MEETx Playbook — WORKING DRAFT

# MEETx Playbook — WORKING DRAFT

## Contents
I. Overview </br>
II. MEETx Outcomes </br>
III. Keys to Success </br>
IV. Delivery Guidelines </br>
V. Content Guidelines </br>
VI. Platform Guidelines </br>
VII. Feedback Systems <br/>
VIII. Who is a MEETx Teacher? <br/>
IX. Teacher Hiring + Training </br>
X. Notes

## I. Overview

Established in 2004, MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow) is an educational excellence NGO that harnesses the power of technology and business to create an active network of young Palestinian and Israeli leaders who share a common professional language and capacity for joint action. In partnership with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), MEET delivers an intensive, three-year technology, business education, and leadership program that provides the tools and opportunities necessary to impact economic, social, and political change across the region.

MEETx is a community of passionate committed educators and special young leaders who are pioneering a new synchronized, blended learning model to bring transformative education to every corner in the region.   
The potentially high reward of MEETx model comes at great dificulty of execution.  

Year-long (ie after-school) programs face enormous challenges, including staffing, logistics, timing, and engagement.  These challenges are layered on top of the already ambitious academic and social components of MEET.  This playbook is meant to serve as a comprehensive guideline for overcoming these challenges and delivering a transformative program.

## II. MEETx Outcomes

The MEETx program's goals are threefold, and successs will be measured against the following KPIs:

**1. Retention**
   - 90% Attendance 
   - 90% Retention
   
**2. Enthusiasm**
   - 50+ NPS score 
   - 90%+ “I am excited to start the summer program.”
   - 90%+ “Did you make at least 1 good friend (over the yearlong)?”
   - 90%+ “My peers have enhanced my learning.”
   - 90%+ “I have enhanced the learning of at least 1 of my peers.” (asked to both teachers and students)
   - 90%+ “I HAD FUN!”

**3. Preparation**
   - 90% "I am confident in my CS abilities
   - 90% "I am more capable of learning difficult things."

**We believe these goals can be achieved by striving for the following classroom outcomes:**

  1. Students will have had a blast
  2. Students will feel inspired and motivated after every lesson
  3. Students will feel strong sense of commitment to MEET community
  4. Students will feel a strong sense of commitment to each other
  5. Students will be able to implement what they learned in class
  6. Students will build their learning agency
  7. Students will develop their maturity & responsibility


## III. Keys to Success

Online lesson delivery, particulary in an afer school context, ihas far less room for error than in-person programs.  The challenge of holding student engagement, managing a classroom, working through an ambitious multi-discplnary curriculum, and preserving the 'MEET' factor with a culture of interacitvity and collaboration presents a very high degree-of-difficutly.  In order to be successful

1. **Top-notch teachers**  Teachers who excel not only at relationship and rapport building with students, but who are also skilled in the craft of delivering engaging, topical, interactive lessons.  This means younder teachers, even with content knowledge, are unlikely to be successful, without signficant training.  Given the startup nature of MEETx, they must also be inclined to iterate and experiment rapidly in order to refine the delivery model until its successful.
2. **Content suited to online delivery**  Content that is hook-heavy, topical, interactive, and collaborative.  
3. **Delivery that maximizes engagement** by using best practice instructional tactics, interactivity, and *classroom management.*
4. **Strong Culture**  Students must feel invested in the overall success of the MEETx experiment, as well as the success and well-being of each other.  This set of cultural expectations should be set over the summer and continuously reinforced throughout the year with a mix of internal (eg. "You are pioneers of a program could not only expand MEET's impact, but have have a global impact as well.  Learning how to collaborate is *as* important as learning how to code.  That means learning to learn and teach each other) and external motivations (eg. fieled trips, pizza partys, MEET swag if they meet collective goals).

This document will go into more detail on each of these levers.


## IV. Delivery Guidelines

Successful MEETx course delivery will have a very high degree of difficulty.  After-school, Online, and K-12 are all notoriously difficult contexts to deliver meaningful educational experiences.  MEETx will have to overcome the challenges presented by each of these contexts, while also delivering the "MEET" factor — a rare and special blend of community, empathy, open-mindedness, and dignity.  

