Build communities around a program: Mediate, Nudge, Celebrate
Until the users can’t stop sharing
- Teacher A: “Jishnu sir, can you share a clue please?”
- Jishnu (moderator): “Ok, the second letter of the missing word in the word cloud is T”
- Teacher B: “Strong?”
- Teacher C: “Story?”
- Teacher D: “Study? Please, sir, give us more clues!”
- Moderator: “Ok, for every 5 attempts, 5 words, I will give one more letter, and a special gift!”
- Teacher E: Challenge accepted! @mohammedsir, you had an idea I think?”
This went on for a few hours. One by one the letters were revealed by the moderator. In certain communities, the excitement and tension was palpable, the teachers said they wouldn’t be able to sleep if they didn’t know the correct answer. Finally, the word was found. What a celebration!
Our communities are engaging with content about teaching & learning.
The decisions made, and the steps taken -
#1. Build on user’s habits (Article 1)
#2. Measure your success (Article 2)
#3. Version content until one sticks
#4. Version with focus: hypothesis-driven development
- are showing results.
At 321 our programs are made of three core components: 1) the Kaizen component — deciding, collecting and analyzing the ‘right’ data to “Learn, Improve and Prove”, 2) the Design component — listening, creating, testing, launching, and refining and 3) the Implementation component — training, coaching, moderating, and feeding (into Kaizen and Design). The Kaizen component was introduced in Article 2 when we emphasized the importance to measure success and understand failure through data analysis. The Design component was the backbone of the first two articles. The Implementation component hasn’t been explored yet. Today we will hear the trainers' cum coaches’ cum moderators’ voices.
#5. Bring joy, appreciation, and wonder
Before we deep dive into the Implementation component, I would like to briefly share what the hypothesis-driven approach has taught us.
As illustrated in the opening of this article, one of our hypotheses: “Puzzles for 321 teachers will show the highest engagement” is validated, and used in multiple formats with varied content. It confirms that a successful way to design delightful solutions for our users is to bring joy, appreciation, and wonder. The motivation content and the ‘call for action’, asking teachers to celebrate each other, bring appreciation. The revision messages, through puzzles, bring wonder and joy.
The Design team is pursuing its investigation through hypotheses to keep creating delightful solutions for educators, as well as figuring out how to leverage members’ own experiences and knowledge to expand the learning opportunities on the communities.
Meanwhile, let us change the focus of our lense, and explore some pieces of the Implementation component in building communities around a program. In this case, the core of implementation is moderation, and the managers of the communities are ‘moderators’. Their role is of great importance in the success of the communities.
First, the way they share the delightful solutions enhances joy, appreciation, and wonder.
By giving hints, creating a sense of urgency, and sharing funny and relatable GIFs when the correct answer is found, they bring JOY.
By acknowledging the messages sent by the teachers through smileys, and shoutouts, they bring APPRECIATION. “I precisely celebrate a lot of things on the group. Making a big deal out of every bit of engagement”, explains Jishnu. By sharing exemplary usage of solutions in other classes and schools, by capturing and celebrating small moments of great teaching, by sharing and describing the impact it has on students and parents, they also bring WONDER.
“One of my wishes for the communities is to be able to create a feeling of amazement and admiration for what is possible in Indian classrooms. By sharing beautiful, remarkable, and unfamiliar usage of teaching solutions done in familiar environments, teachers believe it is possible, they are inspired, and then I see them attempt more.” — Rahul, 321 Moderator
The moderators display great creativity skills to ensure members feel celebrated and inspired.
#6. Maintain an informal, learning-oriented, and accessible space
The first choice we made to build communities around our programs was to build on existing user’s habit. Hence, WhatsApp — intuitively used by the vast majority of smartphones’ owners, and kept in case of lack of phone’s memory — is the platform hosting our communities. Another advantage of WhatsApp is its informalness; people are able to share more openly what they feel about their work or their experiences.
