Building Communities Online

I recently presented at Canopy Live on building communities online. This is a session I trimmed down from a full day's training that Dr Lou Mycroft and myself offer colleges and schools ( happily discuss more about this with anyone interested, anytime).

“Students said they were more likely to engage when they felt that staff valued them, were reliable and consistent in their engagement with online work, and had set up effective support measures.” 

(Palmer et al., 2017)

I purposefully include this from 2017 as I think anything pre pandemic is interesting. Not that what we learnt in the pandemic isn't interesting, but I like to highlight that online teaching happened pre pandemic and we learnt a LOT from that time too.

I don't think this quote is telling us anything unusual. Students want to feel valued. We all do. That is the practice of care (if you ever spend time with Dr Mycroft you will hear her speak to this often) that is education. How do we show students we care? What conditions for them to excel do we create? When teaching online how do we check in?

Also at Canopy Live was the wonderful Cat Lamin. She shared about how important it is to check in on others and your own mental health. She used this duck scale to ask us how we were.

What I like about the duck scale is that it is open to all, everyone can relate to the stages. This is one type of check in, there are others. What is important though is that we check in. I tweet regularly that the algorithms on social media show you what it thinks you want to see. To build community you have to go beyond the algorithm. Seek out people to connect with, topics that interest you. Scrolling isn't the way to build community on social media. Active dialogue is. Engaging with others, seeking voices different to yours to learn from. We rely a lot on platforms to deliver what we need. Think about a VLE. It shows you what you want to see, who has done the work and when. What it doesn't show you (instantly, agree that this is possible with back channels and extra interventions) is how the work went for students? How did they feel? Was it appropriately challenging? That's the human conversational part that we need to add in as an extra to our work. Likewise on Twitter, it delivers the information it is required to deliver. Scrolling until your hearts content, but the human interaction and connection is the work that you have to do.

If you are serious about building communities online, you might want to consider checking in, with a duck or without. The feeling of value you will show another in doing so cannot be underestimated.

Once you have checked in, how do you let students know that you value them throughout the lesson? I am reminded of a colleague who was once upset that a student failed to acknowledge her lovingly crafted feedback on each page of a students work. The student wanted to know the grade and what to do to improve in summary and disregarded hours of teacher feedback. Had the teacher asked what feedback the student had wanted there would have been a different outcome. Think yellow box marking where one section of yellow boxed work is marked intently. I have seen this include students self selecting the section to be marked also. The student has owned their work and indicated that they only require this section to be marked. The teacher marks that section with the level of feedback the student has asked for. Recognising whole college and school policies often dictate how we mark, but I think there are elements in this that can work and I have seen work well.

Teaching online, we can replicate this by indicating the yellow box. But that verbal feedback as we would traditionally circulate the room are slightly trickier. Sure we can verbally offer feedback, perhaps not whole class and maybe in breakout rooms? My go to technique is to use comments in student work live. I take a helicopter view of one slide deck. Each slide has the task, space for student work and each student's name on top. I then share one doc with the class with edit rights. Version history helps reinforce my expectations of etiquette and respect for others work in the doc. Each student navigates to their slide in the deck and works. I can see the colour code for each student as they work. I can then add comments live.

I can toggle my view to grid view (slide sorter view in PowerPoint) and see everyone working at once. I can see work appear live and dive in to slides where I think students might need help. Students feel safe to contribute, we have established expectations and I have reminded them of version history. Students feel valued that I can give them feedback quietly and as I would if I were circulating the room. Students could see each others work in the room normally, online they can too. If this were an issue for my students I would maybe move this quick, instant verbal feedback I am replicating online to Google Chat or private comments to students. I am showing students that I value their work and I am supporting them in their learning. We are all connected and building a learning community online.

Referring back to the initial quote, the value students perceive is also in expectations and support. Backchannel chats are a supportive measure my students enjoy. Our backchannel is via Google Chat. Students can privately message me live with how they are feeling, issues, ideas and I can support. Something like Backchannel Chat is also appropriate. That immediate support of knowing that your teacher is there and will be able to help is an effective support in itself, just the knowing. My students mainly share emojis at the level of challenge they are experiencing and my job is to support them to overcome that fear or work through it to achieve their potential in that class. This is time consuming and mentally taxing for me as a teacher, but since when was teaching not either of those things? We do what we need to do to help our students. I find setting a self marking activity for the class useful whilst I manage the back channel at key points in the lesson invaluable. Otherwise students would be left looking at my thinking face whilst I manage all the communication modes.

App Fatigue

When we first heard about Zoom fatigue we may have let out a little snort. Yet on reflection we probably realised we had Teams/Zoom/Google Meet fatigue too! That feeling of, not another meeting! In summer 2020 a leader asked me for top tips to help her manage her workload as she felt that she was sinking. I'm a huge fan of a coaching process and, although informal, we worked through and identified that it was continuous meetings that were the biggest issue. The jumping back to back between calls leaving no time to action anything from the previous meeting. She identified that a 15 minute buffer after every meeting might be a solution, she trialled it and when we chatted agin she extended it to 30minutes after every meeting. 

