Jobs to be Done Theory Applied to Schools

Colleagues:

I'm in the middle of reading Clayton Christensen's book entitled Competing Against Luck. As Clayton says: "it's all about the struggles we all face to make progress in our lives." 

The book motivated me to write this post. Clayton uses the Jobs to be Done Theory to analyze why people "hire" specific products and services to accomplish the jobs they face in their work or personal lives. One of the key questions he raises is: "What job did you hire that product to do?" The success of this approach requires knowing your customers' jobs, the context in which they occur, and customizing solutions. The book is very pragmatic and offers insightful examples in business, education, and health services.

Jobs to be Done Theory "explains why customers pull certain products and services into their lives...to resolve highly important, unsatisfied jobs that arise." For example, a school-based job arises when teachers are not satisfied with student progress in their classroom. What "product or service" do they hire to help do the job of increasing student learning that results in student and teacher success? And when a crisis emerges such as COVID-19, what solutions do leaders of learning "hire" to offer social distance strategies through virtual learning? 

This blog post offers my first attempt at applying the Jobs to be Done Theory to support schools and leaders of learning to make progress toward their goals for success. 

See my 5 jobs to done in schools here. Your feedback would be valued and appreciated.

Nick

Hooked on Professional Learning: A Virtual Learning Strategy

The Challenges. Why do online learning programs struggle to engage and retain users? Why do users complain about learning management systems?  Why doesn't content relate to user needs and schedules? Why is e-learning so boring? What can we do to turn these challenges around?

My Moment of Clarity. It all became clear to me how strategies for offering professional learning are missing the mark when I listened to Nir Eyal on a Youtube video. He explained: 

"We've all seen how the products we use change our behaviors; particularly over the past few years when we think about the rise of our personal technologies. For example, the products in our pockets like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and good old email. These products keep us checking again and again. How do they do it? These products have mastered the art and science of habits; the behaviors done with little or no conscious thought. About 40% of what we do, day in and day out, whether we like it or not, is done purely out of habit (Eyal, 2015)." 

Eyal continues and describes a model for building habits while educators focus on strategies to meet externally imposed requirements. This distinction motivated me to adapt his model for making virtual professional learning a habit of mind. The following is my attempt to make it work as LearningFRONT's strategy for virtual professional learning.

The LearningFRONT Hook. LearningFRONT is a dynamic learning community. We follow Eyal's hook model for building habit forming use of our products in education, business, and government. Our hook is a virtual professional learning experience designed to connect a user's problem to LearningFRONT tools with enough frequency to form a habit of continuous improvement.

The Adventures of LearningFRONT

Colleagues,

Today I decided to have some fun adapting a classic TV show opening to LearningFRONT. Can you guess the show?

Enjoy the full adaptation here.

Did you guess right?

Nick

What is Dynamic Teaching and Learning?

Colleagues,

Over the years, I've helped schools and teachers to achieve their school improvement goals for improving student achievement. The process we used has evolved into a professional learning model known as Dynamic Teaching and Learning. Here's an overview of the model.

Vision. Dynamic Teaching and Learning envisions teachers engaging in strategies that produce results and continuous improvement. By using Dynamic Teaching and Learning regularly, teachers develop a vision, a habit of mind, and best practices for creating new and better ways of teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Challenge. Teachers in schools not making progress or striving to move beyond current standards typically face this challenge:

To begin their transformation FROM teaching strategies that result in approximately 30-50% of students reaching the expected performance level on classroom, district, and state assessments TO strategies that will help 85-95% of their students reach the expected performance level and beyond.

Solution. Dynamic Teaching and Learning helps teachers to customize and implement strategies that have produced significant results in low-performing and trailblazing schools. Dynamic Teaching and Learning provides teachers with the knowledge, real world actions, and tools needed to improve their teaching behaviors and strategies and student learning in their classrooms. It offers teachers the choice of what they want to improve, engages them in a solution process, helps them to collaborate with peers and a coach as they learn, and applies directly to their ongoing professional learning.

Learn more about Dynamic Teaching and Learning here.

Nick

From Blended to Virtual Professional Learning

Colleagues,

In the LearningFRONT Dynamic Learning Community we are exploring this question for converting from blended learning to virtual professional learning:

• What if the brick and mortar component of blended learning was integrated into the online component?

