Author: Eduindex News

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WHY THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF WORKFORCE ANALYTICS MATTER MOST

Presidents, chief executives and senior business leaders all understand the importance of the age-old 100-day benchmark: The first few months in a new position are critical for setting a vision, acting upon your strategy and convincing colleagues that you\’re the best person for the job.
While this rule has generally been applied to individuals, I\’ve found that it is just as applicable to workforce analytics. Decisions made in the first 100 days of an analytics program have strong impact on the success of a company\’s analytics journey; early efforts will pay dividends, while mistakes are hard to bury.
Earlier this year, an IBM report on starting the workforce analytics journey focused on what companies should do in these vital first 100 days. The key message? Workforce analytics is not an HR-only project. To succeed, it needs to be a business initiative aimed at improving decision-making for managers company-wide.
Collaboration across departments is just one aspect of a successful analytics program, however. Here are three other pieces of advice to keep in mind as you embark on the first few months of your analytics efforts:

Define Your Vision

IBM emphasized analytics was not simply an HR project, but it\’s not just a technology project, either. It requires more than buying the best software or making sure you have squeaky-clean data. The first step—and a key element of the first phase of a workforce analytics initiative—is to set the vision.
If you\’ve gathered the tools and built a team for an analytics program, now is the time to gather information from business leaders in order to prioritize your goals, understand your stresses and identify areas where HR analytics can help.
These initial talks are also important for HR to gauge how other business units view your department. Is HR seen purely as a backroom operational function or viewed as a strategic partner delivering business value? If the balance is tipped heavily towards the operational side, then your HR analytics team needs to put in time and effort to build trust and persuade business execs that HR is delivering more than transactional insights.

Walk Before You Run

Once everyone is on board, it\’s time to prove your worth—but it\’s best to temporarily park grand ideas.
Instead of trying to implement a massive change in a management program or a new cost-savings initiative, focus on a quick-win project that can be completed within those first 100 days. Only with a successful project under your belt can you begin to plan and receive the resources for more ambitious initiatives.
Modest ambition is important when it comes to data and technology. Data can be a major stumbling block—and the most common excuse—for failing to start an analytics initiative. If you wait for perfect data, your analytics project will never get started. Data doesn\’t need to be 100 percent accurate: whether attrition rates are found to be 10 percent or 11 percent, the action is still going to be the same, so don\’t sweat the small stuff.
Of course, this doesn\’t mean that data accuracy isn\’t important—it\’s absolutely necessary. But HR needs to work with business executives to determine how accurate the data needs to be or to limit the data sample to areas with more accurate data. Finding the right data requires considering individual needs for each business case.

Create a Talent Pipeline

While you may have a solid team to start running analytics, it\’s likely not a full-blown team solely dedicated to workforce data—you probably have people doing work across departments, or helping out in their spare time. While this strategy may work for the first 100 days, it\’s important to consider how you will continue to bolster your team and build out the right skills sets to push your analytics initiatives forward.
In the long-term, you will need more complex skills and dedicated experts across different areas of the company. Will you train people in-house, or will you look outside the company for talent? Will people join the analytics team as one part of their current jobs, or will you create a separate sub-group with HR?
In these first few months of your big data program, remember these key lessons if you want to succeed: more than HR; vision not technology; good enough data; and a solid team. If you\’re able to not only convince business leaders of your vision, but also show them how you can bring it life—small project by small project—you\’ll be on the road to a thriving, sustainable and impactful workforce analytics journey.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Classroom Activities to Boost Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is a critical part of growing up, and kids who struggle with it constantly question themselves and their own abilities.
Fortunately there are ways educators can help. Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, who is a veteran grade school teacher based on the East Coast as well as a prolific writer for our website, offers up some classroom activities designed to build self-confidence and get kids to feel proud of themselves.
Janelle’s ideas include:
  • Goal Setting
  • Reflection
  • Teacher Tips
  • And More!

In a paragraph entitled “Reflection,” Janelle notes: “Reflection is another self-confidence booster for students. Encourage students to reflect after each assignment that you give them. Ask students what they think went right with the activity as well as what they think caused them stress over the task. Then, have students share their responses with their classmates. This is a great way for students to see how their classmates and friends overcome their own problems, which in turn can help them with their own self-confidence.”
How do you build self-confidence students? Do you have tips or classroom activities to help build your students’ self-confidence? Please share with us in the comment section below, we would love to hear your ideas.
Get our classroom activities designed to increase student self-confidence>>
Download TeachHUB Magazine for FREE Today!
In this month’s issue of TeachHUB magazine, we instruct readers on how to use YouTube in the classroom productively, and feature a helpful organization called Marchbook Learning.
Did you know TeachHUB magazine is FREE? It is, and it’s a terrific resource designed to help you become a better educator.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Video: Learning Retention for the Special Education Teacher

