This interview was originally recorded on May 26, 2023, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
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Elana Leoni:
Hello and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week, I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing, or content marketing and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I am excited to be sitting down with Samia Zaidi. She's the managing director of program for Along for Gradient Learning. So Samia is going to talk a little bit more about what Along is. But in a nutshell, if I'm giving you some cliff notes for me, I'm saying it's a free online tool that helps build connections between teachers and students. And she's going to go into a lot more detail about that because what we're going to be talking about today is about relationships, the power of relationships between student and teacher, the student ecosystem in K-12 education and education as a whole, what does that do to school culture, how school culture is so important for the learning environment and the power of student voice. And we're going to get into some nooks and crannies in between as well.
But before we get into that, let me give you a brief background about Samia. So I love talking to educators, and Samia is a former educator. So she currently works for Gradient Learning. She's been there for over six years. She's worked as a school and district coach for Summit Learning, which is part of Gradient Learning, before she transitioned to help launch Along. But before all of this, like I said, Samia began her career as a 6th grade math and science teacher in Oakland, California. Samia also has her MA in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies from Stanford's Graduate School of Education. Welcome, Samia. I'm so excited that you joined us for this show. Welcome to the show.
Samia Zaidi:
Thank you so much for having me.
Elana Leoni:
Yay! So why don't we get into... Sometimes I love to hear people's story around why education, because there's certainly so many roads you can go to make an impact in this world, and I feel like it bonds us collectively of why we chose this route in education. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey to get to education and your journey in education?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, absolutely. I definitely have a lot of friends in education now. It's like a huge part of my ecosystem personally and professionally. I can't say I always thought I would end up here, but I'm so glad that I did. When I was in high school and college, especially in college, I was studying political science. I was sort of in that space of I'm not sure what I want to do next, what matters to me, what's important to me. And I knew I wanted to work in a space that had impact. It felt really important to me to look into nonprofits, to look into just systems at large that were going to have impact and to be able to give back. And I just started thinking a lot about what's next for me.
And while I was in college, I ended up talking with some folks from Teach for America, and I actually did do Teach for America coming out of undergrad at Barnard. A huge part of going into that was realizing actually the impact of the teachers in my life and just how critical those relationships were for me and how much that had had an impact on getting me into college, on getting me on the journey I'm on now. I had some of the most amazing math teachers in particular, so I was pretty excited when I ended up getting a placement that allowed me to work in math. But that was really in college feeling like, "I'm not sure what do I want to do, what's next." And sitting down and thinking, "This is a place I really could have impact."
And so, working with folks in Teach for America, I got a placement in Oakland, and I'm originally from Oakland. And so, that felt really important to me as well, that I was able to go back to an area that I knew really well and work in a middle school in Oakland, California. And I ended up staying longer than the time that I did with Teach for America teaching 6th grade math and science, starting out with multiple subjects and then ultimately going back and getting a single subject math credential because by far and away just teaching students math was one of these things where I was like, "If I can get students to love this the way that I love this, I feel like we're going to be in such a better place for how just math is treated in schools." There's so many amazing fun ways to think about math in a project-based setting and the ways that we teach math.
And so, that's really what took off for me. I love teaching science as well, but definitely math is kind of where my heart is. And after I was in the classroom for a number of years, I transitioned and worked in education technology for a little while and ended up back at Stanford for my graduate degree because I really wanted to get back into the K-12 education space and learn a little bit more about the ecosystem, think a lot about policy and leadership studies. It was right after that that I ended up at Summit Learning and at Gradient, is working on our other tools, Summit Learning right out of graduate school.
Literally the day after I graduated, I started at Summit Learning and have been here ever since in a variety of different roles and have just absolutely loved the transition of going from working in a classroom directly with my students to being able to learn about so many other types of education systems, working with rural schools, working with different age groups of students, working in urban settings, in big districts, in small districts, and just having these totally different experiences around the country in the K-12 US education system than I'd had just working in my one school.
