It’s been hard reading stories about Education lately. The focus seems to be on “Learning Loss,” a nebulous term which may refer to lost class hours or lower test scores due to the pandemic. Simultaneously, I’m reading stories about educators leaving the field in droves – overworked, feeling a lack of competency, being asked to sacrifice even more. My heart hurts. What if instead of this deficit thinking that targets test scores and class time (two things we have little control over), we switched to focusing on our humanity? We do have control over the ways we interact with, and support one another.
Method 1: USing Focus Groups
Focus groups are a great way to collect qualitative data because it allows individuals to expand on each others’ ideas. Humans process information through communication, so surveys might not allow for enough processing with some individuals. In small focus groups, you can give a series of conversation prompts to allow people to process their experiences and receive feedback.
After conducting a focus group interview, or several focus groups, you can choose to do some qualitative analyses. From as simple as simple as reviewing the recordings or notes, or theming/coding the responses for categorical analysis, or using text-mining methods.
Below is a text-mining example. In our prototype (which involved my voice as the interviewee), we asked a series of 3 questions and recording the conversation with the transcription app, Otter. I used 3 text-mining techniques to measure the Sentiment, Themes, and Polarity of the words used.
From here, since anonymity is preserved, teams of educators can dialogue about why the themes of Uncertainty, Relationships, and Learning emerged, why emotions of “Trust” and “Anticipation” emerged as the highest. The teams can use those discussions to inform team gatherings, professional learning, or even to make decisions on how to be sensitive. For example, since Relationships was one of the major themes, I may prioritize opportunities for authentic connection.
Method 2: Online Surveys
I was recently introduced to the PERMAH survey, a free tool that asks of series of survey questions and breaks the results down into 6 categories: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, and Health. The results after taking the survey look like this:
My results are further broken down like this:
Teams of educators could take the PERMAH survey together and dialogue about the results. Perhaps educators could anonymously add their numbers into a form that would allow school leaders to gauge school-wide wellbeing.
Either way, in a year full of trauma, the need to connect with ourselves and with each other, to show empathy and support, far outweighs test scores in my opinion.