Virtual Human-Centered Design and Evaluation from a Rural Station Perspective

• In Event: Designing Educational Family Fun With and For Rural Communities Through Public Media Partnerships

Abstract

From the perspective of a small rural community in North Dakota, we will discuss our experience as one of the five public media stations involved in the participatory design, formative research, and evaluation of the MOLLY OF DENALI Family Game Club.

Given our deep connection to local families and expertise in program implementation, partner stations, such as our, served multiple roles for the project; these roles included interviewing families, brainstorming and providing feedback on the educational content, and iteratively testing game and activity prototypes with families. Representatives from our station visited 13 families in their homes and at local schools, as well as invited families to their offices for conversations. Using a strength-based approach, viewing individuals as resourceful and resilient in their own environments (Corcoran, 2011), we aimed to understand how families were already spending time together and to find opportunities where new educational resources, inspired by MOLLY OF DENALI, might have the greatest impact in informal learning settings.

Across all stations, common themes of these family visits emerged, such as families spending time together playing games, exploring outdoors, and eating meals. We also know from our families and working in our community that frequently traveling a great distance to attend events is not feasible, so families crave educational activities that they can do together at home. Additionally, given that internet access can be limited and unreliable in rural communities, many families prefer the activities to be offered offline. These community conversations, along with the iterative testing of prototype materials, were used as touchstones that the team could refer back to frequently to ensure the new resources were what families in rural communities wanted and were able to use easily.

For Family Game Club material distribution and evaluation, we partnered with the adjacent school district, located on one of the state’s four Indian reservations. School staff and leadership were enthusiastic about participating and served as our key contacts since they know the community families the best and the families trust the school personnel. For our community, partnership with the local school and the relationship between the school and families was critical to the project success.

Ultimately, we were able to involve 77 families in the Family Game Club with a total of 215 attendees of our culminating celebration event.

Author

• Timothy Wollenzien, NA
  Presenting Author