And so, that's probably been the biggest learning experience for me through this, is working across the country with folks in such different education settings and seeing how much similarity.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, I would say it dramatically changes your perception and your opinion and just all of your thoughts when I worked at Edutopia and I got to see what happens on a national scale and actually travel to schools across the country and see it in person. Within education, we get so isolated, right? Especially educators that really just close their door and they don't have any idea what they're doing compared to others. And a lot of the times, my job initially at Edutopia was just telling educators how awesome they were. I'm like, "No, what you're doing is truly innovative," but they didn't have that vantage point of seeing all this great stuff happening across the country.
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, I think that for me was one of those moments too of just seeing so much similarity in the kinds of challenges people faced and the kinds of experiences that were really beneficial, like relationship building, like really impactful curriculums, all of these instructional practices were very translatable, and yet it was also completely different settings that I'd never experienced before. Definitely that element of traveling to schools around the country in those early years when I was at Gradient working on Summit Learning had such an impact being able to actually physically be in those places.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, I can't imagine. I would say what's interesting enough is when we all talk about our favorite teachers, a lot of the times we might get excited about their subject matter expertise, but that's usually not what rises to the top. It's more of, "Hey, this teacher saw me. They believed in me. They made me feel seen and heard." And what I hear from you is you had educators in your corner that did that for you and helped you Along your journey. And now in Along, I love that this product allows that, that it's not curriculum-based, it doesn't necessarily have to. It's like, "Hey, human, you're a human. I'm a human. Let's talk about human things. Let's connect. I care." And I love that. Do you want to want to just talk a little bit about your role at Along and what you've seen so far?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, absolutely. And just agree completely in this idea that at the end of the day, it really is that feeling of being seen and heard, and like that math teacher who was so impactful to me was impactful because it hit me that math was something I could be really good at, but that came alongside the educator also saying to me like, "You can do this because here's all of the things I see from you. Here's who you are as a person. Here's how you're showing up in this classroom. Here's how I'm giving you opportunities to speak, to meet with me, to come in and build this personal relationship" that actually is then contributing to also your love of that subject matter, your love of that class because you feel like you can really show up authentically.
And it actually reduced stress for me so much in that class because it was like, "Okay, I know I can show up here and this teacher is looking out for me, cares about me, wants to know me." And that then helped me also excel in that subject area. So yeah, that's a lot of what we bring into how we have thought about developing Along.
I mean, I'll just start by saying Along has been an evolution here of thinking about teacher-student relationships and the critical nature of those connections and how we could make that even easier for teachers to be able to do, because we know that this is something that people say, "Yeah, I value this. This is super important to me. I want to build relationships." I think what you shared is completely true, everybody says, "I had a teacher." I think it's a very universal understanding. Everyone had a mentor or a teacher. They can think back to somebody who they formed that strong relationship with, but that doesn't mean it just happens naturally in the classroom every single day or over time. There's so much that goes into actually carving out the time and having the tools and resources to be able to do that.
And so what we've really put together for Along is trying to think about what's the research here about the best ways to form developmental relationships and really set students up on a pathway towards growth to really feel seen and heard and have the tools and resources to be able to grow in school. And so, taking that research and saying things like decades of research that tell us that having at least one supportive and caring adult is such a strong predictor for later experiences in a student's life. And so there's so much impact from trying to solve this problem. And really what we tried to do here was figure out at the basis of forming a strong relationship is starting by opening the conversation, right? It's like I need to actually start with a question. And we like to think about the questions that we have on Along as seemingly simple questions because they are just quick questions, but they get at a lot of depth.
I think one of my favorite questions that we have on Along is, "Tell me about your name." Well, suddenly when I as an educator share with you what my name means and where it came from and my family history, or maybe it is just some inside joke between my parents, I mean, there's so many things I've learned about people hearing everything from family names being passed down to just funny anecdotes, and suddenly I have something that I'm connecting with you about. And so, a seemingly simple question that an educator can open the space for allows a student to step outside of just what's going on in that classroom and say, "Oh, somebody wants to know more about me, about who I am, about how I show up."
And so what we've really seen here is that even just small simple questions like that, short and sweet, actually lead to, over time, asking those consistently and transitioning into other types of questions to get at what motivates students, what do they care about, how are they experiencing the classroom and school, has really allowed for students to feel like "Somebody at school really cares about me." And for teachers, we've had a really funny experience with a lot of teachers saying, "Whoa, it's actually been impactful for me also to just stop and reflect and use these questions myself. I'm learning so much about my students that I maybe wouldn't have carved out the time for or had the exact questions that would allow me to open up." So hopefully that got at the question that you asked.
