PeerLearning / Education platform
Coordinate the activity.
Keep the teacher in control.
We worked with the PeerLearning research team to build classroom software for cooperative activities, student grouping and teacher oversight.
Explore the story â
01 / The challenge
Cooperative learning takes coordination.
Cooperative learning involves more than dividing a class into groups. Teachers coordinate pairings, activity stages and timing while watching how students participate.
More about the challenge
The research team wanted software that could handle the mechanics of these activities and fit existing curricula. The teacherâs visibility and ability to intervene needed to remain central.
- Project
- PeerLearning
- Our contribution
- Product design & engineering
- People using it
- Teachers & students in cooperative activities
- Engagement
- Education platform
02 / A product decision
Supporting social skills
Teachers can select a curriculum topic and a social skill to practice. The platform explains the target skill to students and guides activity stages, leaving the teacher able to observe and support participation.
03 / Inside the work
Automate the mechanics. Preserve the oversight.
The product design connected activity formats with the practical work of grouping students and moving through a lesson. Teachers needed ways to review suggested groupings, make changes and track an activity in progress.
The work also responded to remote teaching needs, adding voice groups to support discussion when students were not in the same classroom.
04 / A product decision
Automation with oversight
The PeerLearning platform gives teachers full visibility and control over the learning experience, enabling them to review or edit student matchups before launching an activity, or while it is in progress. The PeerLearning system also allows teachers to create their own activity groups, then checks them for potential matching issues and gives teachers the option to make manual corrections, or have the system fix the groupings for them.
05 / A product decision
Enabling virtual collaboration
Real-time voice groups were added when the pilot intersected with remote teaching during the pandemic. The feature supports discussion across the cooperative activity structure.
06 / A product decision
Building a learning library
We worked with the research team and pilot schools on an activity library spanning different topics and formats. Teachers can also use the formats as templates for their own lessons.
07 / A product decision
Google Classroom integration
Google Classroom integration supports Google sign-in and roster imports. The integration brings classroom rosters into the same activity workflow.
08 / Our contribution
Research informs the activity.
Teachers direct the room.
The research team brought the cooperative-learning approach. We designed and engineered the activity structure, student-grouping controls and teacher views around that approach, with input from pilot schools.
The product can handle the mechanics of an activity while teachers review groupings and intervene. Voice groups and Google Classroom integration extend that workflow to remote discussion, sign-in and roster imports.
Under the surface: how this project was built
Activity interface
Vue.js supported the classroom interface, with Firebase and Firestore for authentication and shared data.
Live discussion
Twilio audio rooms supported real-time voice groups within cooperative activities.
Classroom fit
Google Classroom sign-in and roster integration connected the product with teachersâ existing setup; Contentful supported activity content.
09 / Product work
Build around learning together.
Cooperative activities, student groups and teacher oversight within a shared classroom tool.
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