Check out this video episode to see our current thinking about this new and innovative way of supporting professional learning entirely on the Internet.

I look forward to and value your comments.

Nick

Back to School: Start with a Data-Driven Instructional Improvement Strategy

Colleagues,

Today, I’d like to share with you our "data-driven instructional improvement strategy." It's a way for you to start the school year with a vision of seeing results in student achievement.

What is it? It's a proven way to improve teaching and student achievement -- and you’ll see how we’ve advanced it with LearningFRONT's integrated social and professional learning tools.

Why do it? It’s got a track record of helping schools to meet local, state, and national accountability standards -- both low performing and trailblazing schools.

What’s the payoff? Engaging lessons, higher test scores, and the capacity to answer the question: 

• What teaching practices in our school lead to improved student learning on specific content standards?

How does it work? It works for schools because they get to personalize the strategy demonstrated here. 

Want to learn more about LearningFRONT's data-driven instructional improvement strategy and its social and professional learning tools to do it effectively? I invite you to join the LearningFRONT community -- just log in, learn, improve. 

We look forward to personalizing the strategy for your teachers and school. Please contact me if you have questions or want to explore ideas.

Nick

How to flip professional learning entirely online!

Dear Colleagues:

In the conventional "Flipped Classroom" model, instruction that typically occurs in a classroom is accessed away from the classroom usually through digital apps and devices prior to a face-to-face (F2F) classroom meeting. This means the F2F meeting becomes the venue to apply content and skills learned online to solve problems, create solutions, and engage in collaborative learning strategies. There are many ways to "Flip" classrooms and learning strategies. One of the key payoffs of the flipped classroom lies in the opportunity to create new and dynamic ways of learning.

Recently, I used a virtual-only "Flipped Classroom" model in my Technology for School Leaders graduate class at Loyola University Maryland. It differed from the conventional model because we "flipped" between virtual F2F and virtual self-paced learning. That's right, we flipped entirely online. It worked like this:

1. A cohort of 13 aspiring school leaders gained content knowledge and practiced skills by completing seven Learning Layouts using integrated social and professional learning tools, including online coaching sessions as needed by individuals and teams.


2. Over eight weeks, we met F2F virtually in Zoom interactive webinars during the first, fourth, and final weeks for approximately three hours. During these webinars, the graduate students worked as a program team, in breakout sessions as action teams, and in coaching sessions with me to apply the content and skills they acquired in the Learning Layouts and from feedback offered for draft products. After the first and second webinars, the graduate students used a self-paced strategy to complete and submit practice activities, post drafts for feedback from colleagues and teams, and produce real world products. The final webinar focused on sharing best works, demonstrating disruptive and sustaining innovations developed in action teams, and reflecting on the application of what was learned beyond the program.


3. The virtual "Flipped" approach included the LearningFRONT dynamic community, one program team for the entire class, and two action team learning communities that met online using web conferencing tools selected by the teams. Each week I provided optional time for individualized coaching on Zoom for teams and individuals.

Our virtual flipped approach led to 65 products for sharing in the learning communities. They included: a) Web 2.0 Demos for blended professional development, b) Infographics for personalized learning, c) Solution Briefs for selecting a digital learning system, d) Professional Blogs focused on technology issues, and e) Learning Technology Action Plans for disruptive and sustaining innovations. All products were based on real world settings for leaders of learning supporting technology to improve student learning.

The virtual program content, practice activities, and products still serve as resources for the graduate students because learning communities continue beyond the ending of a "conventional" class and the products are available online for anyone beyond the class to access, adopt, or adapt in real world settings. 

Backstory and Today. LearningFRONT's first software tool was a floppy disk created in 1997. Then, its tools and programs were converted to web-based apps in 2001-02 in collaboration with a cadre of principals and teachers in Baltimore. Next, they were integrated into a dynamic learning community and launched in 2009. They were adapted to graduate education in 2010 and workplace learning in 2014. Each year they are updated based on user-feedback, research, and new ideas. In 2019, we converted to a dynamic virtual professional learning community for teachers, administrators, workplace employers, and other leaders of learning. Learn more here.

Register for the Next LearningFRONT Technology for Leaders of Learning.

Nick