Elana Leoni:
I mean, you saw me kind of doing some thinky faces and stuff in the video podcast because I was reflecting on my path as a student from K-12 and I didn't ever once have one person ask me about my name. And in some way, it triggered, it made me feel a little sad and it made me rushed these feelings of actually not being seen because everyone mispronounces my name as Elena or Alena or/and, I was so shy and really didn't want to be seen. I didn't believe in myself as a student that I just let people call me whatever. And it contributed to this feeling of just like, "I don't really belong here." I was going through those feelings, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, no one has ever asked my name." So even the littlest things. And I love how all the questions that you have are research-backed, but they're just simple, and over time they become very powerful. Even a small question that can be powerful.
Samia Zaidi:
Totally. I mean, I think I resonate with that deeply as somebody who also my name is constantly mispronounced. And actually, going through the experience of having that question in Along and working with teachers who have used that question with their students, and I use it sometimes in professional development opportunities, I had to actually go back to my parents and ask some questions about the story of my name because suddenly... And then I'm having conversations with my parents that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
I mean, I think it's just such an interesting, clearly the moment you just had, and the experience I've had and all these teachers of like, "Oh, something as small, tiny moments, tiny questions can have a huge impact on opening up conversations, on feeling seen." And I think that's really what we've tried to sit with is, we know there's not more time in the day in school. There's just not more time. There's so much happening. But how do we actually unlock, in really small periods of time, opportunities that could be having somebody go off and have another conversation, feel more seen, be asked a question nobody's ever asked them before about something as significant as their name?
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, I think that there's so many benefits when all of what we're talking about is these questions foundationally say, "Okay, I care about you, I believe in you," but it's creating this foundation for the student to be able to learn. When I first entered education, I don't know why I didn't think about that, but all of the whole child tenants of like, "There's a lot of times your kids are just not ready to learn." There might be a variety of reasons, but the number one thing that can get a student ready to learn, in my opinion, is if you have an adult that cares about you and says, "Yes, I see you."
I used to have a teacher so connected to me if I didn't maintain eye contact at certain times, they'd come up to me afterwards and say, "Hey, are you okay?" And that meant so much to me and it motivated me to learn and I did learn. So I'm wondering with you, you get to see this transformation across schools. What are the benefits that you've seen of any powerful stories or things that if people don't necessarily attribute relationship building to the outcomes that you see?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, I mean I think we've had a couple really impactful stories come through and I'm sure there are so many others that are out there. Firstly, we recently did a pilot engagement with Rochester Public Schools in Minnesota where we had a number of teachers try using Along. And then we did a set of surveys to better understand the experience and impact between teachers and students. I think that was really eyeopening for us because we just saw so much transformation when this was done in a way where students and teachers were being asked, "What did this do for you?" Students were able to feel like they had a much stronger connection to their teacher. After just a short period of time, a semester using Along, they already felt like they had a stronger connection to their teachers. And teachers said, "I feel like I can actually openly engage differently in my classroom and help me be more open."
And I think even just small indicators like that have been really impactful for us. And then there's the anecdotes, right? Those are the surveys where we're hearing across multiple students, across multiple teachers, but there's so many anecdotes. I remember early on Along, we were working with a school and we were talking to a student and also the teacher and the student was saying, "I look forward to Fridays. Friday is the day that my teacher is going to post a question on a Along. And that's the day that not only am I going to get asked a question and I sort of know that I'm going to have this exciting moment. I'm also going to get to learn something about my teacher."
I know when I was teaching and the student shared something really similar, you sort of think of your teachers in some ways as they are hidden when they're not in the classroom, they don't exist. And it was always so funny when I would run into a student at the grocery store or something and they're like, "Ms. Zaidi. What? You're not a person. You just exist in the classroom." And I think that would always sort of humanize the experience of like, "Oh, Ms. Zaidi shops for groceries too. She's also doing all these other things." And I remember the student saying that having this experience of getting the question every Friday because the teacher also models answering the question in these longer form responses, depending on the type of question, the teacher would be able to actually answer it and say, "Here's my experience." And so the student's saying, "I'm actually learning that my teacher is also a human being, also somebody who makes mistakes, also somebody who thinks about these things or has strategies I haven't heard before or has a family or just so many different things that maybe they struggle with."