The downside of using a platform with continued informal usage is that users sometimes behave on 321 groups as they would do on their personal groups. One of the biggest challenges for moderators is the forwards of “unrelated” messages.
Aware of the risk, the moderators set expectations and norms about the kind of content that is to be shared right at the start, and the members agree. Nevertheless, “old habits die hard”, and some members keep forwarding messages which has content that is not about teaching, learning or education at large.
In these cases, it is imperative to step in and separate the signal from the noise. Here are few tips shared by Jasmeet, a 321 Moderator:
“First, I send a private message to the teacher sending forwards, reminding the purpose of the group and asking him or her to refrain from forwarding chains. If it happens again and could become a habit, I call it out on the group, sharing an image of our Norms and reminding everyone about the rule of sharing only education, schools and classrooms-relevant content. Usually after one or two reminders, it stops. This mediation is crucial to keep the environment focused”.
Occasionally, the moderators have to intervene to ensure appropriate language is used and keep the space safe. “Sometimes in the excitement of competition, members can use familiar words. We intervene immediately, turning the conversation positively and reminding everyone about how healthy competition should play out.”
“When there is a disagreement, it is also an opportunity to encourage divergent thinking.”- Rahul
Jasmeet also describes a scenario where she had to mediate beyond the online community. “Once, there were some angry messages sent from two teachers who have left the school, not in good terms. I reached out to the school leaders and the teachers privately, acknowledging the situation and their feelings. Then, with the school management permission, I requested the two teachers to leave the community. They understood, exited the group and it the issue was resolved.”
Another challenge attached to WhatsApp, and the demography we work with, is the low market penetration in certain cities, and areas. Despite the speed at which smartphones are entering Indian households, and at which the price of data is reducing, not all our teachers possess a smartphone of their own yet.
Here, the fact that we are building communities around a program, and not as the only component of a service, confirms to be the right approach. Indeed, when moderators meet the teachers in-person during training or coaching, they can talk about the groups. They isolate the problem that could prevent the teachers to participate, and together they brainstorm solutions to be tried out. Recently, Akanksha, a 321 trainer, suggested to the teachers to use friends or relatives’ phones to be on the community and learn, and it is working. The platform is accessible from any phone. Another solution that is being tried is one teacher sharing the question in the staff room, teachers discussing the answer and sending a common one. The aim is reached: Magnify the learner in every educator.
In order to create and maintain an informal, learning-oriented, and accessible space, moderators are vigilant, reactive, caring, and strategic. They display great mediation skills.
Once the communities are set and running, other questions arise:
- “How to increase engagement?”
- “How to energize the communities?”
- “How to build members’ new habits for spontaneous sharing?”
#7. Nudge for improving communities’ dynamics
While interviewing the moderators about their practices, I realized that they are, intentionally or not, using ‘nudging’ strategies to energize the communities and build new habits.
“Small and often insignificant things can influence (or ‘nudge’) behaviour” Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness — by Richard H.Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein (2008)
One key practice moderators use can be associated with the concept of “Herd behaviour” in ‘Nudge’.
“Herd behaviour — We like to conform so we are easily influenced by what others say and do (especially by those within the circle we wish to be associated with). Social influence is one of the most effective ways to nudge behaviour.”
In our context, it happens in two folds. First, moderators find the influencing members within the circle, and/or the ones that Rahul calls “the early adopters of our messages”. Secondly, they leverage the personal relationships they have with those influencers so they impact the communities’ dynamics. Here is how Jasmeet describes the first step: “I identify some active members and positive influencers who are recognized by the other people in the group. In most communities, there are always one or two members that drive the engagement. When they reply, more people reply. People feel safe.” “When the school leader is active while keeping the sharing informal, it also hugely and positively influence the engagement.”
Here is how Alekyaa, another 321 moderator, explains the second step:
“Once I know who are the people that will get the ball rolling, I leverage my one-on-one relationship with them. I direct message them : “Hi Ma’am, would you like to respond to the message on the group and see what everyone else has to say?”. “You can definitely get the conversation going!”. I nudge that person to get her or him voice heard, which then triggers the chain of replies.”
