Agile Analytics

By Lindsay Lamb

When the pandemic first hit, Andrea and I wrote a few posts about working at home with our kids. I’ll be honest – I thought it was something that would be over sooner rather than later. Now that we are nearly 8 months in to working and learning from home, honestly, not much has changed. If, like me, your child is still at home learning you might find yourself in need of a break from “zoom-school.”

One thing that got my family through a particularly difficult fall was getting excited about Halloween. Traditionally, our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween. Nearly every house has decorations and several streets are shut down to throw a huge block party. Houses on these streets are open for all to enter. Some are turned into haunted houses and others showcase incredible decorations inside the home (and hand out top notch candy). My daughter had the time of her life with two of her closest friends last year… while my son (who was a little over 1 at the time) threw in the towel rather early in a fit of tears. Oh well, I thought, maybe next year!

Oops.

Since our neighborhood block party and traditional trick-or-treating won’t be an option this year, I knew I needed to do something to keep my daughter excited about Halloween (which is her favorite holiday). As we were walking around the neighborhood one evening admiring the decorations, I thought of something fun for us to do instead (reminder: I’m a data nerd, so my idea of fun might be different from yours!): document all of the Halloween decorations in our neighborhood to determine which decorations were most popular. I made all of us (including my husband and Hayes) hypothesize which decoration would win. I also included a few more guiding questions for Hannah including, would we see more Halloween decorations the closer we got to Halloween? Which streets (or blocks) had the most decorations? What was the spookiest house? Which house had the most decorations?

Every day Hannah took off on her bike with lightning speed and I trailed behind her with Hayes and Lola (our dog) in tow. We stopped to take pictures and document all of the decorations we saw (which was a great way to chat with neighbors). Hannah never complained about riding her bike (which she started to do frequently in the summer); she was on a mission. My little scientist had to collect data.

In addition to Hannah truly enjoying the project, Hayes began honing his skills at spying skeletons, spiderwebs, and pumpkins. I was grateful to get us out of the house, forget about all the seriousness going on in the world these days, and see them truly be happy if even for a bit. When we got home, I helped Hannah document all of the decorations we saw. She made a list of each kind of decoration (e.g., skeletons, spiderwebs) and added a check for each time she saw a house with that particular decoration.

Hannah tallied how many houses we saw each day (28 was an all-time max!), and how many of each decoration we saw that day. It was fun! As an added bonus, I was sneakily getting her to practice handwriting, math, reading, and PE! It was great!

On our last day, she was excited to see the results come in – although we had a pretty good guess what the results would be.

I helped her count up the decorations, figured out what we saw the most (and least) of, and then we made a graph.

Then I showed her how to make the graph in excel and talked to her about percentages. As we worked, I talked about how I do this type of thing in my job so I can help people make sense of things they want to count. Like the number of students who are engaged in online learning, the number of students from low-income communities who graduate high school and college, the number of high risk students who experience academic improvements because of a community based support model, and the number of teen parents who believe their relationships have improved as a result of an program designed to strengthen relationships.

Now she at least some idea why I lock myself in the closet for a couple hours at a time every day… and maybe she thinks it is worth it. Who knows, we might even have a future data nerd in the family.

This is the fourth in our series identifying best practices in online learning. As stated in earlier posts, supporting students’ (as well as educators and their families) social and emotional needs must come first in any learning environment, particularly a virtual one in the midst of a pandemic. Next, educators should foster building relationships with each other, with students and with families. After establishing these foundations – which must be nourished throughout the academic year – educators can begin focusing on creating engaging content. One critical component to build a successful learning environment is to ensure that educators, students, and families know how to use the technology provided to them.

Create a virtual learning “studio.”  Moving learning into an online environment is hard. Instead of using the first few days of class to practice new technology applications, create a space to practice delivering the content before working with students. Doing so will add an air of professionalism and create a smoother transition to online learning on the first day. There are two major components to this aspect of online learning: visual and audio.  Importantly, neither of these require a large investment in equipment.