In my calendly I too have a gap after each call, time to gather my thoughts for the next meeting. Time to make notes from the previous one or fire off some emails and await responses whilst I hop on the next call. Yet zoom fatigue still happens on days when I have 5/6 calls a day. Sadly this is common. So I also actively manage my calendar with my calendly. If it looks busy on a morning next week I will book out the afternoon for admin/catch up time. If something urgent crosses my desk that time is available but otherwise it's time to catch up on the busy morning.

App fatigue is something I have seen in colleges I have been working with recently. Staff openly telling me that they cannot learn another app. Now I'm not sure this is true but I take their point. They cannot take on anything else new at this time as they are so busy. Catching up on missed practical activities or the dreaded TAGs that are thankfully now over! I get it.

Sheep dip cpd was introduced to me by Chloe Hynes from PD North. I chatted about it on my appearance on the Edufuturists podcast too. I've even spoken about it on the FE show on www.joyfm.co.uk as well! It is when we 'dip' staff into our agenda CPD. We have decided staff need to have this training, we dip them in and hope it sticks and becomes their new way of delivering their practice. Unfortunately sometimes the dip doesn't stick and there are no changes to practices. Sometimes with educational technology we are guilty of this too. We show staff a shiny new tool and hope it will appear in their lessons tomorrow and everyday there after. Delivery and approaches to CPD are not where I'm going here but will happily blog those too if you give me a nudge.

App fatigue has come about through this dipping of staff into training for new apps. We have dipped them in Wakelet, Edpuzzle, Flipgrid, Nearpod, Adobe, Canva, Kahoot, Kami and more! How many are staffs go to tools now? How embedded are they? Have staff had time to develop their skills further? Have we re-visited to support them? I was at a college recently and I showed a tool and the attendees finished my task really quickly. When I asked how they had managed to finish so quick they told me they had had this training before. So I asked, why haven't you continued to use it? Have you found your why? Answers varied but time and not finding their why were the winners.

Finding your why is when you find your why for the tool/thing/approach that you are being trained on. Why would this work for you and your students? Why would you change your approach? An example is British Values from my own development. It was an add on to my lessons but I went to some training that showed me that by embedding it I would be able to have richer discussions with my students and I had found my why, I changed my approach.

I was asked by a college recently to upskill staffs digital skills and I asked what training had gone before and a long receipt roll of training was reeled off. No wonder the staff have app fatigue. I decided to narrow the scope. With a working party we selected 6 core apps that worked for that college and those students. I'm not listing them all hear as they may not be right for you. We looked at each tool and identified all the possible why's for using each of them. Although some dipping still happened we took a variety of approaches and there was a shift. 

Revisiting apps staff have seen before will divide an audience, some will need a refresher and some won't, but by sharing why's and use cases rather than the clicks and bricks the sessions take on a different flavour. Clicks and bricks are when I show staff where to click and the features of a tool, not how it would look and feel in a classroom. In sharing the whys of a tool with staff you hope they come with you and it will be wonderful. It isn't always, but I have had more success with this approach than continual dipping.

I will share one tool, Slido. It doesn't have to be Slido you may prefer another audience response system but Slido is my preferred tool. Slido inserts into an existing presentation, on either PowerPoint or Google Slides. It is one of the simplest ways to integrate technology into an existing lesson. Staff at one college couldn't believe how easy it was to set up and it did (after a quick dip and a workshop!) become their normal way of working. Every lesson has 3 Slido interactions now, 1 at the start, 1 in the middle and 1 at the end. Students engage on their phone via the camera with he QR code, minimal set up and training needed. In the simplest way a rating Slido can be used where learners evaluate their own progress and inform their teacher. I've seen word clouds used and the distance travelled in the lesson is shown by the increased use of technical language from the students in the word clouds. Gamification via the quizzes means Slido wins for me. 

There will (hopefully) always be shiny new things in the educational technology world, but that doesn't mean we need to show them off all the time. Beware of app fatigue and look for ways to support staff with their own EdTech journey, meet them where they are and show them the tools that will help. Dipping can be distracting.

Finding your why

 I have debated writing this on my What The Trig blog as it began personal but it has ended up more open than that so it will sit here if that's OK?

I recently delivered some training to a college who part way through the demo the staff explained that they had seen this tool and demo before. They showed me partially completed tasks on the tool in question. I then asked "why are you here again?" followed by "why didn't you use it more?" and finally I said "I think it's because you haven't found your why"

The staff, knew how to use the tool. They had an idea of how it would enhance their teaching and learning. Yet they hadn't explored it fully, they didn't have a reason to do so. Their 'why' for being in training with me was about a manager telling them to attend. There were many interpretations of how to apply the tool I was demonstrating to the classroom. We spent time exploring our 'why'. This was much more valuable and staff left with examples to embed into teaching from the next day. Instead of a blanket CPD approach we worked together to find our 'why'.

