Work From Home World

 (from Next Draft)

"In our always-on, always-connected world, it no longer makes sense to expect employees to work an eight-hour shift and do their jobs successfully. Whether you have a global team to manage across time zones, a project-based role that is busier or slower depending on the season, or simply have to balance personal and professional obligations throughout the day, workers need flexibility to be successful." And with that, Brent Hyder, Salesforce's chief people officer, made the work from home era a little more permanent. Salesforce declares the 9-to-5 workday dead, will let some employees work remotely from now on. "An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks." (I'm not even sure the life experience is about more than that.)

+ Axios: "Salesforce said most employees will work from the office only one to three days a week, while some will work fully remotely. It now foresees that only the smallest share of its workforce will come to an office each day." (For me, it's less about getting back to an office and more about getting the hell out of the house.)

Engagement in Remote Meetings.

 This tip is adapted from “Break Up Your Big Virtual Meetings,” by Liana Kreamer and Steven G. Rogelberg

 Research shows that embracing silence during a brainstorm helps teams produce significantly more — and higher-quality — ideas. Silent brainstorming can be particularly useful in remote meetings. So what does it look like in practice? First, starting with the meeting invite, make sure everyone understands the goals of the brainstorming session. Then, at the beginning of your meeting, share a working document (such as a Google Doc) with key questions that need to be answered. Encourage all participants to contribute to the document for 10 to 20 minutes without talking. During this time, attendees can actively ideate and respond to each other in the document. The leader can also participate, providing direction and asking attendees to elaborate on specific ideas as they’re being formed. Once the silent phase of the brainstorm is complete, you can begin a discussion if your group is relatively small. If the group is large, you can end the meeting, review the document, and follow up with an email that shares conclusions and next steps. Or, you might consider sending out a quick survey where participants can react or vote on options to move forward. 

Keeping students engaged in remote learning

 Here’s what English teachers in the department are saying about how they’re adapting to increase student engagement in low stakes ways:

1. The majority of teachers talked about using Zoom breakout rooms (especially with cameras on) for pairs and small groups.  One teacher added that accountability is key: “Randomly assign kids to break out rooms. Have them talk and then call them back. Then, randomly call on kids to hold them accountable.”
2. Having an informal but written product in the breakout room to share screen with the rest of the class in whole group. Collaborations in Canvas make this quick and easy for them, too. (KW)
3. I used Poll Everything yesterday with an assignment that usually a four corners of the room assignment. So after seeing where everyone stood using the poll, I then had people take turns unmuting themselves to further explain their poll opinion. (MB)
4. My kids are in semi-permanent learning groups. I pull each learning group, each day for small group work while the rest work asynchronously. It's not innovative, but it has been successful. (GC)
5. I did Write-Pair-Share through Zoom which worked really well for a Fahrenheit introduction discussion. Kids had 3 minutes to write on a topic, and then I put them in breakout rooms to discuss for 5 minutes, and when we came back to the main zoom room, kids took turns sharing out what their groups discussed. Yesterday, kids had 5 minutes in breakout rooms to find a "most important passage" from the first pages of Fahrenheit. When the kids came back together, I could still see the names of students in each breakout room, so we just went through each group sharing their passages and explaining why they chose them. To review the first few pages of Fahrenheit, I told each student they had to state 1 thing they knew for sure happened, so we just went in reverse ABC order through the "zoom" room. On a day that students had to do a webquest on 3 different articles to prepare for reading, I jigsawed the activity by breaking up the class into 3 breakout rooms for those kids in the same group to read 1 article and make notes on it to share out with the rest of the class. Breakout rooms have been my saving grace to help me teach the way I usually run my classroom. I just have to keep reminding them that if something happens that I need to know about, I am available through email, but I talked myself out of fearing this function when I remembered that kids can always find ways in class in front of us to be nasty or mean to others, so it's a risk I guess I am willing to take to keep class engaging and kids producing. (JS)
6. Canvas Groups — collaboration and conference in groups (Birthday Girl)
7. Asking questions that require use of polls, the chat box, thumbs up, etc to show that they are actually listening and there instead of pretending like they are. (KT, LO)
8. Have students collaborate on a Google Doc. We did an activity last week where students were all working on the same document in groups. (CB)

 

 

Fordham Institute's report on lessons learned during remote learning

Here's the PDF.

Some notes:

 KIPP DC created this new Maslowe's hierarchy:

Staying in touch with students and families wasn’t just about providing social and emotional support; it was also essential to keeping kids learning. The charter networks are data-driven organizations, and they doubled down on this during the crisis to learn what was and wasn’t working, employing clear goals and metrics to monitor, with dashboards that helped educators decide what to keep or change. The networks leveraged their previous investments in becoming learning organizations that could quickly build pilots, try them, gather data, learn from them, and pivot, akin to the “lean startup” innovation methodology (a method for increasing the success rate of innovative products and services through rapid prototyping and quick feedback loops).38 This use of data happened at the network school and classroom levels, with educators systematically improving lessons via trials, observation, coaching, feedback, and iterations.

A strong finding from the interviews was the central importance of regularly reaching out to students and families, including providing social and emotional support and development. This came up in nearly every interview. Most networks had an advisor or counselor system (operating before and during the pandemic), allowing them to check in on student and family needs, provide emotional support, and gather feedback on how remote learning was going among their pupils. One striking observation was how thoughtfully and systematically the networks reached out individually to students and parents, which seemed a rare practice in other schools (or an aspiration deemed to be operationally impractical).

Encourage teachers and staff to maintain a growth and innovation mindset as educators move up the steep learning curve of figuring out how to teach with these new tools.

Focus on fundamentals (for example, reading as a gateway to learning other subjects).

Ensure lessons include many opportunities for active learning, with students engaging directly with the material, instructor, and their peers

Make creative use of teaching teams, with smart use of specialization and collaboration.

Assess students effectively so educators can monitor progress and diagnose where students are and what they need.

I really like the "design principles" on pp. 21-22.  The best is the one from "Achievement First" because of the way they're written.  The "we need a simple..." makes it really easy to understand.

• We need to lead with our “care for the whole person” value and keep our community together. We need to have enough touchpoints and direct contacts to make sure we have a pulse on our kids and each other. 

• We create a shared “container.” Having a consistent instructional approach and schedule will enable efficiencies (family communication, tech issues, and curriculum design) and collaboration.

 • We need a simple, clear plan that we can execute well. None of us has ever done this before. The more complexity we add, the harder it will be to do it well.

 • We need continuity and consistency. We—our scholars, teachers, and families—need consistent routines for remote learning and remote community that will become a source of stability and comfort. 

• We are designing for “most.” There will be no effective plan that works for every single student, parent, and teacher. We will need flexibility and extra support for the students, families, and staff who need it.