That was really interesting to just hear from a high school student, that they were so excited not only to get asked the question, but to actually have the opportunity to learn more about their teacher directly in that way. And we hear from students constantly like, "I have so much going on in my life, I have so much to share. And so oftentimes just nobody's asking me. I have so much I want to share." And so, actually opening up that line of dialogue is also a place you've just seen a lot of impact and student voice and student agency of just like, "I have a lot of things I want to share if somebody asks me that question and opens up that space where I know that I can share those things."
And the last anecdote I know from my teaching and from a couple of colleagues have shared this with me and some folks that use Along is you get to the end of the day or the end of the week, and if you're teaching 32 students every period or 32 students over the course of a day, so anywhere from 32 to 150 students, you start thinking, "Did I talk to everybody this week? Have I actually... I'm sure that I've had an interaction, but have I actually talked to somebody and asked a question of like..." Even just within a classroom of 32, there's so much going on. And I would sit down and say, "I don't know." And I've heard this same thing from other people.
One of my colleagues who was a teacher for many years would say, "Driving home in the evening, did I actually get to every student?" And the answer is, it's really hard to know. And if you're not carving out the time, it's also really hard to be sure that you're at least having a touchpoint with students. And so that's the last thing we've heard from a lot of educators is, "This is helping me make sure that I at least at minimum, carve out an opportunity to ask a question. I can do way more on top of that. I can make sure that I'm following up and doing all kinds of other things, having check-ins, having hallway moments, following up in class discussions. But at a minimum, I'm making sure that on a semi-regular basis, weekly, biweekly, a couple times a week, I'm checking in with each of my students."
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. So powerful. I would say some of our most popular content at Edutopia when I was there was around those moments to make sure that every student had something that they had feedback on, whether it be those beautiful hallway moments and the greetings or an icebreaker or a brain break at some point where that everyone is participating.
But what I started thinking about when you were talking a little bit philosophical, I don't know, maybe on a Friday I'm feeling about life and what really matters in life, I recently came across a study about the happiest people and the happiest people and why they're so happy. It correlated to the amount of positive, consistent relationships they had in their lives. And it gives me goosebumps saying it because sometimes we all get so caught up in the busyness of life, we deprioritize relationships. And when you talk to teachers, a lot of the times it's why they get into the profession. And it's what keeps them going, is the relationships with their students and with their colleagues and parents and the ecosystem. But fundamentally, we get so caught up in so many things in education policy like this and that and AI and all these things are going to be the silver bullet. But what if the secret to just effective success of students and academic outcomes is all about what they call touchy-feely stuff they can't quantify called relationships? Just what if, you know?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, I mean, we just know that students show up differently when they feel like somebody is paying attention to them. And it is one of those things that's like, it feels like the reason that so many people get into the profession and it's also the first thing to get cut out of time being prioritized because it's not the thing that I need to do today within the curriculum or the thing I have to submit or the thing I have to do here. And so without a system or a structure, it's very easy for it to just be really hard to fit into your day organically and authentically for all of your students, right?
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, that's so important. So why don't we get into some myths around relationship building, why maybe isn't something that's talked enough about in education and why potentially it's just not consistently used? What are the things you've heard from either educators or administrators of maybe why it hasn't been a priority or why they haven't been consistently been able to put the emphasis it needs?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, I mean, I think everyone agrees, or maybe not everyone, but most folks agree that relationships are critical. And when we talk to people, people say like, "Yes, this is why I got into the profession" or admin saying, "Yes, this is how I want to adopt and create a school culture, organized around strong positive relationships."