In order to achieve the desired outcomes, MEETx classrooms must be take advantage of every opportunity to be engaging.  This means MEETx courses must be designed and exectued in ways that are:

  - High-energy
  - Interactive
  - Collaborative
  - Fun

Both in terms of content and delivery style. 

#### 1. High-Energy
   - Teachers convey genuine enthusiasm and passion for subjects
   - Consistently create space to talk about why a certain subject is not just important but awesome (in the truest sense 		of the word...awe-inspring)
   - Encourage and reinforce participation
   - Extra Extra — Passion + Enthusiasm + Energy (never enough)

#### 2. Interactive
   - 5-min rule: Teachers never speak for more than 5 minutes at a time.  "Popcorning"
   - Every 5 minute block should bookend with an 'interactive practice' or other *CFU*
   - Use CFUs REGULARLY
   - **ALWAYS use names + Personal details**
	   - To reinforce positive behavior in front of the class (eg. 'Did everyone hear Laura's insight?  Laura can you repeat?  or Steve can you summarize what Laura said and possibly add?'
	    - To gently state need from a student in front of class 'eg. Tommy we need you to wrap up and give your attention to Lisa.'
	    - In written curriculum examples (eg. 'Jerry.dance = "true"')
	    - In impromptu examples/metaphors (eg. 'Ok let's try another example of real-world functions.  We all know Jerry is an amazing dancer.  Jerry — can you break down the steps of the 'duggy?')
	    - To cold call
	      - use regular cold-calling to see if people are digesting important concepts and to encourage attentiveness.  "So Jenny,         if I wanted to rename a file from the command line, what would I have to type?"
	      - Don't use as a 'gotcha'
	      - Identify disengaged (probably lost) students, and cold-call and coach them through the problem.

      ```
      ##### CFUs
      Checks for understanding are a key tactic for 
        1. Introducing interacitivty into a lesson
        2. Giving teacher as much 'early signaling' as possible to course correct — either academically or engagement-wise

      Examples:
        1.  Thumbs
        2.  Arm-barometers
        3.  Think-pair-share
        4.  Turn-to-partner
        5.  Cold-calling
        6.  Whiteboard display (on the count of 3)
        7.  Peer Instruction
        8.  Fist-to-5
        9.  Timed Pair Share
        10. Wisdom of Another – After any individual brainstorm or creative activity, partner students up to share their                   results. Then, call for volunteers of students who found their partner’s work to be interesting or exemplary.                 Students are sometimes more willing to share in plenary the work of fellow students than their own work. 
        11. The ConcepTest consists of a challenging conceptual question or problem posed in
        multiple-choice format. Students turn to a partner seated nearby and they work together to reach a
        common answer
        for a given amount of time, taking turns (A talks, B listens, then B talks, A listens)
        12.  Great resource: https://www.fctl.ucf.edu/teachingandlearningresources/coursedesign/assessment/content/101_tips.pdf
	
	**Avoid** “Does everyone understand?  Cool?  Does that make sense?” 
	
	```




#### 3. Collaborative.  

- Learning to collaborate is **as** important as learning how to code (reinforced by guest speakers on filed trips).
- Most exercises are structured to be completed in pairs or in groups.  
- "Collaborative learning" is emphasized as a value (eg everyone 'a student, everyone a learner.')

#### 4. Motivating
- Topical, challenging content
- Looking for and acknolwedging progress (publicly and privately)

## V. Content Guidelines

 - "Hook-forward". Hooks are cllear motivations for why something is important, useful, or fun to learn need to be upfront in curriculum.  We call this content 'hook-forward' (ie. make students ask 'how the heck did you do that?  how the heck do I do that too!?').  Anticipation is a key driver of engagement.  Content should be structured sequentially with hooks and cliffhangers that leave students anxious to move to the next stage of a lesson or the next week's lesson.  
  - [You, Ya'll, We](http://flipcamp.org/engagingstudents3/essays/segall.html) (vs. I, you, we).  If you can make students feel the pain of doing something the long way, they build foundational understanding of concepts and also become eager for easier solutions from advanced concepts.
  - Interactive.  Lesson plans should have 'interactive practices,' 'mini-labs,' 'code-alongs,' and CFUs baked in.  
  - Topical.  Examples relative to students and interests and current events (eg. Facebook in an explanation or a lab after a field trip, using taylor swift for fake tweet, using specific students names)
  - Diverse appeal.  Examples and labs should avoid themes that might only appeal to a narrow band of interests (eg video games).  Focus on current events, changing the world, music, food, etc.) 
  - Design to complete in pairs or small groups.  To preserve MEET factor and maintain collabortive environments offline, the vast majority of interactive practices and labs should be designed to be completed in pairs or groups.  
  - Simulative.  Put students in the driver seat (eg. You are the director of engineering at amazon.  To handle the holiday rush, your boss needs you to update the payment system by building a new object orientation model).
  
 ```
NO