Visual professionalism includes:

• Adding a webcam or setting up the internal camera so that the you face is well-framed (you might need to stack some books under your computer).
• Ensuring good lighting by placing one or more lighting sources (e.g., window, lamp) in front of the camera.
• Dressing for the occasion.
• Setting up the background. Some instructors have gotten creative with backgrounds and have held class in different locations in their homes on different days to spark student interest. Some educators have made scavenger hunts with their backgrounds – use this tool to your advantage!

Audio professionalism includes:

• Having a quiet space for the meeting, free from audio distractions.
• Ensuring that the microphone is good and does not echo
• Speaking in a clear, engaging style (you might need to slow down so learners can stay engaged)

Educators should practice video sessions with a friend and/or record a practice session to practice, review, and refine. Over time, this process will become smoother, and taking these initial steps will ensure both educators and students are comfortable with the process.

Get to Know Your Learning Management System (LMS). Additionally, educators should take the time before classes meet to get to know the features of their online LMS and/or group meeting platform. Can participants chat in your platform? Can participants use a chat feature? Can you create breakout sessions? Do students and families know how to use your various platforms? Make sure you take the time to answer these questions and familiarize yourself, as well as students and families, prior to the first day of class. Also, be sure you (and students and families) know where to go, and with whom to contact, for technical support.

For example, use features embedded in Zoom to create polls, break out rooms, share screens, and take quick temperature checks of participants using emojis (e.g., clap, thumbs up, etc.). Doing so helps make learners feel safe to share answers, stories, ideas, and to speak up when experiencing a technical issue and need help. This gives learners a voice when they could have easily fallen through the cracks.

Use the chat function.  Public speaking is a strong fear for many adults and children, and sometimes it can be challenging to get people to speak out – especially when the topic is quite personal.  One of the benefits of virtual meeting programs is the simple text chat feature. Educators who are working with groups of more than 5 participants at a time would be wise to become familiar with the chat feature and to encourage its use. This feature is clearly better suited for older students, and is also useful for family members helping younger students engage in online learning.

Use technology to meet the need – rather than finding the technology first. Most importantly, use technology and platforms that will actually help fill a need rather than finding a technology application and forcing their desired content or need into that application. There are a lot of great educational technology resources out there, and not all of them will be right for you or your students. For example, technology can be used to engage students by sending messages to families (using platforms like GroupMe or Class Dojo), texting students an interesting question for them to respond to during synchronous or asynchronous gatherings, creating individualized assignments with video, and using Google voice/voice memos/videos to provide comments and feedback on students’ assignments. Similarly, students can share their work using video (such as Loom), images or Google voice/voice memos. This creates personalization in the learning and allows students to showcase their work and talk about it without interruption from peers.

As you move forward in an online learning environment, we hope these best practices will help you navigate these challenging times. If you want to learn more, stay tuned for our summative report!

By Lindsay Lamb

This is the third in a series of blogs reporting on best practices associated with online learning. As discussed previously, supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of our students, educators, and their families is the highest priority in any learning environment right now. The next important thing for educators to improve online learning is to build relationships with students and families. These two strategies should be ongoing throughout the school year. Once educators address students’ social and emotional needs (as well as their own!) and build relationships, they can begin focusing on academic content. How can they do so? By creating engaging content.

In a virtual environment, engaging and relevant course material is even more critical than for in-person classes. A panelist during an EducationWeek online summit on reopening schools in the pandemic shared research gathered in Spring 2020, noting that synchronous learning cannot replace in-person learning simply by offering the same in-person content and pedagogy in an online format. Educators need to recognize that online learning is different, and we must play to the advantages of online learning. For example, online learning is more effective when students can engage in smaller groups where they can interact more directly with peers and can connect one-on-one with their teacher. These strategies build community within the class and between students and teachers.

Another best practice is to ensure that students have time to deeply engage in work on their own and away from the computer rather than passively listening and taking notes for the entire class period (or school day). Allowing students to work independently – or with a parent – and then come back to either a smaller group or a larger group to go over their learning is an excellent way to incorporate both online and individual work. Including a few synchronous learning opportunities for students coupled with asynchronous learning opportunities is a great balance. Doing so provides students with an opportunity to relate with their teacher and peers online as well as giving them a screen break and foster deep learning away from technology.

