My Transition from Teaching to UX Design
"The road goes ever on and on, down from the doorway where it began." Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)
This is the face of hope...
The journey to teaching was one I hadn't anticipated taking so early in life. It was a curveball that not even Edgar Martinez, Ichiro, or Ken Griffey Jr. would have been able to hit. As I walked across that stage and received my Master's degree, I thought maybe this is a solid hit, or maybe even a bunt. You can probably tell by my excited look, that I was indeed excited to start my career as an educator. There was a little naivety for sure. Back to the unhittable curveball, I wanted to stay in the Air Force for at least 20 years.
Hell, I nearly made it to 5 years before the pitcher (Pilot Training) threw out that nasty pitch. I just couldn't get my head around flying a plane. So, I failed... And spent a lot of time thinking about how to get past that failure. Then after a couple months of reflection, moving back to my parents house, and separating from my dream, I decided that the next journey would be... teaching! I had worked with kids as a Scoutmaster, and felt like that was a good fit. And it was, for a time.
Fast forward 8 years, and now look at me! Still some hope, but mostly tired and ready for a new adventure. I taught a total of nine years, and like many who have chosen to grace the halls of academia, it can be perilous. Long hours, low pay, challenging curriculum, high energy, emotional rollercoaster, stressful parental encounters, being a father of a young child, and sparing time for my loving partner was... Yeah, I'm sure you can guess. Throw the pandemic in there and you've got yourself a delicious metaphoric stew. Samwise Gamgee might say "Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stem," but he was talking of potatoes.
As a nonfiction character, I could only stand the heat for so long before the pot boiled over. I started looking for new opportunities that could use my teaching skills and my love of learning. I knew I could make a big impact on people, just not as a potato.
I was the go to guy for computer issues at my school. Each fall, after the summer recuperation, I would have a line of teachers asking me for refreshers on how to get to X website, schedule an online test on Y learning curriculum, or setting up our microphone system to be audible through our masks (COVID). I started making short video tutorials and sending them out to my fellow potatoes, and then to our school district. I liked doing that, and it made my work day a little better. Helping people get through their struggles and creating a path for others to follow is exactly what I had been doing as a teacher of young students, and now I was doing the same for peers.
In my search for new opportunities I kept seeing advertisements for Google Career Certificates. I clicked on User Experience(UX) Design and read about what that was. I had no idea what that was! Then I read that the mission of UX Design is to put the user first and create a product that meets their needs and makes the journey as painless as possible. That sounds an awful lot like... Ding, ding, ding! You're right. TEACHING.
I signed up for the 7 unit course (Link to course) and started working in the evenings after school and after my son went to sleep. February was ending, and I estimated I would be done with the 6 month course in September.
The program was really intuitive and lined up with practices that I had been doing in the classroom. The instructors, all Google UXers of varying seniority, explained concepts well enough for me to understand, practice, and put into designs later in Figma and Adobe XD. I noticed some connections with the design process and the lesson planning process as an educator. First empathize and define: what are my users/students needing help to solve? What are the problems they are having with the product/experience/lesson? User research mirrors assessing student needs through formative checks. For example, I would give a pre-test to see what students already know, or struggle with. I can adjust my lesson to include more practice of areas of need, or focus on specific students that need that extra level of accommodation.
Next ideate: what ideas can solve the users'/students' needs? There are many factors that play into how teachers and UX designers can solve the problems. Both users of products and students in the classroom come different backgrounds, skill levels, accessibility needs, etc. and it's important to anticipate and plan for those needs.
12 Similarities in the design phase between teaching and UX Design.
The Prototyping phase of the design process is putting your ideas into motion. In the classroom, that looks like a lesson plan, mapped out with a schedule, learning targets, standards, and questions to ask the class. The initial iteration might not meet the targets of the plan but it can be fixed, just like wireframes and lo-fi prototypes. As an example, when I taught a lesson on fractions to my 4th graders, I got a lot of auditory crickets. So what do I do in that situation? Iterate again, and think of new way for presenting the lesson. I might try to find a video to help the visual learners, or a kinesthetic motion to remember the steps in solving the problem. I could also connect with a fellow teacher and ask them for suggestions.
Lastly, but not finally, the testing phase of the design phase is that need check in to see if my decisions in my lesson/prototype actually work. In the fractions example, I got an auditory cue, a visual cue of confused faces, and I could also gather data to see what learning stuck, and which learning targets stunk. Usability studies create the qualitative and quantitative data points that come from having users test the product and asking for their thoughts, feelings, and monitoring their clicks/taps. Teachers can gain these insights from similar practices like a short quiz and survey to gauge student understanding and feelings about what they learned, what was difficult, and what they still don't understand.
Having completed my certificate in September, I felt like I was at an advantage learning about UX, and also in the job market. Throughout the program, I drew upon my teaching best practices, and learned UX best practices to create three time intensive projects. They really did make me feel like I could transition out of teaching, but still use my knowledge and skills to help even more people be successful. I now feel less like a stewed potato, and more like a hall of fame MLB slugger ready for that next pitch.
(Go Mariners!)