count = True
if count:
    print("I like to count")
else:
print("I don't like to count")

YES

dance = True
If dance:
	print(“Abdul is a great dancer”)
else
	print(“Abdul has no rhythm.”)
  ```


eg.
https://github.com/learn-co-curriculum/hs-oo-cash-register/blob/master/README.md
https://github.com/learn-co-curriculum/hs-oo-snapchat/blob/master/README.md




## VI. Platform Guidelines

The goal of the MEETx course design is to be platform-agnostic.  In other words, be modular enough to deliver on a collection of off-the-shelf tools or any LMS.  For the first year, we have chosen a mix of the following technologies:

1. [Wix Home](https://moshiko05.wixsite.com/meetx )
Important for students to feel that they 'go home' to the MEETx course.  That they are enelooped in the brand and experience.  At the same time, to aoid clunky, heavy features, and provide a lean offering, we've built a Wix home site where students can login and see social updates, and have access to all the other technologies that they need in one place.
2. Zoom/BigBlueButton.  Video conferencing software which has the key feature of being able to create on-the-spot breakout rooms which teachers will use regularly for one-on-ones and group work during sessions.
3. Github.  Main repository for MEETx curriculum as well as the students individual work.
4. Slack. Communication throughout the week.
5. Online polling: http://directpoll.com/
6. JSFiddle

For each technology, a list:

Before every class:
During every class: 
After every class:

[students will | teachers will](https://github.com/lresner/meetx/blob/master/html_lesson_sample.md)

<table>
  <tr>
	  <td></td>
    <td>Before Class</td>
    <td>During Class</td>
    <td>After Class</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> Students will: </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
     <td> Teachers will: </td>
  </tr>
</table>

### Teachers 

#### Day Before Checklist
- create Y1 Yearlong Course repo
- collect all github user names from students and make them collaborators on the course repo
- upload relevant materials
- text students
- review student code challenge submissions
- review deck and lecutre notes, including feedback from previous session
- pre set-up breakout rooms

#### Day of Checklist
- set up your Zoom/BBB meeting 
- paste meeting link in Y1 Classroom Home
- upload the day's deck to 'presentation' in Y1 Classroom home
- Link to the github repo for the days lesson in 'Y1 Classroom' home
- send student reminders

#### During Class
- Acknowledge feedback in beginning of class from previous week
- Issue feedback at end of class

### Students

#### Day Before Checklist
- submit code challenge
- review previous weeks materials
- remind your friends about class tomorrow

#### Day of Checklist
- remind your friends about class
- find quiet location to take the class 15 minutes before
- check your internet conenction
- close all other applications and tabs
- set up your environment and download all relevant materials
	- open meetx.rocks
	- sign into github
- be awesome in class

#### After Class Checklist
- fill out feedback form
- set up times to hang with your friends to review the material and do the code challenges


## VII. Who is a MEETx Teacher?

The following are neccesary characterisitics of a successful MEETx teacher.
  - Love the mission, love kids, love teaching
  - Empathetic
  - Demanding
  - Highly emotionally intelligent (perceptive, EQ)
  - Collaborative, curious, feedback-hungry & willingness to iterate + improve constantly (sense of ownership)
  - Humility
  - Well-spoken


## VIII. Teacher Hiring + Training

### Interview Protocol

Interview minimum two stages.  
- Stage 1:  Team + Pedagogical
- Stage 2: Technical 
- Stage 3: (Optional) Small group lesson + Debug.  Can be incorporated in either of above stages.  

