Let’s Revolutionize Education with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
Education has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe my almost-kindergartner is to blame, maybe it’s something else… What else has been on my mind though, is the company where I work, BetterWorks. If you haven’t heard about us, we have software that allows companies to get aligned using goals.
BetterWorks platform is based on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) methodology, which was widely adopted at Google thanks to John Doerr.
During the last six months I got to know this methodology quite well since we all use our software here. I got to set my goals for each quarter, adjust, achieve, overachieve, and track progress. What I suddenly realized, is that this system could easily be applied everywhere. Especially in education. K through 12 and beyond.
If only every child would set their own goals for the quarter, figure out the milestones needed to be completed to achieve them and track their progress, school system could be revolutionized forever!
OKR methodology has a few characteristics that makes it very easy and fun to use. It is psychologically attractive: when you see that progress bar grow beyond what’s expected, it probably triggers dopamine release in your brain. Well, at least that’s what I think happens when I use our software (being a biologist in my past life). It feels amazing to mark a milestone complete and archive a goal. Why wouldn’t everyone want to do this?
If schools were to adopt OKRs, maybe this would allow for a personalized approach to education that I think is currently missing. Teachers would be there to guide students and explain certain concepts to them or help with particularly tough to reach milestones. Students would own their own education, set their own goals and achieve them every quarter. They already have goals for each quarter — to pass their classes. Adding a methodology on HOW to pass the classes though is the missing piece.
What would happen if schools started using OKRs?
- Imagine team projects or senior quests where all the team members are aligned, know exactly what’s expected of them and know exactly who’s made what progress so far on their team
- Students would know exactly what topic they need to study and which topics they have already mastered
- Teachers would share their milestones with students and with other teachers, so everybody could get more aligned on current projects and homework, maybe homework wouldn’t be needed at all
- Parents would know overall progress of their kids and would be able to provide targeted help if necessary
- Kids would have a better idea of how they are doing and have better way of measuring their progress than being graded by teachers
- Everybody would know what is important and would be focusing on the right things
The ultimate goal of every student in K-12 system is to graduate. Most will then want to go to college. Let’s see how “going to college” could be framed in an OKR way, for example.
Goal (objective): get into ACME university
- Milestone (key result) 1: have 3.7 GPA by senior year in high school
- Milestone 2: complete the application
- Milestone 3: write self-statement essay
- Milestone 4: get 3 teacher recommendations, etc.
Each of these milestones are measurable, specific, achievable, easy to track, and fit OKR methodology quite well. They could be set as metrics as well (in percentage points or recommendation units).
Here’s another example of a hypothetical K-level goal.
Goal: learn how to read and write ABCs
- Milestone 1: learn the names and sounds of all the vowels
- Milestone 2: learn the names and sounds of all the consonants
- Milestone 3: learn what the 26 letters look like
- Milestone 4: learn how to write 26 letters, etc.
Students could get very creative with their goals, break them down into smaller goals and milestones and get more organized and aligned with each other and their teachers. OKRs would teach kids to be self-starters, independent, responsible for their own success and organized. Now if only any school would try this approach…
