Ace
Yourself
Ace
Yourself
The challenge: Transferring from secondary to higher education
The step between two life-determining stages – secondary and higher education – is challenging. It’s not only a new life stage for students, higher education also requires a different set of skills. To facilitate this process, the Ace Yourself team works on the development of an app to help students learn about important life skills. In the app, students will be able to explore a range of 21st-century skills within the domains of study skills, personal skills and social skills.
The challenge: Transferring from secondary to higher education
The step between two life-determining stages – secondary and higher education – is challenging. It’s not only a new life stage for students, higher education also requires a different set of skills. To facilitate this process, the Ace Yourself team works on the development of an app to help students learn about important life skills. In the app, students will be able to explore a range of 21st-century skills within the domains of study skills, personal skills and social skills.
Learning vs applying learned skills
Learning (new) skills is one thing; however, it is hard to determine whether you actually obtained or improved them. Therefore, students will also be offered assignments where they can put their newly acquired skills into practice, while also getting the opportunity to reflect on their skill improvement journey.
Learning vs applying learned skills
Learning (new) skills is one thing; however, it is hard to determine whether you actually obtained or improved them. Therefore, students will also be offered assignments where they can put their newly acquired skills into practice, while also getting the opportunity to reflect on their skill improvement journey.
Going beyond students: Involving teachers & educational institutions
To provide added value for education, we envision that the app should not only be used by students in their skill-mastery journey, but also by teachers and educational institutions. Teachers can use the app to incorporate life skills into their lessons and educational institutions can facilitate the inclusion of life skills in their curriculum.
This way, a student doesn’t have to completely rely on themselves, but will also receive an outside perspective and guidance.
Going beyond students: Involving teachers & educational institutions
To provide added value for education, we envision that the app should not only be used by students in their skill-mastery journey, but also by teachers and educational institutions. Teachers can use the app to incorporate life skills into their lessons and educational institutions can facilitate the inclusion of life skills in their curriculum.
This way, a student doesn’t have to completely rely on themselves, but will also receive an outside perspective and guidance.
What can be expected of the app?
Although the app is still in development, we’re designing it in a way to facilitate the transition to higher education through three main features:
- Skills: This feature gives an overview of the available skills in the app. Students can access the general theory and educational content of each skill before, during, and after practice.
- Practice: The chosen skill can be practiced through the completion of assignments that tie back to the general theory provided by the “Skills” component. The assignments offer bitesize content and clips, comparable to Instagram Reels. The content is organized in adaptive learning steps so that students can customize their learning and enhance their self-regulatory skills.
- Progress tracking: Users can follow their progress while training and mastering different skills.
Ace Yourself will first be made available in Dutch, but will also be translated to English in the near future. All of this is made possible by a team of engaged stakeholders and a diverse team working in different multi-disciplinary task forces.
What can be expected of the app?
Although the app is still in development, we’re designing it in a way to facilitate the transition to higher education through three main features:
- Skills: This feature gives an overview of the available skills in the app. Students can access the general theory and educational content of each skill before, during, and after practice.
- Practice: The chosen skill can be practiced through the completion of assignments that tie back to the general theory provided by the “Skills” component. The assignments offer bitesize content and clips, comparable to Instagram Reels. The content is organized in adaptive learning steps so that students can customize their learning and enhance their self-regulatory skills.
- Progress tracking: Users can follow their progress while training and mastering different skills.
Ace Yourself will first be made available in Dutch, but will also be translated to English in the near future. All of this is made possible by a team of engaged stakeholders and a diverse team working in different multi-disciplinary task forces.
Biggest milestones thus far
- First internal tests of the MVP prototype
- Working in Dual-research approach: User and scientific research
- Insights into shared needs & functionalities satisfying needs from user interviews (Dutch HBO and university, students and teachers)
- Published Ace app-related articles:
- Participation in conferences of international coverage
Biggest milestones thus far
- First internal tests of the MVP prototype
- Working in Dual-research approach: User and scientific research
- Insights into shared needs & functionalities satisfying needs from user interviews (Dutch HBO and university, students and teachers)
- Published Ace app-related articles:
- Participation in conferences of international coverage
Next steps
- Test prototype with target group
- Incorporate more skills in prototype
- Ensure smooth implementation of the app in educational institutions and schools’ value ecosystem
Next steps
- Test prototype with target group
- Incorporate more skills in prototype
- Ensure smooth implementation of the app in educational institutions and schools’ value ecosystem