Newport News' Approach to Social Connections in Virtual Learning

Overview

Between January 2022 and June 2023, the district featured below was one of 20 participants in The Learning Accelerator (TLA)’s Strategy Lab: Virtual & Hybrid program to address a problem of practice related to virtual and hybrid learning environments. Through their participation in Strategy Lab, this team was guided through a multi-step process to identify their unique goals and gaps before determining and designing measurable solutions to their challenge. The Strategy Lab program was based on the Real-Time Redesign (RTR) toolkit, which takes participants through a rapid, research-based, and field-tested process for making targeted improvement toward more equitable, effective, and engaging virtual/hybrid learning and included:

• Conducting a needs assessment, which included self- and team-assessments as well as empathy interviews

• Researching potential strategies to address the root cause(s) of their problem and achieve desired student outcomes

• Designing a measurable solution

• Conducting and measuring a pilot

• Planning for continuous improvements

For approximately 18 months, this district worked in Strategy Lab’s cohort model to identify and address a problem of practice specific to their virtual program – in this case, learner-centered design. The district team gathered data, explored potential solutions, and then created, implemented, measured, and reflected on a pilot program created to address learner-centered design.

Each district featured in our learner-centered design case study was selected based upon their focus on one particular aspect of learner-centered design: targeted and relevant, actively engaging, socially connected, or growth oriented. What is important to note is that each district chose to focus on an aspect of learner-centered design that emerged from team discussions, self- and team assessments, and aligned to their reason for joining Strategy Lab. To better visualize this concept, we propose considering the idea of learner-centered design that is personalized, mastery-based, and addresses the whole child. Figure 1 illustrates this concept.

Figure 1. TLA’s best practices for teaching and learning.

To learn more about TLA’s research on effective instruction as it relates to learner-centered design, please visit our Insight: Learner-Centered Design.

Newport News Virtual Learning Academy

Newport News Virtual Learning Academy, a virtual school based in Virginia, serves 467 grade 1-12 students. They describe their middle- and high-school instructional program as a hybrid model with asynchronous classes, dedicated online office hours, in-person support time, and in-person extracurricular activities and clubs. They joined Strategy Lab to learn best practices for virtual and hybrid instruction as they look to expand their program.

Addressing Learner-Centered Design: Socially Connected Instruction

The team identified a core challenge specific to learner-centered design: how to restructure their high-school program to better serve the needs of their students. They wanted to provide opportunities for students to make meaningful connections to teachers, peers, and academics.

Data analyzed by the team revealed that students appreciated the positive relationships they made with faculty and peers. However, the team shared that because their program was new and virtual, students had fewer social opportunities when compared to traditional in-person school programs. In fact, student survey data revealed that they wanted additional in-person academic support time as well as more opportunities to socially connect both in-person and virtually with peers (e.g., meals together, student-led clubs, social events such as free periods).

The team suspected that emergency remote learning during the pandemic disrupted students’ opportunities to develop meaningful and supportive relationships among peers and teachers, which they attributed to current low attendance in both virtual and in-person activities. The team hypothesized that if they enabled students to create a stronger sense of community, then the school would eventually see persistence and a deeper commitment to academic achievement.

Throughout the coaching process, the team discussed current policies and practices, and they ultimately identified a problem of practice: the challenge of fostering meaningful and supportive connections between students, peers, and teachers. To address this issue, the team decided to design and pilot a program focused on building more meaningful social connections.

Designing and Piloting a Measurable Solution

The leadership team piloted a mentoring program for grade 9-10 students who experienced attendance and/or academic issues. Four pilot teachers served as mentors to a group of four to six students. Over the course of seven weeks, the teachers called, texted, and emailed students on a regular basis to check-in with them as well as invited them to in-person social events.

Data from the communication logs kept by the pilot teachers revealed positive insights from the in-person events. Beyond participating in icebreaker activities and games, mentors took students on a tour of the campus so they could meet their other teachers face-to-face. Over the course of getting to know each other through these socially connected interactions (e.g., playing games, field trips, phone/text communication), students began to open up to their teachers about their feelings, sharing sentiments such as:

• I have a hard time talking to people in person.

• I am stressed about my classes.

• I am not presently living at home.

These honest admissions indicated that a level of trust had been established between students and their teachers. Notably, these social bonds extended to academics as students eventually reached out to their mentors for support on topics such as how to email teachers for help, use the learning management system, and set up a weekly calendar to keep track of assignments and due dates.

Teacher and student survey responses after the pilot indicated that both groups wanted to continue the mentorship program next year. More importantly, 80% of participating students shared that their school experience improved. The team also shared that they saw a shift in how students interacted with peers and teachers during in-person events. They observed highly engaging, non-academic conversations during in-person meet-ups – which they attributed to students feeling comfortable with each other and safe. Consequently, it appeared as though this mentorship program enabled students to make meaningful and supportive connections to their teachers and peers.

The district leadership team is planning to use the lessons from this pilot to learn, iterate, and scale the mentorship program. As they look forward to a new school year, the team intends to add more opportunities for students, peers, and teachers to stay socially connected while also ensuring that the focus remains on learner-centered academics. This aligns with why Newport News joined Strategy Lab: to learn best practices for virtual and hybrid instruction.