One strategy that works for all age groups is inviting guest speakers to attend lessons and share their experiences, stories, and personal reflections. As I’m sure we can all attest, guest speakers is a nice break for learners from the normal school routine. Students will benefit from hearing stories of strength and resilience during these challenging times. During a virtual internship program for high school students we had the privilege to evaluate this summer, we found that students were more engaged in lessons when a guest speaker was invited to participate and share their experiences that related to the course material. Students were able to reflect on the speaker’s story, making the lesson content relevant to their life.

Limit the amount of time students spend in an online learning environment. This is particularly important for younger students. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, the minimum and maximum length of engagement time for remote learning for all students under 2^nd grade was 90 minutes, and for high school students, 270 minutes, still short of a typical school day. Schools should not require students to complete a full 6-7 hour school day remotely.

Showcase student work. This is a strategy that effectively works to engage students in person and can easily adapt to the online environment. Simply ask students take a picture of their work, record a video of their work, or share their work during online group meetings. Doing so will keep students engaged, excited and motivated to engage in the lessons.

Finally, continually checking in with students to see if they are engaged in the material is critical as lessons go online. For example, ask students if they liked the lessons, thought the online content was too long, if the course material was relevant to their life, or had any other feedback to improve their experience.  For younger students, checking in with parents is equally, if not more important. During our evaluation of the summer virtual internship program, we created weekly check-ins with interns. We asked questions about interns’ interest in the lessons, relevance of the lessons, and length of the lessons. These survey questions helped Ignite MindShift staff identify which lessons should be shortened, and overall student engagement.

Providing different formats for students to engage in learning, and continuously checking in with students and families to assess engagement with the material will help keep students engaged in the learning.

By Lindsay Lamb

As we move to online learning this fall, we are documenting best practices for educators to use in a virtual environment. We gathered insight from interviews with educators, reviewed recent literature, attended virtual summits and webinars, and interviewed students and families.

As we discussed in our previous post, providing students with social and emotional learning is critical at this time. That being said, as important as fostering social and emotional skill development and creating engaging content are, they will fall flat if educators do not build relationships with their students. As all educators know, building relationships is critical to successful student engagement, both in person and virtually. It is also a major challenge for the virtual environment. To build relationships virtually, we urge educators to consider embedding the following practices into their lessons:

• Share personal stories
• Set norms
• Set expectations of the online learning environment
• Foster small group discussions
• Routinely check in with students and families

Share personal stories. Sharing experiences and being open and vulnerable was a common theme that ran throughout the internship. During an observation of a mentor circle call, one mentor described how she handled a difficult work situation, showing her vulnerability in order to help her interns relate to the material.

Set norms. Educators can begin to build community by setting norms at the beginning of the school year (or program) to convey clear expectations and promote mutual trust and respect. These norms should include guidance on when cameras should be turned on and off, when and how to mute or unmute yourself, how much participation is required, when emails can be sent, what students can do if they have a question, and how students should communicate with others. It is important to revisit these norms during each class/group meeting to make sure they are still relevant and to check in to see if new norms should be added. To ensure that norms are internalized and adopted, consider co-constructing the norms with students. Doing so will increase buy-in, ensure students’ voices are heard, and help make the norms constructive and positive.

Set expectations for the online learning environment. As part of the norm setting process, it would be wise for educators to spend some time discussing expectations for the online lessons. In particular, younger students will require additional time learning how to engage in online learning. It is unrealistic to begin school online in the way teachers normally would in an in-person setting. Much more time must be spent describing the virtual format and what is expected of students, answering students’ (and families) questions, and providing ample time for students to get used to online learning. Many students do not know how to interact in an online environment and need help learning how to do so (e.g., difficulty for teachers to see all students, when the teacher or another student is talking, do not talk over them; raise your hand if you have a question; know how to mute yourself). Even older students can use guidelines to help set norms to foster positive interactions with each other online.

