After the winter break, how can teachers inspire their students to work hard and maintain a healthy learning environment? Try the Agile Manifesto.
The Agile Manifesto is a set of twelve principles and four values published in the early 2000s for the software development industry in response to its dynamic environment. In recent years, these concepts and ideals have extended to businesses other than software development, such as education. Five principles are applied to assist with back-to-school challenges.
Principle 2: Be open to changing needs, especially late in the development process.
This concept asserts that because there is uncertainty in everything, thus various ways are required to satisfy varied requirements. In practice, it means the teacher should adapt quickly to changing situations. Students returning from winter break are lethargic and slow; teachers react to this shift by re-planning class delivery. Accept any changes and make the necessary adjustments rather than rigidly sticking to the set action plan. This necessitates managing a variety of factors as well as routine planning, and alteration till students respond to the used learning strategy.
Principle 3: Deliver functioning software regularly, from a few weeks to a few months, with a preference for a shorter timescale.
Deliver information regularly, but in tiny amounts rather than in one big piece. In simple terms keep it short sweet and stupid (KISS). Remember your own education experiences: the teacher who taught the entire topic in one long lesson had little to no reaction from pupils in comparison to the teacher who offered knowledge in smaller lessons. Use three or four classes every week to teach through themes, epics, and tasks that lead to a larger image at the end of the week. Small components contribute to a broader picture.
Principle 4: Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Essential in the day-to-day operations of a software development company is communication. Meetings with stakeholders frequently help to ensure that every activity completed daily is working towards the desired aim. As the result, the product’s visibility does not suffer much, and the capacity to alter and adapt remains constant. Further, commercial value improves, and risks are maintained low throughout time.
Jessica Cavallaro, a co-founder of The Agile Mind, put this into practice by switching from the typical teacher who taught 30 students at once to teaching student teams. It resulted in a classroom of students responsible for leading their learning while regularly connecting with the teacher about their needs through small-group discussions. That helped them understand challenging ideas, brainstormed, and provided coaching opportunities for the teacher. As a result, pupils felt the teacher’s daily attention who was aware of their daily activities.
Principle 5: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
It was proposed in the software development industry that executives should give attention to the tools, resources, and access to a culture that includes understanding the external procedures of agile teams and trusting them to do the job. People were motivated to concentrate on their current tasks resulting in excellent results. While command-controlling or micromanaging management approaches produced inferior results. Agile teams developed a new way of thinking that allowed them to take responsibility for their work and even be proactive.
Students are more likely to achieve their learning objectives in the classroom when the teacher explains the criteria clearly and provides the necessary resources. Since greater attention is paid to this component to notice any progress in their work, trusting the pupils to complete the task becomes the priority. As a result, students develop time management skills and a sense of control over their learning pace.
Principle 7: Working software is the primary measure of progress.
The software industry emphasized how important it was to create functional software. Thus, what matters is not how much work was completed or how well we adhered to a plan but the result obtained. This is applicable in the classroom. Instead of focusing on curriculum coverage, or how well lesson plans are followed, what matters is the students ’ knowledge retention. Ask any teacher if they have adhered strictly to their lesson plans for a whole month, and the likelihood that they will say no is significant. Thus the Agile Manifesto suggests working in groups with your students might result in many solutions to the challenging topics covered, depending on the level you are teaching.
The advantages
Students who learn with agility develop critical thinking and analytical abilities, becoming specialists in transdisciplinary mastering. All of these abilities apply to working in any industry. Giving pupils more support as they deal with challenging situations that call for sophisticated problem-solving techniques.
How to apply the Agile Manifesto
We at E-spaces have developed an application that adheres to the agile manifesto. There are resources for lesson plans that can help you organize knowledge into bite-sized chunks (Principle #3). Real-time digital evaluation is a feature of the system that permits, for example, daily communication on the assignments to be completed and learning more about the hurdles that students face within the topic (principle #5). The same technology logs students’ grades so you may assess how well they comprehended ideas (principle #7). Thus gifting students with all the job-readiness skills that they need. Sign up for the beta version and apply the agility manifesto and digital learning in one class.
