told him — “Our organization has created these wonderful tech-integrated teaching practices that we think would work for your school and make it a better learning place.”

He asked — “How do you know that these will work for my school?”.

We responded — “We are working with 15 other schools in the city and training their teachers. These are research-backed practices and seem to have worked pretty well for the other schools. We have some data on your school requirements from our survey. Hence, we think these will work for you too.”

He inquired — “Have you gotten a chance to meet with our school teachers and hear what they need?”

We gave in and arranged a conversation with the teachers. To our surprise, we noted that the problem we were trying to solve for this school wasn’t really an issue for them at all. If they had used the product the way we recommended, it would not have been the best utilization of their time, energy and resources. Even though we were evidence-based, we were not aligned. With more conversation we identified another challenge that we could potentially help the school overcome. This was an important lesson learned and here on our school and classroom level support was differentiated even when the product was exactly the same.

The first step to creating any effective learning experience is understanding your learners.

As teachers, curriculum developers and product builders, it is very easy to lose focus and teach what we think is the need as opposed to identifying the actual need. Before building any lesson, curriculum or educational product one must ask questions such as-

Who are my learners?

Where are they developmentally — how much support should I give?

Who are they culturally and how does that impact the design of my lesson?

What topics are relevant for them?

What in the lesson will be enticing for them?

Will they be able to focus on the screen for so long?

What are they gaining from this experience that they might not otherwise?

Is this experience truly novel for them?

Is this meaningful?

Use these resources to build Learner Personas.

Resource 1: Building Learner Personas for Instructional Design Effectiveness

Resource 2: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Creating Learner Personas

Collecting their feedback or taking exams is not only beneficial towards the end of the process but rather at regular intervals, allowing the designers to consistently iterate the experience to best suit the learners.

Before designing your next learning experience, consider creating robust learner personas. Create plans, implement, collect data, analyze data. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Reflect. Assess whether you are meeting where they are. Else, start by empathizing again.