How I motivate my kids to do schoolwork at home using agile development in times of COVID-19
This article was originally published in Spanish here because we’re currently living in Peru.
Ever since we started getting flooded with emails from school with multiple assignments during the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized that the best way I could help my kids (11 and 6) get their work done, and not go crazy in the process, was to use what I’ve learned on the job: agile development. I quickly set-up a Kanban board that helped us visualize the work they needed to get done, and began using Scrum-like rituals to help us “inspect and adapt” the process to improve the workflow the following week.
My intention here is not to explain how Kanban (visual sign in Japanese) or Scrum work, but I’ll try to illustrate how I use both to: 1) motivate my kids to do their school work, and 2) make sure they’re completing their assignments. This allows me to intervene less (although we do help Matías, who is six years old, with most of his work), and it helps maintain harmony and positive energy in their flow.
How does it work?
We define the work that needs to be done in the week, visualize the progress in the board, and then identify what needs to improve the next week. We stick to Scrum’s three pillars:
- Transparency (we can all clearly see what we need to do)
- Inspection (we talk about what needs to improve in the process)
- Adaptation (we make changes to improve week by week)
The process is simply:
- The school defines the work each week
- The kids choose what they want to work on each day and they focus on their work
- The adult verifies that the assignments are done
The more autonomy we give our kids so they make their own decisions (e.g., what to work on first, how to accomplish the work, etc.), and the more acknowledgment and feedback they receive, the more motivated they’ll be to sit down and work on their assignments. And, as always, the more fun and positivity we add, the better.
In our house, the kids get their assignments for the week on Tuesdays and they have the whole week to finish (everything is due on Tuesday). I propose to them to finish, or try to finish, everything by Friday, so that they can relax, play and have fun over the weekend and on Monday. So now, Monday afternoons are very relaxing, we watch a movie together, we have pizza for dinner (or something they love, like mac n’ cheese), maybe ice cream, etc., so that we celebrate and acknowledge their accomplishment. I put up their art work on the walls and make our apartment feel like it’s their own fun classroom.
What do you need?
You need to create a board, have a comfortable space for the kids to work, a positive attitude, a lot of patience with smaller kids, clear communication, empathy, and maybe yummy treats as rewards. For the board, you need:
- A wall
- Masking (or painters) tape
- Sticky notes (or paper cut into squares or cards that you can stick)
And, follow a simple routine (planning, daily, retrospectives) so that the kids can focus without interruptions and be successful finishing everything.
The Kanban board
Purpose: visualize the work, limit work in progress and maximize efficiency.
Sprint Planning
Purpose: define what needs to be completed during the week.
My kids don’t have different due dates (all of their assignments are due on Tuesday), which makes it easier to apply Scrum. But if your kids have different due dates, simply prioritize the assignments they need to turn in first. Once we have the teachers’ emails with all of their assignments, we write each assignment on a sticky note (which would be Sprint Planning in agile development). You may choose to include sticky notes for virtual classes as well. All tasks go in the “To do” column and the kids commit to getting them done. Planning is usually done with the development team (the kids, in this case), but I started our sprint planning on my own the first week to ease into the process and gradually get them used to it.
If your kids have assignments with different due dates, you may add a separate column before “To do” for your “Backlog” (or “Parking Lot”, “Tasks”, etc.), where you’d put all of the tasks for the week, and the kids would select tasks they want to work on each day and move them to “To do”. This way, they only commit to getting those done that day and the rest of the tasks remain in their Backlog. The next day, they grab a few new tasks to work on, and that process is repeated until the week is over and hopefully they’ve cleared their backlog.
Some families like to include house chores in their boards, but I prefer to stick to school work during this pandemic so that they don’t get overwhelmed with too many tasks. I use two different colors of sticky notes for each kid, yellow for Matías and pink for Sebastian, so that it’s easy for us to tell which tasks belong to who. The next Sprint Planning, I re-use the sticky notes since they usually have the same subjects.
Daily Scrum
Purpose: quickly align ourselves as to what we’re going to do today
Communication is key. Each morning (after eating breakfast and getting ready for “school”, which means brushing teeth, getting dressed and making our bed), we look at the board together and they decide what tasks they’re going to work on. It’s very important to give kids autonomy so that they decide what to work on their own, because this helps motivate them. I’m usually there to facilitate or I may help prioritize if needed, but I never decide for them. Once they’ve chosen their one sticky note, they move it to “Doing” and begin working, with everything they need to focus (no interruptions from their parents!). Important: they should only have one task in “Doing”. ☝
Deep Work and Work in Progress Limits
Purpose: to focus without distractions in order to complete a task.
Our school sent us a suggested schedule that had each subject in a different hour of the day. For example, on Tuesday: English from 9 to 9:40am, math from 9:40 to 10:20am, science from 10:20 to 11am. This type of structure may work in some families, but to me it’s absurd to have to interrupt a child who’s focusing simply because “it’s time for math!” This interruption breaks their creativity and concentration, creates confusion, makes them tired, and worst of all, it takes away their motivation since they have to abruptly stop their work, leave it incomplete, in order to shift to something completely different. The suggested schedule from their school didn’t even have a break!
It is way more productive to limit the work in progress (this is called work in progress limits, or “WIP limits” in Kanban). We do this by deciding to only work on one task at a time, as a rule, and avoid interruptions. Sebastian gets in the flow by putting headphones on and listening to his music. Now, this doesn’t mean that they can’t decide to rest from one assignment and make progress on another one if they’re feeling stuck, it is agile development after all, but it’s not recommended, and in our household, Matías who’s six years old is way more productive and more motivated when he finishes a task before starting a new one. Snack breaks in between help too. ; )
Definition of Done
Purpose: to make sure that the work is completed
Once Matías or Sebastian tell me that they’re done, I usually check their work to verify they’re really done. If I can tell that the task is done, after reading the requirements, they move their sticky note from “Doing” to “Done” (it’s important that they do this themselves). Then, they have a break, choose another task, or if they’ve worked all morning, had lunch, spent some time reading and made excellent progress, they can choose what they want to do (which is usually play video games or watch a show). 💪
Retrospective Meeting
Purpose: acknowledge what the kids did well during the week and identify what needs to improve the following week to be more successful.
When the kids have completed all of their tasks for the week (when they finish their sprint), we celebrate their achievements y acknowledge their effort. We incorporate a “retrospective meeting” during dinner that night to talk about what went well during the week and what needs to improve. This helps us pinpoint certain aspects we need to change in order to have better flow the following week. For example, in our first retrospective, we talked about Sebastian taking all morning on Tuesday to send his work, because he waited to turn it all in on the due date (while new assignments were coming into his inbox). As he was submitting his work, he realized that one of the assignments was not completely done, which meant he needed to spend more time on it and this disappointed him. He realized that it’s better not to wait until the due date to send everything at once. And we decided that it’d be better to turn in each assignment before moving it to Done. In other words, we modified the process so that “Done” also includes turning it in.
After a few weeks of using agile development to manage homeschooling, I can say it’s been very successful (they’ve been finishing almost everything on Fridays), even with a challenging six year-old. I notice how my kids get motivated as they see their progress on the board, as they choose their tasks, and especially, as they finish their work and receive feedback from their teachers. I don’t have to constantly tell them what to do, they don’t have to ask what to work on, and I don’t have to remember to check their progress because everything is visible to everyone. The best part is that we’re continuously improving the process so that we can have more time to do what we want and have fun.
