Some of the people I follow on Twitter post a lot of links to business and advertising strategies. I've come across this one that intrigues me and, I think, is applicable to teaching.
The title is "5 Tips to Build a Clairvoyant Brand Strategy."
Now, I'm no business person but when I hear the words "brand strategy," I think of teaching style. The article gives us a little more information on branding:
For brands, the question, “Who are you?” is answered by branding. A
little branding 101: Branding tells your customer what to think about
your organization and ensures that everything the customer sees and
hears about you supports this identity. It’s a matter of constantly
adapting to and empathizing with your target consumer; when you begin to
understand whom your customer is and what they want, you can even begin
to predict the future.
The parts I bolded above seem perfectly applicable to what I do as a teacher.
First, what does by teaching style (and this could be everything from how I interact with kids in the hallway to how I decorate my room to how I organize a syllabus to how I manage my classes) tell my students what to think about me as a teacher?
I want my students to see a couple things. First, that I'm passionate about what I do. Second, that I love to learn more about the courses I teach. Finally, that I am willing to be a co-learner with them.
How, then, do I make sure that "everything the customer [student] sees and hears about me supports this identity."
Well, that comes down to my blog (and posts just like this one) and my Tweets. It also comes down to the text messages I send my students, the class blog we run, and how I structure assignments. I don't always do the assignments right a long with my students, but I often do. Likewise, sometimes I concoct or improvise lessons on the fly, so I literally have to do it right with the students to ensure I know what I'm doing. That's what I mean by being a co-learner.
But it doesn't end there. It also stretches into the hall, where I can interact with colleagues and talk shop. It reaches into our lunch breaks and common preps, again where we get to talk shop and get better. I recall how during our preps, Mr. Powers and I talked outside the staff lounge for 20 minutes on teaching. A Magnet Arts student was painting her end of the year mural across the hall from us. As we were wrapping up, she said, "You know every night Dad asks me what I learned in school today, and I always tell him nothing. But after listening to you guys talk about teaching and all that goes into it, I realize that I learn a whole lot more than I ever thought I did."
That's what I want kids to hear more of, not who the Sioux beat or who the Vikings lost to.
The final part of the statement above: "constantly adapting to and empathizing with your target consumer" is paramount. I'd be foolish to think that my kids are the same type of learners that I had in class a decade ago. Students went from being connected (through passing notes or seeing each other in between classes) to being hyper-connected (just being a text or a tweet away). I have to try and use this in class. That might mean when we are looking at writing a persuasive paper, I may have them text out to their extended network to get some primary research. I may have them text some of their peers who are already in college and see what they are writing about. I may even decide to have them not (gasp!) even write an essay but do it as a Keynote or Prezi or iMovie instead!
Well, enough of that. On to the actually 5 steps:
1. Woo Your Customer
I like this line, it is the job of your branding to make a great first impression and allow a relationship to develop. When I walk into my class, especially on the first day, I'm trying to wow them. I want to engage them and make them laugh. Even if it is doing the traditional boring first day stuff like going over the syllabus. But the point is to have some fun and to show them that they are going to want to come to class for the remaining 45 or 90 days.
2. What's Your "Thing"?
The author suggest picking one attribute and making it your calling card. For me, I think engagement is my number one focus. I like to think it's my thing, but you'll have to ask my students.
I strive for this by asking myself one simple question when I come to an assignment or lesson: If I were a student of mine, would I want to do this assignment. Now this doesn't always work. Sometimes you have to do a worksheet or God awful crossword puzzle. I get that. But even then, how can I go about making this worksheet as engaging and relevant as possible?
For me, technology is a component here. Allowing students to use computers or cell phones or social media helps engage them.
Bringing some personality to the assignment also helps engage them. Nothing screams unengaging like a worksheet generated by the textbook company. Now that doesn't mean it can't be engaging, it just means that the teacher has to front load it with humor or personality or past examples to help it seem more interesting.
And if you're skeptical of all this, just ask yourself this: "If my principal asked my students to name what they thought my 'thing' was as a teacher, what would they say (or worse yet, would they just stare blankly, unable to come up with anything)?" That ain't good.
3. Give Them What They Expect
If your students know you well enough, they develop expectations. Now, given that some students expect to want to be able to do as little as possible, know that you have to rise above that. For teaching, I'd change this to "Give Them What They Deserve." Every kid - no matter how hard it is - and believe me it's sometimes excruciating - deserves our best shot.
I realized this last year when some of my College Comp classes were looking at the assignments I had left on the table for my remedial reading class. "What are you doing?" the student asked. "Yeah," another one chimed in. "This is busy work. You always talk to us about how teachers should never waste our time with busywork."
I was busted. And it caused me to re-evelaute how I taught that class. For the record, it was busy work - for College level high school kids. For my younger students how struggled with reading, it was work that kept them on track and helped them learn they skills they need to. But it didn't mean that I couldn't liven it up some more or inject some personality into it.
4. Packaging
I agree with this - You might have the best product in the world, but if your packaging,
logo, website and marketing materials could be carbon dated, your
customer won’t care about who you are or what you do.
For me this comes down to my room and my class and school website. What I love about elementary schools (well, one of the things I love) are the rooms. They are engaging. I want the same thing for my room, which is why I hang tons of posters and toys and quotes all over.
That's why I use a class blog, to entertain and engage students. But the goal is to always get them thinking. I swear is some high school classrooms (and certainly college classrooms too), the minute you walk in they kill any interest you might have just form their sheer blandness.
5. Realize Brand Loyalty Is In Your Future
This is so true for teachers. We all have those students (or we should) who resonate with us and want to take as many of our classes as possible. Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily a wise idea. I'm for students getting a wide array of classroom experiences from different teachers and their styles. But when a parent (or student) sends you note after their kid graduates from school and they tell you how much your classes meant to them, well that's worth it's weight in gold and it's what makes this job so worth it.
That's what makes me want to get better right now as a teacher. And that's why I can't wait for autumn. As I told Mr. Zutz this morning, I've already learned so much, have so many new ideas to put into play, and have revised my previous lessons so much that my students next year are going to be blown away.
I can't wait for that first day.
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