Moderators effectively use social influence to nudge behaviors.
When asks the question: “How do you see your role as a moderator?”, Jishnu’s immediate reply was “My role is to facilitate discussions”. Every moderator has his or her own ways of inciting discussion as a method of energizing the communities. Jishnu uses the ‘reply’ feature and asks some follow up questions on a specific answer. Jasmeet tags teachers who are usually enthusiastic in order to get them to share. Rahul direct messages active members and encourage them to tag someone else. Alekyaa sends one-on-one request: “I saw you do this [specific solution] in class today. It would be great if you could send it to the group.” Each of these best practices is regularly recorded and shared amongst the 40 odd moderators. They are really helpful to “harness the power of inertia” described by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein as “things will tend to remain in their resting state or trajectory unless an external force is applied”.
Another practice used by the moderators can be linked to the “Priming” practice of the Nudge theory. For example: “Asking people — Do you intend to vote?- just before an election increases voter turnout.” Similarly, moderators try to prime the teachers and school leaders to engage in the communities.
“When going to the schools, we talk to the school leaders about motivating teachers to participate more on the groups. We leverage the fact that people know each other and have a sense of shared purpose. We also inform people of what others are doing. During our Celebration Events for example, we celebrate the active members for their contribution to learning and teaching, and we present how other schools are doing.”
As explained in Nudge: “Social nudges as choice architecture works — People are more likely to pay taxes, recycle and reuse towels if told others do so in large numbers. Simple smiley faces that let you know if you are spending too much energy in your house or more that the mean in your community, especially if others can see your consumption level, can regulate energy use much more effectively and rapidly than price increases.”
To put it in a nutshell, moderators constantly use nudge defined by Richard Thaler as “a small feature of the environment that attracts our attention and alters our behaviors.” And sometimes, nudges stop being required…
#8. Behavior change: when the users can’t stop sharing
Moderators see their role as “getting as many teachers’ voices out on the communities as possible.” Hence, when the voices express themselves spontaneously and freely, the joy is immense. “That [nudging one-on-one] is how it started and eventually it got to a point where I didn’t even have to nudge people. They would share by themselves!”, “Now the responsibility has passed on to other teachers. Neither the school leader nor I have to push. Everyone is answering!”.
Most of the success stories moderators told me are about spontaneous sharing.
“The phone never stops buzzing, teachers are sending what they are doing in class, sending images, sending videos: “This a solution I tried”, “This is how it worked” etc… 55 teachers are part of the community and they keep each other going. Even messages were sent saying “I’ve seen this teacher do that and I want to try it out!”. That is when I saw the purpose of our online communities really coming alive. It has become a platform where they share best practices with each other.”
“School X was showing a medium rate engagement. But I saw a shift when they started sharing a lot of pictures of solutions for students’ motivation they had contextualized — badges, appreciations cards, shout out walls from classroom to staffroom. Now they are kind of active by themselves, spontaneously engaging with each other. One of the teachers shared that it is bridging the gap between them. “They are so many things I’m learning here that I didn’t know was happening in the classroom next to mine!”
“One memorable moment was with School Y. We have asked them to shared pictures of their classrooms using solutions, and we appreciated them. It became a self-moderated group for that week. It was highly rewarding for us to witness that.”
These success stories, despite few in numbers, show that it is possible for all. The visions and dreams moderators have for the communities, such as:
- “continuously learning from each other, sharing ideas and solving problems”
- “finding so much value they will develop their own content”
- “high rigor space where we share new teaching solutions, and we see implementation in classrooms”
- “creating inter-schools and inter-cities communities”,
look like attainable goals.
One way to ensure we keep walking on the right path is to regularly go back to our users, listening, observing, empathizing with them. Stay tuned for hearing more voices.
