As schools consider how to restart in the fall, some are galvanizing their community to consider this an opportunity for reinvention, a way to rethink how we educate our young, while others simply want to get students back in the building and return as quickly and safely as possible to the normal that existed prior to the pandemic. Regardless of a school’s position on the spectrum from restart to reinvention, a more sophisticated manner in which to analyze student engagement and track efforts to improve engagement will be necessary.

Getting BetterBen PachtJuly 13, 2020COVID-19, coronavirus, remote learning, school closure, school performance institute, united schools network, process behavior chart, data analysis, PBC, improvement, improvement science, improvement in action, school improvement, thinking about improvement, w. edwards deming, mark graban, measures of success

How do you measure remote learning engagement?

For the last two months, my colleague Ben Pacht and I have been writing about the work we are doing at United Schools Network (USN) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent school closure order in Ohio (see here, here, and here). In this fourth post in the series, we’ll summarize some key points we’ve made before, plus offer a few ideas specific to measuring and analyzing remote learning engagement.

Learning to ImproveJohn A. DuesJune 11, 2020remote learning, student engagement, improvement science, improvement in action, thinking about improvement, school closure, SPI, School Performance Institute, crisis, COVID-19, coronavirus, education, United Schools Network

Getting Better: What is student engagement, anyway?

As we are all aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered how our society has functioned over the past few months. The education sector is no exception. As science teachers can attest, one of the unfortunate, enduring realities for life on this planet is that a minuscule virus, just microns in diameter, can leave an outsized impact on life as we know it. Yet a second enduring reality is that the form of life known as Homo sapiens is awfully resilient, and educators across the country are thinking creatively to ensure continuity of education for our students in a remote setting.

Getting BetterBen PachtMay 21, 2020improvement science, improvement in action, thinking about improvement, school improvement, COVID-19, remote learning, student engagement, School Performance Institute, school closure, United Schools Network, SPI, crisis, coronavirus, teachers

Successful remote learning requires a whole new system

The transition to remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic has significantly shifted how United Schools Network (USN) plans and delivers educational experiences to its students. We've outlined our remote learning system—and it is helpful to think of it as a system—in our Education Plan. As soon as that document was created, and the new system was outlined, we immediately started thinking about how to improve it.

Learning to ImproveJohn A. DuesMay 2, 2020School Performance Institute, school closure, school improvement, United Schools Network, high poverty schools, high performing schools, COVID-19, coronavirus, improvement in action, improvement science, education, education plan

Getting Better: Improvement Science during COVID-19

As everybody in the education sector is painfully aware, the COVID-19 outbreak has drastically changed the way we think about and execute our jobs for the foreseeable future. Normal life has been put on hold while we determine how to navigate the uncertain months ahead. Questions materialize much faster than answers, and it is difficult to keep up with the near constant updates coming from federal, state, and local officials. I am hard-pressed to identify a moment in my life that has been as impactful, rapidly-evolving, and confusing. I don’t believe it’s hyperbolic to say that this is a truly unprecedented time for those of us in education.

Getting BetterBen PachtApril 17, 2020improvement science, coronavirus, COVID-19, education, United Schools Network, technology, school improvement, School Performance Institute, teachers, school closure

Seven Early Lessons about Shifting Education during a Crisis

Once we at the United Schools Network learned about Governor DeWine’s school closure order on the afternoon of March 12, the pivot to remote learning began immediately. The first thing we did was create a COVID-19 Task Force in order to start planning for the initial three-week closure. While those plans were quickly implemented, we’ve now transitioned to creating longer term plans that address learning needs as Ohio schools will remain physically closed to May 1 and possibly beyond.

This limited (hopefully) blog series is our attempt to share what we’re learning during the pandemic. We’ve outlined seven early lessons in this post, which are focused on setting a network or district up for success throughout the closure

Learning to ImproveJohn A. DuesApril 4, 2020education, crisis, COVID-19, coronavirus, pandemic, school closure, United Schools Network, high poverty schools, high performing schools