#### Stage 1 Interview Questions 

- Describe one of the best/worst professional situations you’ve ever had. What made it great? (look for evidence of adaptiability, thriving in fast-paced environment, comfort with ambiguity and iteration, thrive in teams, ability to take ownership and intitiative.) </br>
- What was your favorite moment ever in your classroom? (Look for love.  Do their eyes light up when talking about kids?  Does their heart open?  Do they gush?) </br>
- Who is a student you will always remember?  why? (Same as above ^^) </br>
- How do you feel when the minute before you start a lesson? (Look for evidence of ejoyment of craft and performance). </br>
- Tell me about your lesson prep process (should be thorugh and thoughtful) </br>
- Who is the best teacher you’ve ever seen?  why? (Should speak in reverence of fellow educator.  Notice small things and nuance that teacher uses to be succesful in the classroom). </br>
- Who is your favorite teacher ever, why? (Same as above ^^) </br>
- Tell me about a time you were humbled recently (Is this person humble?  Can they be invested in a feedbakc-heavy culture?) </br>
- Tell me about a big idea that you got really wrong (Same as above ^^) </br>
- Tell me about a time when you were frustrated with a student. (Look for someone who can consider this as a challenge, a problem that they would want to solve. A teacher that does not give up on any student.)


#### Stage 2 Technical
Assign tictactoe in Python or JS.  Give ~ One week to complete.
1. Whatss the first thing you did after you got the challenge.  How did you begin to approach the problem?
2. Walk me through your code.
3. *Stop* them on a particular concept — how would you explain an array/dictionary/etc.
4. Walk me through your favorite feature.
5. What woud you build if you had more time.
6. How would you implement a basic AI (offense, defense)
7. Talk about a design decision that had a tradeoff.  

## IX. Feedback Systems

Teaching is hard.  Really hard.  Especially after-school . Especially on-line.   So we have to be constantly improving our content and our delivery style.  

After each class:  Student to teacher feedback.  Teacher self-reflection. </br>
After each unit: Student self-reflection/mid-course survey. </br>
After the year: Post-course feedback.  Teacher Seld reflection. </br>

## X. Notes

Expectations
Bonding
Technical tools
Tech uglier basics
Social

On culture
- Distributed motivation - distributed accountability
- Feeling responsible for others and for the group’s success.
- Feeling that the MEETx success is bigger than themselves and than MEET’s success. They need to feel invested in the project’s success.
- (1000 points trip to facebook | 900 points pizza party | 800 points hats ) 
- Text students every morning personally
- Motivation mix: intrinsic (meet mission), extrinsic (pizza), internal ( skills)
- What would be the X things to train teachers to build accountability and teamwork?
- Teachers Students design their won system of accountability with a workshop last day of class

Intermediate huge incentives.  Spaced out incentives.
Scorebord mapped to kpis.  Revealed at the end of every class.
Attendance.  Labs completed.  Karma points.  

Push methods + Pull methods

Togetherness that much more important.  Special experiment.  Pioneers.  Prestige.
Expectation setting. 
HUb compettion


Probably reasons for churn + interventions

Early signals **
1 on 1s
Interaccvitiy
Weekly surveys

Pre-trouble spots

Parents engagement

Platform:  Breakout Video Rooms**** For one on ones + small group work.
This is everything!  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5N-lcocJss
Can students jump into their own on their own?
Can differentiate!  OK you dudes chill here and we’re going to go over here for extra help!

Conversations are more interesting than presentations.  Co-teach?

Checklist for students
-30 min before class
-safe quiet space
-technology working (wifi and computer)
-environment all set up
-something social? (buddy check in?)
-start with the to do

Light background music during class?