THE partner

The National Academy Foundation (NAF) is a pioneering US non for profit on a mission to transform the high school experience through work-based learning. With 620 academies across the US that serve more than 112,000 students NAF’s curriculum approach brings the classroom to the workplace and the workplace to the classroom. In 2020 NAF hired us to design their Career Ready Curriculum; a work- based learning product that would prepare high school students for getting their first job.

THE CHALLENGE

NAF already had a curriculum they had been using for years. There was good content in there however it needed an upgrade to become more interactive, visually engaging and most importantly relevant to the youth it served. In addition like every curriculum it needed to be easy for educators to implement; especially as due to COVID the new school year looked very different across states.

THE BIG IDEA

Let's create a learning experience that works like a career mural- a modular way for student to visualize who they want to become and how to get there.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

We worked closely with the NAF team and a cohort of educators to co-design the different parts of the curriculum. Together we brainstormed ideas and tried to answer questions such as: What makes the students most nervous when searching for their first job? How can we present them with role models who can guide them through what a career pathway might look like? And most importantly how can we create something that is both easy for teachers to use and delightfully interactive for students?

THE product experience

We used the humans who play playful learning framework to develop a suite of lesson plans with modular activities that ranged from role playing games to mock interviews to a student created badge system. Following the NAF brand guidelines we created a highly visual curriculum template in google docs, that was super easy for the educators to remix and for the client to update. In addition we designed custom illustrations inspired by real NAF alumni for all the activities and games that were part of every lesson.