The key to better quality education? Make students feel valued. | George Couros | Big Think

The key to better quality education? Make students feel valued.

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Not being able to engage with students in-person due to the pandemic has presented several new challenges for educators, both technical and social. Digital tools have changed the way we all think about learning, but George Couros argues that more needs to be done to make up for what has been lost during "emergency remote teaching."

One interesting way he has seen to bridge that gap and strengthen teacher-student and student-student relationships is through an event called Identity Day. Giving students the opportunity to share something they are passionate about makes them feel more connected and gets them involved in their education.

"My hope is that we take these skills and these abilities we're developing through this process and we actually become so much better for our kids when we get back to our face-to-face setting," Couros says. He adds that while no one can predict the future, we can all do our part to adapt to it.

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GEORGE COUROS:

George Couros is a worldwide leader in the area of innovation and has a focus on innovation as a human endeavor. His belief that meaningful change happens when you first connect to people's hearts is modeled in his writing and speaking. He has worked with all levels of school, from K-12 as a teacher, technology facilitator, and school and district administrator, and is the author of the book, The Innovator's Mindset; Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity and his latest book, Innovate Inside the Box.

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TRANSCRIPT:

GEORGE COUROS: Schools are doing emergency remote teaching and that's what I've been calling it because this is not virtual learning. This is not remote learning. It's something totally different through this time and really the connection that we actually have towards students is more valuable in the work that we're doing right now because many of them are going through things that we couldn't even understand in their homes. There are so many barriers that we have with families and what we're doing. So how we actually center the work in relationships is really crucial that students actually want to join us in this type of learning where they actually have options right now. It's pretty easy for a student to say oh, my Wi-Fi didn't work or I didn't have access to a device and actually check in or check out of class. Right now if they have that connection to the person, and some of those things actually might be true. They might actually have those barriers in reality. But if you actually build that relationship where not only do the students feel valued, but that their contributions are valued to the time of the work they're actually doing that's really what's going to bring students to these spaces. This is the focus on relationships and the work that we actually do in education is really important on a face-to-face setting and it's really important in this emergency remote teaching setting. It's way harder to do, but it doesn't make it any less valuable.

Even in a webinar format, just actually Bill Ferriter, a gentleman from North Carolina, talked about how every single student that enters the virtual room he greets them, makes some personal comment so that they feel welcome right away. Those little things and in the work that we do with education that's really centering it on how we build those relationships is going to actually really get more out of the work that we're doing in education as it would for any place of business. I think that if I feel valued in my work I'm going to go a lot further for my bosses than if I feel like I'm just kind of a number.

When I was a principal we used to do this event called Identity Day. And what it was is it was typically set up almost like a science fair. Students would actually have this opportunity to share something that they're passionate about. Something that they love. And it was a great way to really get to know the passions of our students and who they were. And we would actually take those passions and we'd create something really valuable through that process. So, for example, one of the students when we did this at my school they...

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