Human-Centered Learning Design: Meeting learners where they are in 2025

This semester, I was reminded that good design starts with empathy. My students were doing their best to stay engaged, but I could see that confusion and varying skill levels were getting in the way of their success. Instead of asking them to adapt to my course, I decided to adapt my course to them. Guided by the principles of human-centered design and accessibility, I am re-designing my Canvas course to make learning simpler to navigate, easier to access, and more inclusive for every student - meeting them where they are, not where I assumed they’d be.

I have over 90 beginning Orchestra students, and they are all doing very well when it comes to the actual content of the course and the performance skills necessary to be successful on their instruments. I am experienced with meeting the different needs of 1000s of students over my career and creating successful and confident musicians who love learning music. What ended up being an unexpected challenge this year was the students' ability to focus on reading and following instructions independently.

Part of the expectation and routine in my classroom is that while I am tuning students (which I have to do at the beginning of every lesson), they are following instructions on our weekly Canvas outline. This could include getting their book open to the correct page, submitting a practice record, or starting on a worksheet. Weeks into school, students were still struggling with this routine, asking the same questions, and were not able to independently follow directions on Canvas. While my position as an Orchestra teacher places my focus on teaching performance skills, life skills are also an important part of being a young student, and I was determined to help them be able to read and follow instructions with less assistance.

I decided to apply my instructional design knowledge and perform a casual needs assessment to find the gaps and figure out how to bridge them.

I started by observing students and noticed they were not reading the instructions; rather, they were only scrolling to buttons and links and clicking on them immediately. Some were even scrolling to the wrong days on the outline, not noticing they were in the wrong spot, and completing incorrect steps or assignments. I also had some ESL students struggling to use their resources to translate content.

I interviewed students and asked them where they felt frustrated or were unable to understand content. Admittedly, they are able to read the instructions and understand them, but don't remember to do so. They struggle with focus and automatically search for buttons to click to immediately get where they think they need to go. We spent a class period practicing these skills together with some fun assignments and taking turns reading directions out loud, but many students were still facing the same issues.

I also collaborated with colleagues, and we shared insights and observations from different classrooms and subjects, and tried to troubleshoot together. We discussed how this group of students was in early elementary school when schools shut down for the pandemic, and I'm sure you've all heard the term "iPad kids," and we found this to be a part of the issue. Students are accustomed to everything being gamified - click a button, get a reward. Click a button, get a reward. They haven't had enough practice learning how to SLOW DOWN and really read and comprehend content on a device, or on paper for that matter.

This is when I decided to revamp the appearance of my Canvas course. Since the students reported being able to read and understand the material, they just couldn't make themselves pause to find what they needed to without consistent prompting and assistance, I worked on making the course more visually appealing and organized, and added in translations for my ESL students.

Using some simple HTML code and CSS styling, I added in some borders and backgrounds to make it easier for students to scroll down to the current day of the week.

I added an "announcements" bar at the top for content that is applicable to the entire week, and I used Microsoft Word to translate the weekly outline into Spanish and Japanese - the languages my ESL students need. I used Google Translate to talk with students and ensure the content made sense and was translated appropriately. It was simple to add some buttons to the top of the outline using HTML code and add the outline titles in the appropriate languages, to make them easy for students to find.

As always, I made sure to apply heading hierarchy within Canvas and make sure the content was visually accessible, with visual heading structure, color contrast, and an easy-to-read font.

Microsoft Word is one of my preferred ways to translate my outlines, as it keeps the heading structure, so it's easy for me to tell where the content belongs, even in Japanese, which I do not speak or read at all.

Students were excited about this change and immediately reported that it was easier to find the content they needed. In the first week, overall, the new format drove independent completion of daily tasks on Canvas from around 20% to about 60% immediately. I am continuing to get feedback from students and make adjustments, for things like color in dark mode, which some students prefer to use, and making sure they all feel comfortable with the new format.

These are very simple changes that add only a few minutes to creating each weekly outline, but add time that I can use for students to experience performing in class, and help students become more independent learners.

Each group of students I meet every year has different needs, different experiences, and different background knowledge. It's so important to meet learners where they are before pushing them into unknown territory. Think of a time you expected a group of learners to come to a session with a different set of knowledge and skills than they possessed, and you had to revamp and find the learners before moving forward. Effective training requires knowing your learners and the skill and nuance of being able to "read the room" in the moment and pivot.

At its core, human-centered design is about listening to learners, to patterns, and to what’s not working, and then responding with empathy and intention. The changes I made in Canvas weren’t complex or high-tech; they were thoughtful adjustments grounded in understanding my students’ real needs. Accessibility isn’t just about compliance or visual contrast; rather, it’s about creating a learning environment where every student can focus, engage, and succeed. Meeting learners where they are reminds us that great design isn’t about perfection: it’s about connection, flexibility, and the belief that every learner deserves to be seen and supported right where they are.