Design adult learning products with short lessons, visualizations, mobile-first simplicity, and contextualized content integrating basic and job skills¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Based on interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, and providers, the guide recommends three product-feature priorities for adult learners. First, products should "take into account the unique needs of low-skilled learners": "Keep lessons short, use visualizations, provide plentiful resources, increase learner-instructor connections, and help learners engage with their peers." Second, products should support anytime, anywhere learning through simple, mobile-first solutions. Third, developers should create contextualized, integrated content and apps, since every segment needs solutions integrating soft skills, job skills, and language skills with basic skills.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Tools must be easy to use without adding time to students' or teachers' days; the guide quotes a practitioner saying technology needs to be impossibly easy to use or it will never be used
• Products must enhance rather than disrupt the learning experience; the guide quotes a provider whose course requiring a new download per assignment detracted from learning

Constraints¶

• The guide notes there is widespread consensus that products for adult learners should be mobile-first, simple to use, and contain high-quality, modular, and relevant content, but providers are struggling to find such solutions
• The recommendations come from practitioner interviews and design briefs, not from controlled evaluations of specific features

Target Learners¶

• low-skilled adult learners
• adult English language learners
• incarcerated adults
• adult basic education and ESL learners
• independent adult learners

Target Learning Goals¶

• basic reading and math skills
• English language acquisition
• digital literacy
• job readiness
• basic skills and digital literacy
• job-related and language skills integrated with basic skills
• sustained engagement and retention

Related Strategies¶

• Ten concrete action items for entrepreneurs preparing to launch ventures in the adult learning market
• Use micro-modules pairing short audio lessons with reflection texts and interactive quizzes for adult ELL mobile learning
• Sell to consortia of adult education providers and encourage institutions to buy technology together to lower cost and risk
• Teach foundational AI competencies with low-tech analogies and contextually relevant activities where technology access is limited
• Design mobile learning around the features students already use frequently, while recognising this is not a panacea

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Amber Laxton, Mike Berlin, Patti Constantakis, Ph.D. (2017). Accelerating Change: A Guide to the Adult Learning Ed-Tech Market. Digital Promise. https://digitalpromise.dspacedirect.org/items/d14be2b4-b279-4e5a-8e24-81eec9e16509
• Amber Laxton, Mike Berlin, Patti Constantakis, Ph.D. (2017). Accelerating Change: A Guide to the Adult Learning Ed-Tech Market. Digital Promise. https://digitalpromise.dspacedirect.org/items/36eceee2-6442-4c5c-8fa1-7b9e7eab4533