Project

A mindfulness-based wellness product for teachers and school staff members.

Overview 

Teachers and school staff members face high levels of work-related stress. During the height of Covid-19, when schools were still meeting virtually, everyone was talking about schools and teachers. We wanted to help them manage their stress and decided to take our in-person corporate mindfulness workshop series and develop it into a digital wellness product customized for school staff members. We wanted to teach school employees how their brains worked so they could add mindfulness to their arsenal of stress management practices at a time they needed it most.

Research

Using surveys and moderated interviews, we connected with almost 400 school employees within our network to hear firsthand what their stress load looked like. Here’s what we learned:

• 93% said work was a cause of stress

• 98% admitted they struggled to manage their stress

• 93% knew little to nothing about their brains and stress

• 74% said they sometimes or often practice mindfulness

Problem

In a nutshell, they said Covid safety protocols and distance learning created a new layer of stress that they weren’t trained for and didn’t know how to manage. “We want to be there for our students, but we’re exhausted and fighting burnout.”

Roadmap

Knowing our users needs more intimately, we took our initial twelve workshop topics and ideated on how to customize them for school staff members. This was a collaborative effort led by a seasoned educator who knew educator stress firsthand.

Once we had a rough roadmap, we got to work planning, writing, editing and designing. I was heavily involved with writing module content, assessments, FAQs, email copy, onboarding, leader training, landing page copy and video scripts.

Edge case

We also learned that some teachers were more comfortable with a printable PDF version. Learning how to navigate a new digital program when they were struggling to come up for air was not something they had the capacity to do. While this was an edge case, our heart was set on supporting all teachers where they were, so we added PDF design to our MVP roadmap.

Voice and tone

I solidified our voice and tone guidelines. Here’s a brief look at voice attributes:

• Understanding: We validate your stress load. We won’t bog you down with work.

• Trustworthy: What we will share is backed by science.

• Empowering: We believe in you. You are our heroes.

Here is an example of a short module copy:

Plan 5 to 10-minute brain breaks throughout your day. When you focus, your brain is in beta wavelength. We have to be careful not to spend every moment in beta because stress, self-doubt, negativity and anxiety live there. Mindful exercises like breathing, taking a walk, stretching, reading or meditating can help downshift your brain to a more peaceful brain wavelength. Then, when you need to focus again, your brain will be rested and ready to go.

Prototype

We tested our prototype with a handful of volunteer educators. They helped us see where we could simplify our process and language and enhance the entire user experience. One area we focused on is self-registration and sign-in. There were varying levels of comfort with this step, and we added extra support through copy and support contact information. Another area we added to was leader onboarding. Then, we rolled our product out to a cohort of seven school districts for a larger testing group. Approximately 700 educators participated or acted as group leaders.

Data says

We gathered completion rate data as well as data from self-assessment analytics. These assessments also gathered open-ended responses. Here is some data and feedback we received from participants after they completed the entire program:

• 97% said they now know more about how their brain responds to emotions and stress

• 100% said the information they learned about stress management was helpful to them

• 87% said their understanding of how mindfulness can help them manage stress has grown

• 92% said they will use mindful breathing to manage stress in the future

Verbatims:

• “I now start every day with breathing exercises. I practice them on my drive to school to try and center myself before I dive into the chaos. I have also encouraged others to practice just this one simple strategy.”

• “Knowing the connection of stress to long-term health has made me much more motivated to take control and harness the power I have over managing my negative emotions.”

• “This has allowed me to understand my stress more clearly. It is no longer hazy and indistinct, which means that I feel more empowered to develop strategies to deal positively with it.”

• “I have really enjoyed learning about the brain. I think when I start to get stressed y something, I try to slow down and tell myself to breathe, do what I can to control my reaction to the situation, and think about what is going on inside my brain and body. Then I think about what I want my reaction to be and how to make that happen.”

Outcome

This was an all-hands-on-deck project. We never set out to turn an in-person workshop into a digital product offering, but at the end of the day, it was so well received by everyone who participated. Small businesses and organizations got on board to sponsor the fee for schools to offer this to their employees, and it was a definite win for not only the organizations but each person who had a hand in this project.

The project reinforced

• Scrappy teams can be the best teams. There isn’t always someone with perfect experience, and getting creative with task distribution allows for opportunities to learn and grow.

• Edge cases are important to consider, and while we tackled our big edge case right off the bat (PDF downloads), we would have shipped MVP sooner if we had waited for a later iteration to work on it.

• This product followed more of a waterfall process simply because we had so few hands to work on it, and it was a unique time in life and a quick timeline goal. It reinforced my preference for agile practices and sprint work.

• There was so much knowledge gained from research and data mining. Choosing the path of an educator is not easy, and my appreciation of educators grew tremendously during this project. This project solidified my reliance on research and changed my heart for educators forever.