But I think what really happens when you're talking about why might this not actually come to fruition as something that's been prioritized is I think there's a common, I wouldn't even say misconception because I think when you really start talking about it, you can identify it, but I think there's just an assumption that this is happening. It's like, "Oh, this is why somebody got into the profession. And so this is going to happen organically and authentically without me needing to do more to make this happen." I think we assume as human beings, we are set up to build relationship to have these types of interactions. You're in the classroom all day with your students. And so, I think there can be an assumption that like, "Okay, well, at a minimum, I'm sure that all these teachers of course care about their students. And so, there's some sort of organic relationship building that's just happening."
And at the beginning of the year, you do Get to Know Me activities and you have these About Me sheets and you learn something about your students. And so I think you get these pockets of time too, where it feels like it's happening. "Okay, we're going to do the team building activity. I had all kinds of inventory surveys with my students and Get to Know You activities." And then things get busy right? When you're a teacher and you have what's called the what fall wall and everything's like that October time and just all these other things, suddenly there's so much going on that it's not that it's not important, but it's just if there's not a structure and a system you kind of carve out for yourself at the beginning of the year to maintain, to build, to pause, to check in, then it's not necessarily happening.
And we're not exactly taught how to build strong developmental relationships. What kinds of questions open up that space? What kinds of actions? Small things like greeting students at the door actually open up the interactions that are going to lead to strong, authentic developmental relationships. And so, the other sort of thing that happens is without prioritization of this and without some sort of carved out time systems and structures, you end up in a situation where you might be forming a relationship, you're asking some questions or you're finding time to make sure that you check in with a student, but you may not have all the resources to do it in a way that help you really form a developmental relationship with students. And so, that's where it's sort of both pieces.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, it's so true when you started talking about the assumptions, I'm like, "That's true." People assume that that happens consistently. But we know educators juggle 10 million things and there's always something new being thrown at them. And I don't even want to talk about standardized testing.
Samia Zaidi:
Oh, my God.
Elana Leoni:
There's so many things that get thrown at an educator that we assume-
Samia Zaidi:
So much.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, that this relationship building is happening consistently throughout, when in fact it falls at the wayside because there's so much going on. And that is a deep assumption, I think.
Samia Zaidi:
And I have so many students, you know? The class sizes are big.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. So why don't we talk about... So with this pilot in Rochester, that was a school-wide deployment, I know there's been other school-wide deployments, but it doesn't necessarily have to be about Along, but when an entire school culture focuses on something as important as relationships, what did you see happen to the school culture as a whole? Because I think this is fascinating because more often than not, I have covered school cultures that are top down, driven from the administrator. They say, "Hey, we're going to do restorative justice, or we're going to do this, or morning meetings" or whatever it may be, it's generally top down. But what I like about something like this is it can be, I don't want to call bottom up because educators aren't on the bottom, but it's like this groundswell beautiful movement that can happen regardless of leadership changes. But what did you see in terms of how it transformed a school culture of every-
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, and I think this is kind of across a number of different school schools. We've put together some blogs and write-ups also about the experiences in Pasadena at Thompson Intermediate School and also at De Zevala Middle School Middle School where they really prioritized trying to think about large groups of teachers or whole school. And the impacts there are a couple things. I think first and foremost, teachers are able to say, "Oh, this is a priority that my administrator is placing an emphasis on." So to your point about groundswell, it kind of goes both ways. It's like, "I now have the flexibility and freedom to actually spend the time on this because if my administrator is asking me about this and following up about this, I know it's something that I can be focused on." And with an administrator actually supporting it becomes something where there's consistency. It's talked about, it's something that is many teachers and students are becoming used to this as a habit building, routine building thing.
And I think one of the things that was really impactful at one of the middle schools in Texas was really thinking about the impacts in even the hallways or the anecdotes you're hearing from students saying like, "Now I just feel more seen and I feel like there's somebody who's actually checking up on me." I think having those advisory structures or just spaces in my first period classroom or these other places could be really great opportunities for this, but when you're seeing it system-wide, it's also you're catching all of the students they're able to have... Everyone has somebody who's asking them something. And when we go back to kind of that early conversation about how having one trusted adult is really a huge indicator, that's where you're trying to get to, right? Is like, "Does everyone at least have one trusted adult?" And when you start to see wider implementations, be that school-wide or grade level wide or just a handful of teachers who are all going in on something, you're able to make sure that every student is covered.
