#13 How to Deploy Agile in Education and Create Self-Lead Student Teams with Willy Wijnands

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast. I am so pleased to have with us on this episode Willy Wijnands, a teacher of over 44 years and founder to EduScrum and Co Creator of Lightschools. Willy is passionate about building trust, freedom, teamwork, engagement,  and personal development in the classroom. Willy has focused his career on developing the classrooms of the future for our generations to come. Willy through his work with EduScrum has defined a way to bring the best practices of Agile that so many of our largest organisations have used to create high achieving innovative cultures to the classroom. I am looking forward to learning from Willy.

Key Takeaways 

1.     The power of empowered small teams with a clear objective in education – finish 6 weeks early and then move into self-directed extension learning 

2.     The approach takes pressure off the teachers, as it allows them to focus on the children who require greater help, without impacting the other more independent children. 

3.     The work readiness this provides for these children. They are learning best practices before they reach the workforce. 

Quotes

 

1:53 min To come in contact with the students, that is what I love and that is where I find my passion. I love children, I can educate them, and I use chemistry only as a tool to be involved with the students.

2:17 min When I see students 11-19 years old, I see them grow as a person, that is what I love to do, that is also my passion and my work. It is not about chemistry, it is about seeing the grow of the students as they perform, as they develop themselves, as they get the best out of it and what I do for that, I give them a safe environment in my classroom.

11:24 min For me it is an easy job, but I can imagine it can be quite a hard job. Why is it easy for me? Because I love my kids and I want to see growth in my kids and that is what I do. 

12:25 min In the new way of working what we are doing, we bring more soft skills in it. So; collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity.

19:29 min What you will see mostly when I am in the classroom or another teacher in the classroom, is I walk around or sitting behind my desk, going from one team to another team and you see students working together, laughing together. And it’s working, real working.

22:15 min So first, we give them assignments. Second visit the why...there's a very good why to it. Then they form teams. After team formation they draw their own flips, which includes the name, the team logo, their "to do, busy, done", visit stories on it, visit celebration criteria. Celebration criteria is the same as acceptance criteria. 

23:10 min Then they make working agreements, definition of fun, definition of doing, definition of communication. They make their own rules. That is mostly the left part of the left of the flip. On the right part, the working part, the right part, the 'to do, busy, done' task is the one they made by themselves. They also draw their own run up charts. The run up chart is the same as the burn down chart... 

23:49min And impediments. So, the whole ceremonies and artifacts are on the flip and do the same as scrum. And the biggest impediments in school systems now are two things: curriculum and time.

27:12 min The way of teaching is not only sending out your information but make it interactive with your students and negotiate with your students. Ask them questions. You are not the old schoolteacher anymore who comes in the classroom and teaches for 50 minutes, go out, next 50 minutes, go out,

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Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.