Encouraging teacher growth through self-assessment

A design thinking approach to encourage professional growth

Together with the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, we developed a Teacher Self-Assessment Tool to empower teachers to discover their strengths and identify development opportunities - to take action and grow.

Through our iterative design thinking process, we tapped into teachers' motivation to improve teacher expertise, not only for themselves but, for their students.

Discover

To understand our challenge, we held workshops, focus groups and user surveys to ask and understand the following questions:

• Why do teachers undertake the Teacher Self-Assessment?
• What outcomes do teachers expect from the TSAT?
• What did teachers actually get out of the TSAT?
• What were the long run outcomes of completing the TSAT?

Ideate

How could we turn teacher's strengths into tangible actions for teachers?

What is the most engaging way to provoke action leading to personal growth?

To ideate solutions for these challenges, we mapped out teachers' user journey.

Prototype

Deployment is not the end - it's the beginning.  Continuous prototyping & refinement is at the heart of our design process.

Once we had designed a prototype, we invited teachers to participate in Alpha Testing. By capturing teacher's direct experience, we were able to alliteratively shape the priorities and direction of the TSAT development.