And that's where you start to see the impacts in the hallways. You start to see the students sort of organically saying, "Oh wow, I have a teacher who's regularly checking up on me." And some of what we're looking at moving forward is what is the actual impact on referrals. We've been in conversations with some schools about, "Have you seen a decrease in overall referrals? Or what hallway behavior is like? Or how students overall are showing up in the classroom"? And that's where some of that Rochester data across a number of different schools where teachers piloted we're saying, "Yeah, we're actually seeing ourselves be able to show up differently in the classroom."
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, that's really interesting. I would say I once went to a school in Boston, and I remember going in the back of the teacher's lounge and they had this magnet board and they had all the students' name on the board. That was their way to keep track of students to make sure that at least one staff member had connected with that student in the week. And teachers, I love that we get stuff out, we make sure that things are organized and stuff, but what they're ultimately trying to do is a reactive touch point. And I liked it because it was new and innovative at the time, but they didn't have a consistent behavior built into the day-to-day school. And it just reminded me of sometimes we Jimmy Rig things and it's cool to be able to have response to intervention and look and see how can we help people Along, but what if you can proactively, consistently connect with a student and you know every teacher is doing it? That's magic, right? You don't need magnetic boards or meetings or anything like that, right?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah. And it was interesting, when I was coaching schools as they went into remote learning during the beginning of the pandemic and it was this like, "We're going to have to totally change up how we do things," I remember we're so stressed about what's going to happen with the academics and how are we going to move our lesson plans over here and what are we doing with this piece of curriculum.
And then sitting down with administrators... And this was really where Along really was born out of, but sitting down with administrators during that period of time who were like, "Okay, but I'm worried about what this is going to do for students feeling like every single student has a touchpoint." And I remember just going through and saying like, "Let's just go back to basics here. Let's just make a list of every student and did someone check in with them this week." And I think this was this moment for folks to say, "Wow, we can pull everything back for a second and just get back to the basics here? Did we actually get to every single student? Did somebody call them at their house this week or check in with them on a Google Meet or a Zoom or something during one of the classes, stay after, or ask them a question."
This was in the early days as we were just starting to ideate about what it would look like to focus something on Along, and a lot of it was those conversations of like, even just going back to the basics of the magnetic board or the getting to every student, but it was like, "Oh, having this sheet of every student suddenly shows you, 'Am I getting to everybody?' I need to make sure." That's what's going to matter during this really chaotic time period where everyone's feeling uncertain, is that at least they know somebody is checking in with them from the school and we can divide and conquer. Like, "I, as the administrator, can get to 10 kids and you as the math teacher can get to your 15 over here. And we'll divide and conquer and make sure that, in addition to everything else, we're at least having a touch point with every single one of our students."
Elana Leoni:
I would say the biggest elephant in the room, and I'm hearing people in my ear right now kind of saying, "Oh yeah, this all sounds great. Kittens and unicorns, this is great Samia and Elana, but I don't have time for this." We talked about how much an educator juggles in their day to day, but I would argue, and I know you would potentially argue the same thing, is that you don't have time not to do this. And that what we've seen and I've seen is that if you invest this time consistently, it will decrease your time on student engagement and managing the classroom in terms of classroom management. And all of the things that used to be hard sometimes becomes a little bit smoother when people feel seen and they feel cared about. But do you want to address the time thing because it is showing up consistently. And whether you do one question a week or one question a day, it takes time to do that. So how do you combat when people say, "I can't make time for it"?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah. When we originally talked to educators during the development process, folks said, "I have about 30 minutes max an hour a week that I can devote to just purely focusing on relationship building," we really use that as an anchor in the early days of Along of what would it look like to build something that was efficient enough that it didn't take hours and hours and hours of time. And I think what you said is very true, right? This pays dividends. A small amount of time pays dividends. But I think what we think about in tech in particular is we cannot replace with technology the human interaction at all, like the craft of teaching, the craft of relationship building. But what we can do with tech is make it more efficient.
And so, when we are dealing with these questions of time, it's A, finding the smallest possible actions that we can take and then using technology to actually superpower those actions. We're not taking away the interaction between the teachers and the students, but in fact, just giving you a tool that hopefully makes it faster to do that tracking, right? We said, "Have I gotten to every student?" Well, suddenly it's much more easy for me to see which students I've talked to when. "How am I going to find all these questions? How am I going to have a structure for this?" Well, we've taken that out of the puzzle for you. The question is ready to go.