Check out this video that we recently published on TeachHUB magazine, always available for free, in which we outline ways that ways that the special education teacher can increase their students’ rates of learning retention.
Not surprisingly, learning retention doesn’t differ that much from student to student regardless of his or her academic acumen, but there are some unique ways that a special education teacher can insure that the lessons they administer won’t be forgotten after the test is over.
Today’s video outlines learning retention ideas for special education teachers to do just that.
View the video for how the special education teacher can boost learning retention>>
Technology in the Classroom: The New Literacy
Educators today work in a unique academic atmosphere: New means of sharing information have meant that traditional notions of “literacy” are completely outdated. Indeed, some of today’s common buzzwords like “tweet,” “blog,” and “ISP” are entry-level terms that even elementary-aged kids understand.
Beyond vocabulary, skills that assist students in wading through the reams of information available to them 24/7 are essential for succeeding in the modern classroom.
Today, frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Jordan Catapano takes a look at the ways that traditional notions of literacy have gone by the wayside and have been supplanted by more tech-heavy skills in a think piece entitled, “The New Literacy.”
What do you think about the new literacy? How literate are you, and how do we pass this on to our students?
Learn all about the new literacy>>
Use TeachHUB’s In-Service Professional 
Development Speakers
Did you know we have ready-made speakers to assist you with your next in-service day? Wed do! With our assistance you can:
  • Get tailored professional development training to fit any budget
  • Save time and energy by letting us organize your in-service
  • Find industry-leading expert speakers to train your teachers
  
All are 100% satisfaction guaranteed!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

Ryan Gosling: Teacher Motivation Poster Boy?

Hey girl, Ryan Gosling is here to motivate you through those tough days of teaching…

If you’re a teacher on Pinterest, you’ve probably noticed that everyone is going pin-crazy over the teacher “Hey Girl” series. These are basically pictures of hot stars “saying” encouraging statements about awesome educators.

While there are a few Matt Damons and Justin Timberlake’s floating around, Ryan Gosling is ruling the “Hey Girl” teacher scene. You can’t like a pinteresting teacher blog without Ryan clogging your feed saying things like: “Hey girl, I like my women how like I like my bulletin boards – bright, engaging and well informed.”

This trend may be completely silly, but admit it, it’s fun, clever and just plain motivational. And don’t we all need a little motivation these days.

Top 12 Tips to Improve Student Writing

As a student, staring at a blank piece of paper while you’re expected to write an essay can be very intimidating, especially during timed in-class writing and standardized tests. You can put your students at ease with these simple essay prep tips.
These tips will outline a simple and effective way to write a timed essay, as you might have to do for the WSAL, PSAT or SAT. This is just the tip of the essay-writing iceberg, but you can get the whole picture in my book, KISS Keep it Short and Simple.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

HR ANALYTICS IS ABOUT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the world’s greatest computer was asked for an answer to the ultimate question of “Life, the universe and everything.”
After millions of years of number crunching, the computer majestically proclaimed the answer to be… 42. It was not the edifying conclusion the audience had been waiting millennia for, but, as the great computer pointed out, that was because they had asked the wrong question: “Life, the Universe and Everything” just wasn’t specific enough.
It’s a fitting lesson for HR people beginning their workforce analytics journey: ask the right questions. The accuracy of the data, the quality of the analytics, the figures you come up with — everything is irrelevant if you’re not asking the right questions.

Think About the Bigger Picture

One of the problems with the type of questions HR professionals typically ask is the narrow focus — the question will address an HR concern, without considering how it impacts the business as a whole.
So, while it may be useful to keep an eye on absence, diversity or engagement metrics, this transactional information will likely not get your CEO’s pulse racing.
What executives want to know is how these metrics affect productivity or profitability; they want to know whether there are particular areas of the business where these rates are higher, and why. Above all, they want information and insight into what changes they need to make to change future outcomes, not data about what happened in the past.

But Get Specific

While you need the put your questions in the context of larger business goals, you also need to be detailed about the question itself. If your analytics questions are as vague as “Life, the universe and everything,” then the answers will be vague too. It will simply be a fishing trip – you might be lucky and catch something tasty or you might come up with nothing.
So what is the right question? Clearly, that will vary between companies, but the key is for the question to be plugged directly into the matrix of the business. HR can’t work in a vacuum, it needs to understand where the business pain points are, to appreciate both the outside market pressures and the inside forces impacting its line managers and leaders.
HR is not short on data — though some areas may fall short on quality — so, you should be able to dig up some interesting revelations with this sweeping approach.

