onward

Not just an app. A movement.

onward transform teachers' professional development (PD) into an enjoyable journey. It serves as a personal growth companion that breaks through barriers of time, relevance and accessibility with AI-powered personalization.

Background

Teachers shape futures. Let's shape one where they can be empowered to innovate and inspire.

In classrooms across Singapore, teachers shape tomorrow's minds while their own professional development remains constrained.

The challenge was clear—limited time + scattered learning resources.

We saw an opportunity to tackle this challenge—to create not just another tool but a movement that transform professional development from a mandatory checklist into an enjoyable journey of continuous growth.

The Challenge

How might we design a professional development platform that provides teachers with accessible, flexible, and relevant content for easy consumption, empowering their continuous growth without adding extra burden?

Research Discovery

Our research strategy

Our user research cuts through assumptions to reveal three critical barriers:

1. Limited Time - 65.9% of teachers identified time constraints as their biggest obstacle to professional development. A typical teacher's schedule, illustrating how it is packed from day to night.
2. Content Relevance Gap - Most available PD content misses the mark completely, failing to address teachers' specific needs and context.
3. Fragmented Learning Resources - PD resources exists in abundance but remained scattered across platforms that are difficult to navigate as well.

Insights That Transformed Our Approach

We identified behavioral patterns of both teachers and PD content creators to establish three experience principles that will guide our solution:

1. Seamless Accessibility - PD content must be easily searchable, accessible and consumable within the constraints of a teacher's hectic schedule.
2. Flexible Relevance - Content delivery must adapt to teachers' needs, context and preferred learning styles.
3. Enjoyable Learning - PD should feel less like an obligation and more like an engaging experience that energize rather than depletes.

Problem Formulation

In the time constrained environment of our hackathon, we made a strategic decision to narrow our focus. We prioritized teachers who fell under the learning style quadrant of "Transformative and Individual". These teachers represent our sweet spot—high value, low effort for impact with the added benefit of their influential role in driving broader adoption.

While traditional solutions aim for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), our team pursued a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP). The difference is crucial:

An MVP asks, "Will this work?" An MLP asks, "Will they love this?"

What is MLP and rationale why MLP makes sense for the project

The Solution

Introducing onward—with AI-powered personalization, it delivers bite-sized, impactful content in just a few taps, allowing teachers to reach their fullest learning potential.

Core Features:

• Prompt-based learning material search
• AI-generated micro-learning content (e.g. podcast and summary)
• Tracking & rewarding learning activities
• 'Notebook' based micro quizzes to validate learning
• Able to join podcast to build on the conversation* *in the midst of feasibility accessibility

Impact & Outcome

We put onward in front of 12 individuals from diverse backgrounds during the Feedback Bazaar and these were the results:

The numbers don't lie.

• 92% rated onward's effectiveness in addressing pain points and problem statement as exceptional.
• 100% found the interface intuitive, with 58% rating it 'very easy' and 42% 'easy' to use.
• Every single tester saw substantial benefit for teachers, with 42% rating it 'extremely beneficial'.
• 92% would champion onward to colleagues.

Beyond statistics.

The quantitative feedback also showed: We observed its scalability and potential applications beyond MOE, particularly in other government agencies that require a platform for continuous learning. “Can this be used for the wider government agencies?”

A/B test results:

We conducted an A/B test during the Feedback Bazaar, after identifying that users were confused about how they received summarized information. Some found the transition too abrupt and didn't realize they were looking at a summary, while others were skeptical about the accuracy of AI-generated content.

Based on the test results (10 people), we refined the experience by introducing a list of sources for first-time users, allowing them to select inputs before generating AI-powered content. For returning users, we streamlined the flow so they receive the summarized content immediately, with the option to review sources and regenerate if needed.

Looking Ahead

Knowledge finds you.

Instead of making teachers to hunt for knowledge, we are bringing the knowledge directly to them—wherever they are.

Our hackathon solution is merely the first step towards a vision: an open learning ecosystem with multi-modal content that is comprehensive, relevant and delightful.

The Team

We built our foundation on human connection first, product second.

Our journey began with a simple kickoff session—sharing pet peeves and aspirations which helped forged an authentic bond beyond professional courtesy. This investment in understanding each other created a safe zone where creativity flourished and momentum accelerated.

Get to know each other sheets —one of the kick-off exercise

Research synthesis and reviews over McDonald's — Saying no to the traditional ‘design handover’ process! Instead, all team members actively collaborate during the discovery phase.

Meet the team for onward:

• Wondo
• Chadin
• Yi Ming
• Kelly
• Eli
• Jason

With special shout outs to those who inspired and supported our journey🤞:

• Kah How
• Alfie
• Alex