For the 3rd year in a row, I am teaching a course, Leading Innovative Schools, at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education with my friend and amazing leader @drchagala. We had our first class on Thursday night and I was reminded that when we taught the class last year it was week two of lockdown and everyone (including me) was just experimenting and trying to figure it all out.  

As I compared the agenda, flow, activities, and general state of anxiety and chaos from April of 2020 to April of 2021, I was struck by how much I have learned and grown as an educator (and as a person) throughout this year.  This is not to minimize that there has been a lot that has been challenging but to acknowledge that in the midst of the chaos there has also been incredible growth in how I design and facilitate learning, builds virtual connections, and prioritize my time to focus on what matters most. 

As I reflect, here are the biggest lessons that being forced to do everything virtually taught me about how to be more effective in professional learning that I will continue when we are in person.

1. Create a joyful space

A lot of times we tell people what they can’t do or just start off with dead air. I have been much more intentional within a virtual setting about starting with music, inviting others’ voices into to room to sharing success, or check in from the beginning. I love to create rules for learning that invite people to be active parts of the community like learn from each other, use the chat, ask questions, and have fun are all ways.  I have always wanted people to feel joyful and enjoy the learning but in virtual space, because it was new to many, I began to be explicit about the use of chat, music, and norms to set the tone from the beginning to create joy! Regardless of the medium, I will be more intentional about setting the conditions for learning before and during the learning. 

2. Be more intentional about the use of time

I definitely had a bias that things were better in person. That is the majority of what I have experienced and it just felt more natural. Being virtual has forced me to think differently about time. For example, I would often think about an event as a day and doing as much as we could in a day, while now I think about how we can use more of a hybrid approach to hour time chunks and be efficient with our time and omit travel. Instead of thinking about what I can do in a 6 hour day, I am thinking about what needs to be accomplished in this time period, what do we need to do together, what can they do in small groups, and what learning can and should they do asynchronously-at their own pace? This has shifted my thinking in some really great ways and I am still learning a ton about how I can build better structures that make the most of the time, the learning, and the collective genius of the room- virtually or in person.

3. Start with personalized profiles

I often like to start with the activity: “What do you bring to the table?” as a way to connect small groups and build community. We usually draw it on paper, share, and don’t do much else with it. Since we have been remote, I have had teams that I work with over the course of the year or this new class I am teaching, create a slide in a deck that highlights their role, interest, identity, and goals. People can bring in real pictures, change the font, add graphics and they usually have a lot of fun creating their learner profile but then we also get to know more about one another. One person shared with me, “I have been with these folks for a full school year and am still unaware of most of their strengths, experiences, and small pieces of genius!” To make our strengths more visible, whether we are remote or in-person I will continue to design learner profiles virtually with new teams I am working with. 

4. Create time for learning communities

We know that learning is social and the social connections have been harder in many cases to build virtually. I have seen great benefits of creating small learning communities or learning circles with clear outcomes and flexibility to design the structure as a small group. Virtual book clubs are a great way to read, discuss, and learn together in small groups. These are even better when people have some choice about the topics or problems of practice. This can be done virtually or in-person based on the goal and the group.

5. Make thinking visible

This is probably my biggest win that evolved from my in-person practice. I love a good brainstorm session with poster paper and stickies and it helps to see what groups are thinking and helps them clarify their own ideas. I used to jump in and out of breakout rooms to listen and then most often the group would stop if I joined or they would look to me instead of each other. To help them make their thinking visible and create a simple space to share their ideas, I love to use Slides and give each group their own slide with a task or a prompt to record their ideas. Each group can also see each other’s slides if they need inspiration. I also know if a group needs help when I see their responses or nothing at all and I can check in as needed. I usually keep all of this in a running deck so it can be used as a reference for each group to go back to the ideas and examples they have curated that become their toolkit for moving forward. 

6. Create time for coaching/ check-Ins

Last year we decided to do check-ins with each student because it felt like we needed to better understand each person and their needs- duh! It was a highlight for me and I think really impactful for each student to have some dedicated coaching time to check in on their individual questions, progress, and next steps. It was so valuable that this year we built the coaching sessions into the schedule. I have also been doing more coaching with teachers, and school and district leaders, and I am reminded why I loved my job as an instructional coach and new teacher mentor– because coaching is so powerful and critical to our collective growth. I love checking in every couple of weeks and seeing the progress and the impact that our coaching conversation had and I too benefit immensely from my mentors who coach me and I will be definitely building more coaching cycles in professional learning and classes I teach. 

One of my biggest takeaways is that some things are better suited for virtual when there is a relationship and it’s a quick check-in or more accessible and convenient for everyone to connect online versus driving to one space. It is not impossible to build community and connections virtually, it just has to be designed differently than a face-to-face gathering in many cases. This has been helpful for me to reflect on my learning over the last year. I would love to hear what you have learned and how your practices have evolved.