Foster small group discussions. Only offering Zoom meetings for 20 or more students will not effectively build relationships with students. Instead, educators can use the breakout session feature in Zoom to create small groups for students to engage and connect with each other in a more meaningful way. This allows students to connect with each other and build relationships, talk to each other without the conversation getting lost, and relate to each other outside of the larger group setting. This will be difficult for younger students, so family help will be required. Another option is for educators to meet one-on-one or in small groups with each student as frequently as possible. This could be done weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and is particularly important for younger students. All students need to know that they matter, that they are cared for, especially now. While this might be more time consuming for some educators, the payoff is far reaching.

Routinely check in with students and families. Finally, we know online learning will have its ups and downs. Not everything educators planned out will work, and some things will work well for some students and families while others will not. The key to navigating this conundrum is constantly checking in with students and families. Our advice is to have daily check ins regarding the technology access, duration of lessons, content of lessons, and how the student is feeling. This will also build relationships with each student and their family allowing them to feel more comfortable advocating for their/their child’s needs.

Online learning is not perfect, particularly for young children. Helping educators identify best practices to use while engaging with children online will help make online learning a more positive experience for everyone. Stay tuned for more best practices and the launch of our report in partnership with Ignite MindShift soon!

By Lindsay Lamb

If you are like me and have school age children, you probably spent the summer worrying about everything related to your child, your child’s learning, your child’s social and emotional wellbeing, your child’s teachers, and education in general.

Perhaps as a way of coping with this, and also as part of a larger project we were working on with one of our clients, we have been developing a Best Practices document for online learning (keep your eye out for it, we’ll let you know when it is available!). Our goal was to find answers to the following questions:

• What are some effective strategies teachers use to engage students in online learning?
• What strategies from the in-person environment can pivot to an online format?
• How do teachers build relationships with their students?
• How can we best support students and families during these challenging times?

To explore these questions, we spent the summer interviewing teachers, participating in webinars, reading timely research articles, and speaking with experts in the field. Based on all of these data, we identified six broad categories we believe will help educators navigate teaching and learning this fall:

• Supporting students’ social and emotional needs
• Building relationships
• Creating engaging content
• Providing consistent routines and procedures
• Expertly using technology
• Knowing when to pivot

Supporting students’ social and emotional needs.

While all of these practices are important, the theme that holds them all together and ran through our interviews, research, and learnings was providing social and emotional support for students, families, and teachers. While evaluating Austin Independent School District’s (AISD) social and emotional learning (SEL) program, I often heard program staff say SEL is not one other thing to add to teachers’ plates, it IS the plate. Now, I feel like SEL is the soil from which all learnings will grow. Without the ability to talk about emotions, build relationships, foster a safe learning community, and share experiences, teachers will be unable to teach, and students will be unable to learn. As one of my daughter’s teachers said in a meeting, we all need to give each other some grace. We all need to be okay with things not being perfect or exactly how we envisioned learning to be this school year. We are in the midst of a pandemic, and what matters most is keeping each other safe, happy, and healthy.

Recently, one of my friends and former colleagues wrote about her experiences teaching music in an online learning environment. The core of her teaching? Social and emotional learning. Was teaching music online perfect? No. Did she and her students experience technology problems? Yes. Did students benefit? Absolutely. Students need the arts, especially now, and social and emotional learning is such a perfect fit for arts instruction. Students need something to help them connect with each other, express their feelings, focus on something outside of the stresses they are experiencing because of the pandemic and political unrest. They need to feel part of something bigger than themselves, and just get the chance to be a kid. Is teaching the arts – or any subject – online an ideal way to experience learning? No, but there are great teachers out there making the best of this situation, and best practices we can learn from them.

I just want to close by reminding everyone that so many educators are going above and beyond to be there for our children while also caring for their own families. I cannot thank them enough. On a personal note, my daughter got through the summer by continuing to participate in her dance class over Zoom. She relished in being able to just be a kid, to wear a costume, to dance with her brother, and be silly. Her teachers always made time to listen to her stories, do a quick check in with everyone and see how they were feeling, and build a community. Rather than bemoaning online learning, let’s embrace it for what it is since we cannot do anything to change the situation. Let’s look for the joy and find ways to connect, reflect, and just help your kid to be a kid.