5 Management Lessons from a Zoom First Grade Teacher
Teaching first grade in a zoom classroom has a lessons for leaders everywhere. The flexibility, adaptability and skill of keeping 6-year-olds in their seats, engaged, and learning requires impeccable teaching and leadership talent.
We wouldn’t say that managing adults is anything like managing children, but listening in on a first grade teacher managing the classroom offered a few interesting observations. They reminded us of simple lessons, often overlooked, that can make a real difference in leadership.
1. Most of day one and every day of week one of the school year was a review of the virtual classroom rules. Kids were given a chance to talk about what the rules meant and to give examples. Lesson: make the expectations explicit and ensure people can describe expected behavior back to you.
2. The teacher gave coaching feedback in single sentences and expected that children would listen. There was no reiteration, no explanation of why, just a statement of fact. It sounded something like “Joey, stop typing in the chat. Everyone go to question 3.” “Mary, I don’t see you writing. I want you and everyone doing the assignment.” Lesson: Don’t belabor negative feedback — just state what needs to change in a way that clearly describes your expectations.
3. The teacher gave constant encouragement to try things that the students weren’t good at. “Try, it will stretch your brain.” “If you answer and you are wrong, you will learn something.” Lesson: Verbally encouraging trying and consequences of failing (i.e., learning) created an environment where the children were willing to and felt safe taking risks.
4. The teacher also gave constant positive feedback and encouraged the kids to provide each other with positive feedback. Lesson: Creating a culture of positive feedback is reinforcing — and everyone becomes the teacher/leader.
5. By week two, children were logging on by themselves, navigating websites with ease, muting/unmuting like pros. Lesson: People can often do more than you imagine if they have time to do it consistently and with feedback.
Have you learned important leadership lessons from unusual sources? What simple lessons have you learned?
About the Authors
Pam Thompson MS, RN, FAAN is the CEO Emeritus of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, formerly AONE. During the same time, 2000–2016, she was the Senior VP of Nursing for the American Hospital Association. After retiring in 2017, she now serves as a healthcare consultant and volunteer board member and trustee for several healthcare entities.
Marla Weston PhD, RN, FAAN is the past CEO of the American Nurses Association Enterprise which included the American Nurses Association, American Nurses Credentialing Center and American Nurses Foundation, serving from 2009 to 2018. She now is a consultant and facilitator in leadership development, organizational strategy and growth, and future trends.