Make a Group Effort

HR doesn’t need to work alone on developing the right questions. By working directly with other business leaders, you can work out the answers together in order to make a real difference in business performance.
For example, if you have an issue with high staff turnover, then look beyond the figures to find out why people are leaving. Is there a particular division or location where churn rates are higher? Can you talk to those managers? Or perhaps churn rates are higher among women than men? Look through the exit interview data, and take stock of the gender ratio in management. Is there a high churn rate in an area of business that requires highly prized, in-depth knowledge of the business? It’s possible that the people in this department don’t understand how much they are valued at the company.
Asking the right question is a great start on the quest for business insight. But whatever the outcome of the analysis, it’s also vital that HR maintains and presents the information in a business-friendly and business-relevant manner.

Teaching Strategies: Mindfulness in the Classroom

Mindfulness, the intentional, accepting, and non-judgmental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment, can be part of effective teaching strategies to center kids, keep them calm, and even improve their academic prowess.
Today on TeachHUB.com, contributing writer Janelle Cox takes a look and mindfulness and meditation and outlines their benefits in classroom. Her findings include that mindfulness and meditation can:
  •  Teach children to control their negative thoughts and emotions.
  • Improve one’s mental health, physical health, and emotional and social health.
  • Improve brain quality of your thoughts and feelings.

Janelle explains the psychology of mindfulness today and also explains how to employ it successfully. She sums up her article today like this: “Mindfulness is a practice which varies from student to student. While you may find that one student is benefiting immediately, another may take some time. Just remember, you are giving them the tools that they can carry with them forever. Whether they use them is up to them.”
Do you practice mindfulness in your classroom or do you think it’s just a new age mumbo jumbo?
Learn more about using mindfulness in your class>>
Websites, Classroom Games to Gamify Your Math Class
Also today on TeachHUB.com, we tackle two of our perennially popular topics: Technology in the classroom and classroom games.
Frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray, also a seasoned technology teacher based in Northern California, outlines three exciting websites that teachers can use to gamify their math classroom:
  • Dimension U
  • Land of Venn
  • Prodigygame.com

Jacqui notes that all three are fabulous classroom games to employ, and that all are excellent ways to inject some much-needed levity and fun to your exisiting and future math lessons.

Classroom Management Tips for a Year–End Survey

Surveys have become an integral part of virtually any type of consumer interaction. From apps to cars to Amazon purchases, just about any type of vendor is seeking feedback on their work these days.
So it’s our recommendation that teachers conduct feedback-generating surveys as well, particularly in the waning days of the school year. With that in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jordan Catapano, himself a veteran high school English teacher based in the Chicago suburbs, takes a look at some classroom management tips as to how educators can carry out and learn from a survey.

Jordan’s recommendations include:
  • Four Key Elements of a Good Survey
  • Ask Good Questions
  • Giving Your Survey and Reviewing Results
  • And More!

Here are two last tips that Jordan includes, in a segment called “Other interesting survey feedback methods”: Post signs around the room each listing different elements of class throughout the year. Then give students several green, yellow, and red stickers. Ask students to put green stickers on their favorite or most helpful elements, yellows on the mediocre elements, and reds on the things that need to change.
“Include parents on the process by designing a survey or other feedback tool just for them!”
How do you solicit feedback from students? Share your ideas and feedback with our TeachHUB community in the comments below!
Get our classroom management tips on executing a year-end survey>>
Classroom Management: Guest Speakers Support Learning
To enhance the real-world aspects of your class, you should think about bringing in guest speaker to provide a glimpse into the lives of an interesting local person.
Yesterday on TeachHUB.com, writer Janelle Cox examined how guest speakers can make an impact on a class and how to set one up. Her ways included:
  • Choosing a Guest Speaker
  • How to Get the Most from Your Speaker
  • How to Host a Guest Speaker

 Janelle also detailed ideas on how to carry out each idea.
In summation, Janelle noted: “Inviting guest speakers to your classroom is a not only a wonderful way for students to learn about a specific topic, but it also introduces them to other professions and career opportunities. Whether you invite a veteran, policeman, author, professor, nurse, veterinarian, dentist, musician, or lawyer, your students will leave the experience with more knowledge then they came into with.
Do you invite guest speakers to your classroom? Which speakers did you find had the most impact on your students and why?

Fighting Childhood Hunger in Schools

Schools Fight Hunger is on a mission to bring America’s schools and school families together in the effort to end childhood hunger.

