1.

Identify Upskills Within Existing Teacher Competencies

The need to update and train our educator workforce existed long ahead of the novel coronavirus. In 2019, the World Economic Forum estimated that the effects of automation,
shifts to virtual work, and advances in technology would require more than half of all employees to be upskilled or reskilled by 2022. Work-from-home and social distancing
requirements have simply accelerated these needs.

Educators can look to the healthcare industry to see the kind of rapid upskilling that will be needed across our more than three million teachers this Fall. To ensure an ‘all-hands-
on-deck’ pandemic response, medical professionals across every area of expertise have received training on the basics of treating infectious diseases, performing common
procedures like CPR while wearing PPE, and conducting virtual appointments and diagnoses. 

Within education, traditional competencies will require similar forms of upskilling. As a first step, leaders will need to examine these competencies through a pre- and post-
COVID lens to identify potential upskills. For example:

Competencies Pre-COVID Post-COVID Upskills

 Clear and consistent routines and procedures  Expectations for camera use, chat, headphones

 Management strategies (proximity, anchor charts,  Screen monitoring, digital FAQs

Classroom
Management incentives)  Teaching and learning with face masks

 Seating arrangements to accommodate 20+   Student seating and no-contact collaboration

 Focus on models for small group instruction 

 Gradual release model
 Differentiation tactics or strategies to address learning
Instructional  Formative assessment tactics
Design gaps
 Clear objectives + scope and sequencing
 No-contact collaborative exercises
2. Consider Reskilling for New Competencies
Our education system faces unprecedented pressures on staffing in the year ahead. Budget cuts, limits on class sizes, and a significant number of teachers required to stay
home (18 percent of teachers are 55 or older) will stretch an already understaffed workforce to new limits. To ease capacity concerns, leaders will need to consider how to reskill
both traditional and newly created roles to meet capacity demands.

Educators might again look to the healthcare industry for a model of this kind of reskilling. As hospital capacity stretched thin throughout the initial COVID-19 spike,
Scandanavian Airlines designed a three-and-a-half-day training program for cabin attendants to become assistant nurses, both maintaining paychecks for their employees and
filling necessary support roles for hospitals. The program has since expanded to laid-off employees from Marriott, McDonald’s, and other companies across the UK.  

To alleviate similar stretches on capacity, districts should consider a reskilling of new and existing roles. For example, parents could receive training on leading guided or
independent practice with students. Counselors might lead daily small-group instruction on health and wellness to ease classroom sizes. Bus drivers might play a role
in delivering WiFi and providing basic in-person technical support for virtual students and teachers. To meet unprecedented demands on capacity and physical space, districts
will need to think beyond the traditional teacher role to support new demands on teaching and learning. 

Regardless of role and title, a reskilling of new knowledge, mindsets, and skills will need to occur across all positions. Skills and knowledge previously held by virtual instructors,
or mindsets for dealing with uncertainty not universally required, will need wholesale training and reinforcement in the year ahead. For example :

Competencies Pre-COVID Post-COVID Reskills

 Daily integration of district Learning Management Systems

Digital Content and Instruction N/A or not universally required  Use of virtual instruction software, polling, and digital formative assessment tools

 Technical troubleshooting for hybrid and virtual learning

 Readiness to shift between virtual and in-person learning

Comfort with Ambiguity N/A or not universally required
 Appropriately responds to school or district decisions that affect learning conditions and expectations