Finding your 'why' is crucial for embedding changes in your practice. Teaching is a career that develops habits early doors that become hard to change. I am fascinated by the review work Hobiss, Sims and Allen (2020) on habit formation in teachers. It got me thinking about how early career teachers need very different CPD and training to experienced teachers. Not because one is better than the other or that we assume experienced teachers need less and early career teachers need more. I mean early career teachers and experienced teachers need different CPD and training because they are at different stages of habit formation. Their 'why' for making changes will have different motivations.

The 'why' of an early career teacher, in my own experience and that of mentoring teachers, is that their 'why' comes from forming good habits. Wanting to establish best practice, a thirst to learn. The 'why' of an experienced teacher is often, again in my experience of coaching staff, to change habits or develop new ones. Also born out of a thirst to learn and establish best practice. Yet how often does the CPD I deliver, you attend, offer this level of differentiation? What I am asked to deliver are brief whistle stop tours for experienced teachers and in depth training for early career teachers. That in depth training is often sadly extended to experienced teachers who are on performance management pathways too. I have had to battle with organisations to explain that I need staff to find their 'why' and we differentiate the sessions based on the staff's 'why'.

Finding your 'why' has also emerged for me seeing the increase in people attending CPD events online. The emergence of self development CPD being freely available online has seen attendance at events sky rocket for mine and for others. I was in a session recently and my 'why' for being there was to support a colleague and provide technical assistance. I looked at their attendees and saw people clearly multi tasking. They were listening of sorts. Attendees left near the end and asked for a recording so they could catch up later. What was their 'why' for being there? Was it because they didn't want to miss out or because they wanted to learn what my colleague had to share? I wish it was the latter. 

A recording of a session is a great way to reflect and recall key points, I agree. Some people though partially listen live in the knowledge that they have a recording to look back over and they multi task in live sessions. I am curious if the videos ever go watched. I too have fallen into this trap of signing up to a million eventbrites to develop myself. I found I was unable to attend a few and felt guilty about taking a place and cancelled them. Upon reflection, my 'why' for booking on was because the CPD was there, it wasn't that I had a hunger to learn what was being shared. Finding my 'why' on this has now freed my diary up somewhat and I am enjoying reading and other activities instead. If something piques my interest I ask myself now, what is my 'why' for attending?

Social media is another place where I have found my 'why'. I was late to the party on social media as a wise person once said, there's no point in having a Twitter/LinkedIn page if you're not going to love it. It is for this reason I still don't have a LinkedIn page today. I do not have the time to devote to it. I would rather have no representation on the platform than a poor one. Forming JoyFM has meant I have had to open a new Twitter account and an Instagram account. This was a conscious decision. I had to consciously think about my 'why'. What would having this platforms bring me and JoyFM? Did I have the time to invest in them? 

My 'why' for my Twitter as WhatTheTrigMath was to connect with people. Share work I was doing, education technology and maths tips. My 'why' was self interest in the first instance and it still is to a degree. It is a source of income for me as a self employed teaching and learning coach. I get DM's from people asking for me to deliver sessions so the 'why' is clear on that front. Yet there is an aspect to social media that has added a new dimension to me 'why'.

As well as connecting with others, I amplify others work. My 'why' is because I want to share other people's work and their stories. It is this 'why' that led me to form JoyFM. I want to provide a platform where all can share. On Twitter I want to RT lots and amplify more! I genuinely hold close to my heart the value that we are all better together. Moving past the hashtag be kind, I want to be kind and support others. Twitter isn't always positive, I am not naive. But the negative experiences count on one hand vs the hundreds of positive interactions every day. 

I was recently on an Instagram live with Scott Hayden talking about digital wellbeing habits. Scott shared this with his students and we had a student focus. I shared some of my work as a common sense ambassador. Particularly the lessons from the digital citizenship curriculum on wellbeing. In one we look at the art by Eric Pickersgill. These images are so powerful. And again it got me asking, what is the 'why' for the people in the images with their phones? In my chat with Scott I shared my thoughts about scrolling endlessly and finding your purpose for being on the platform. Whatever platform you are on, are you active or passive? If you are active what is your 'why'? If you are passive what is your 'why'? This reflection has been powerful for me in stepping away from some spaces and throwing myself into others.

There are many aspects of life where we have 'whys' but how often do we stop and think, what is our 'why' for doing this? What are we hoping to achieve? How will we support others? How will things be improved by doing this. As society demands more from us I hope that we can all find our 'why' and be purposeful in our actions. SJ