Learn about the Schools Fight Hunger organization and find out how your school can participate in this exclusive TeachHUB interview.

Teaching Strategies: The 4 Essential Writing Steps

All too often, when writing a paper, students merely sit down and start composing, without employing any prior though as to steps that might assist them in the writing process.
This is a flawed method of composition. Today’s centerpiece article on TeachHUB.com, penned by frequent contributor Jordan Catapano (who is a veteran English teacher in the Chicago suburbs, so you can bet he know his stuff), names and explains the four essential steps to writing a paper.
These steps (and accompanying explanations) include:
  • Brainstorm
  • Outline
  • Draft
  • Edit

Jordan sums up his article in this manner: “So as you’re thinking through how you’re helping your students write, make sure that in addition to the other elements of great instruction you include, there’s a focus on the writing process as well.”
What other details about the writing process would you include? How do you help students own this process? Share your thoughts with our community!
Get our teaching strategies that outline the 4 essential writing steps>>
Subscribe to the TeachHUB.com newsletter
A great way for interested teachers and educators to stay connected with the great ideas, lesson plans, and inspirational articles we post every week is by subscribing to the TeachHUB.com e-newsletter. Every Friday, you’ll get a concise snapshot of what we’ve posted each week, as well as a look at trending articles and evergreen-type stories. Best of all, it’s absolutely FREE!

    Tapping into Students’ Talents

    Are essays really the only way?

    It hits me about once a year that writing literary analysis essays about whether or not Piggy in The Lord of the Flies is a round or flat character, may not be an essential skill to get a young person through life.

    What am I doing? Why must I torture Marquis who fell out of his desk last week when I announced the latest writing assignment?

    Last Week to Get Pop Culture Lesson Plans

    The holiday season may be behind us, but TeachHUB would like to extend a gift to all K-12 teachers for their hard work in 2009:
    Through January 18, ALL TeachHUB MEMBERS will have access to an archived database of 500+ Printable Pop Culture Lesson Plans.

    Use Pop Culture Lesson Plans to enhance your existing curriculum and spark student interest.

    Pop Culture Lesson Plans are:
    -Valued at $29.95 for a one-year subscription
    -Aligned to national teaching standards
    -Available for K-12 grade levels and core subjects
    -Inspired by pop culture and news headlines
    -Ready to print, copy & assign in your classroom today!

    Sign Up as a TeachHUB member to get your FREE Printable Pop Culture Lesson Plans today!

    To redeem your members-only gift, visit: http://www.teachhub.com/holiday-giveaway

    TeachHUB appreciates all you do and wishes you a new year filled with raised hands, completed assignments and “I get it” looks on students’ faces.

    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Classroom Ideas

    More than just a time-honored book and movie, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is a great tool that teachers can use for some outside-the-box classroom ideas.

    Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox illuminates some of ways that educators can use that theme to work in some unique lesson plans. Janelle’s ideas include:

    Explore math themes of probability
    Discuss getting what you wish for
    And more!

    Janelle concludes her article thusly, instructing educators on how to “Have a “Wonka-licious Day”: “The day before your “Wonka-licious” day, give each student a Golden Ticket and invite them to come to a day filled with fun. As students enter the classroom, they must hand you their ticket and proceed on to the activities that you have planned for them. Here are a few teaching ideas. A lot of these activities can be in the form of a learning center.”

    Do you have any fun teaching ideas to contribute for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Please share your ideas!

    Get our ideas on how to incorporate “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” into your classroom ideas>>

    Classroom Management: The Modern “C’s” of Learning

    Collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity – these four “C’s” of learning have guided and directed the curriculum trajectories of several generations of educators.
    But as the teaching profession has evolved — especially with regards to technology and all the elements it brings to the classroom – it’s time to recognize a new set of “C’s” and how your classroom toolkit can morph with them.
    Today, frequent TeachHUB.com contributor Jordan Catapano adds five more “C’s” to the table, including competition and character.
    Learn About Some New Classroom Management Tips >>
    The Anti-Bullying Classroom: Advice for Educators
    Elsewhere on TeachHUB.com today, anti-bullying advocate Jodee Blanco offers up 10 top anti-bullying tips that teachers can enact today to put an end to this perpetual problem.
    Blanco, the noted author of “Please Stop Laughing at Us,” says a few words that teachers should NEVER say to a bullied student: “Ignore the bully and walk away; they’re just jealous; twenty years from now those bullies will probably be in jail and you’ll be successful; I know how you feel; or be patient.”
    With that, Blanco dives into her 10 tips, which include:
    • Contact the parents
    • Be a friend
    • Use compassionate punishment

    Get All of Jodee Blanco’s Anti-Bullying Classroom Advice >>
    Teacher Interview Questions, Answers
    TeachHUB.com is your go-to site if you are seeking a teaching job.

