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TeachForward
Designing a next-generation educator coaching platform from the ground up — evidence capture, rubric scoring, progress tracking, and integrated video tutoring in a single cohesive system.
Designing a next-generation educator coaching platform from the ground up — evidence capture, rubric scoring, progress tracking, and integrated video tutoring in a single cohesive system.
TeachForward is an educator professional development platform designed to help instructional coaches work more effectively with teachers. I joined as the founding designer at the early MVP stage and spent 4 years evolving the product through multiple major versions.
The product needed to solve a genuinely complex workflow: coaches visit classrooms, capture evidence of teaching practice, score against rubrics, provide feedback, and schedule follow-up sessions — all while keeping administrators informed. This had previously been done across a patchwork of Google Docs, spreadsheets, and email.
Instructional coaches are technically not a typical software audience. They tend to be experienced educators in their 40s–50s, often managing 15–20 teachers simultaneously. The platform had to be powerful enough for complex rubric scoring workflows while remaining approachable for someone who hadn't used dedicated SaaS tools before.
I conducted extensive field research — visiting schools, shadowing coaches on classroom observations, and running regular co-design workshops with our most engaged users. This continuous feedback loop shaped every major product decision.