    HR ANALYTICS IS ABOUT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

    In Douglas Adams\’ The Hitchhiker\’s Guide to the Galaxy, the world\’s greatest computer was asked for an answer to the ultimate question of “Life, the universe and everything.\”
    After millions of years of number crunching, the computer majestically proclaimed the answer to be… 42. It was not the edifying conclusion the audience had been waiting millennia for, but, as the great computer pointed out, that was because they had asked the wrong question: “Life, the Universe and Everything\” just wasn\’t specific enough.
    It\’s a fitting lesson for HR people beginning their workforce analytics journey: ask the right questions. The accuracy of the data, the quality of the analytics, the figures you come up with — everything is irrelevant if you\’re not asking the right questions.

    Think About the Bigger Picture

    One of the problems with the type of questions HR professionals typically ask is the narrow focus — the question will address an HR concern, without considering how it impacts the business as a whole.
    So, while it may be useful to keep an eye on absence, diversity or engagement metrics, this transactional information will likely not get your CEO\’s pulse racing.
    What executives want to know is how these metrics affect productivity or profitability; they want to know whether there are particular areas of the business where these rates are higher, and why. Above all, they want information and insight into what changes they need to make to change future outcomes, not data about what happened in the past.

    But Get Specific

    While you need the put your questions in the context of larger business goals, you also need to be detailed about the question itself. If your analytics questions are as vague as “Life, the universe and everything,\” then the answers will be vague too. It will simply be a fishing trip – you might be lucky and catch something tasty or you might come up with nothing.
    So what is the right question? Clearly, that will vary between companies, but the key is for the question to be plugged directly into the matrix of the business. HR can\’t work in a vacuum, it needs to understand where the business pain points are, to appreciate both the outside market pressures and the inside forces impacting its line managers and leaders.
    HR is not short on data — though some areas may fall short on quality — so, you should be able to dig up some interesting revelations with this sweeping approach.

    Make a Group Effort

    HR doesn\’t need to work alone on developing the right questions. By working directly with other business leaders, you can work out the answers together in order to make a real difference in business performance.
    For example, if you have an issue with high staff turnover, then look beyond the figures to find out why people are leaving. Is there a particular division or location where churn rates are higher? Can you talk to those managers? Or perhaps churn rates are higher among women than men? Look through the exit interview data, and take stock of the gender ratio in management. Is there a high churn rate in an area of business that requires highly prized, in-depth knowledge of the business? It\’s possible that the people in this department don\’t understand how much they are valued at the company.
    Asking the right question is a great start on the quest for business insight. But whatever the outcome of the analysis, it\’s also vital that HR maintains and presents the information in a business-friendly and business-relevant manner.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

    Use Classroom Management to Let Students Ask Questions

    Questions, questions, questions! In our everyday lives as educators, we are constantly inundated with a barrage of questions: “When is this due?” “Where do I sit?” “What time is lunch?”
    But often, in particular with older kids, authentic, curiosity-driven questions about  assignments, reading lists, and the cosmos in general are pushed under the rug. After all, we have a barrage of curriculums, grades, administrative tasks, and more to contend with on a daily basis.
    However, we must learn to thrive on student curiosity and, whenever possible, use classroom management to welcome a questioning spirit into our class.
    Today on TeachHUB.com, we learn how to use classroom management to bring about a healthy spirit of questioning. Jordan Catapano, who is a seasoned high school English teacher based in the Chicago suburbs, penned today’s centerpiece article, which takes a look at inviting a questioning atmosphere into your class.
    Jordan’s ideas include:
    Make Asking Questions a Priority
    Make Asking Questions a Skill
    Make Asking Questions Necessary
    And More!
    In one memorable section, Jordan explains how to welcome questions with a few questions of his own: “How can you challenge your students to include their own personal questions as an indispensable component of their learning? What questions will guide student learning and growth? What questions will help students reflect? What questions lead to metacognitive processing? What questions spur internal motivation for learning? What questions will students challenge one another with? What questions will lead to interdisciplinary pursuits?”
    Jordan sums up his article like this: “Questions serve as our guides, yet so often we relegate them to the end of learning or exclude them altogether. But now’s the time to ask yourself, “How can I better include question-asking as part of student learning?””
    How do you use classroom management to help to make student questions an essential part of your class? What do you like from above and what would you add? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section!
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1