When you're getting ready to share your answer, if you're doing a video response or an audio response, we've provided you with some talking points to get started. There's all these small ways where we've said, "Okay, let's make this as easy for you as possible so that this really is like you ask one question as the educator and it goes out to all of your students or a group of students, whoever you need to send it to, but it feels then like a one-on-one interaction between you and that student. They're able to just come back to you directly even though you recorded maybe one video for your 32 students."
And I think we're considering, as we move forward, other ways to just continue to make this even more efficient. What would it look like to have other question types and ways of interacting in the classroom? Everything at the response to teacher feedback, like research and teacher feedback, but, "This is what's taking me too much time. This is where I need it to be a little bit more efficient." That to me is where technology plays a huge role, because you're actually able to say, "I can take that action that you're having to do repetitively and make it more efficient for you and take none of the craft out" because the way that you then follow up with students based on what you learned... What you learned is what pays dividends, right? It's like twofold. It's opening the door and asking the question, the seemingly simple question that you start the conversation.
But then it's, "What did I actually learn from my students?" And a huge part of the next step that happens off of technology is also now that I know all these different things and these students feel more seen and they can show up differently, that's where I can also use that to pay dividends because suddenly my lessons, I might incorporate an interesting anecdote about things I know students are interested in. I have something I can follow up on with another student. I'm noticing a trend across my classroom of something that everybody is struggling with recently, and I can address that." And so, there's all these ways that it's actually providing you with an opportunity to adjust your classroom instruction and shift the way that you think about operating in your classroom just from a small investment that hopefully we can superpower.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. So like personalization, understanding what students have prior knowledge in certain subjects and helping them build on it. There's so many opportunities to be able to do that.
But since you talked about the role of technology, let's shift over there for a second because there's a lot of people on this podcast in EdTech, and then we have some educators also listening. And if you're an educator listening, I know we got deep into the product of Along, but I would like you to just pause and think about are there ways... Whether you use Along or not, I want you to think about, "Am I prioritizing relationships?" I know this is kind of towards the end of the school year now, but when we think about the next school year, "How can I prioritize, systematize, even operationalize, make sure I show up consistently for my students?"
And it doesn't have to be big. If you've heard anything from Samia and what she's talked about, it's the small little moments that add up. So I just would love to leave you with that, of, "What are the questions I can ask?" Along certainly has free questions-based bank that you can go into. But I'd love for you to reflect on that, because whether you're a new educator or a veteran educator, your relationship and your experience has changed you. So let's get back to basics and I'd love to hear for your reflections. You can tweet us or reach out to us. But for the educators, I really hope that you walk away with a mind shift on the role and the importance of relationships.
For the EdTech folk listening, you all are like, "Okay, I get it. Relationships are powerful. How does this relate to me?" And I'm hoping that you all can, now that we are going to get into the technology part of the conversation, think about your own product, think about your own marketing, think about your own sales. How does relationship building in an industry that is very driven by relationships, how is that incorporated into your product? How is that incorporated into your outreach and interaction with educators to insert their educator voice and feedback? And then how is it incorporated into your sales strategy?
I mean, I'm going to get bigger, and Samia, we're not going to talk about all of that. But I'm curious for you, how would you recommend EdTech where it's so focused on AI and there's all this talk, the scared talk about replacing educators and stuff that we know isn't true, but when we see all the new EdTech developing, do you have thoughts on how to integrate in relationship building within tech? There's this dichotomy, I feel like, we always talk about and it becomes overly hyped up. But how do you work into what you've known with Along into where you see EdTech developing in this ecosystem?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah. I mean, I think broadly it's some of what I already shared about, what are the things that a teacher is so uniquely positioned to do and just an educator is like there's so much there in being able to actually be the person who deeply understands that student, who deeply understands their content area and the skills that they're working with students on in terms of critical thinking. There's so much that an educator is best trained in to actually have those interactions with students and work with them. And I think what we've seen is what are all of the other things that surround that that could be made easier, could be made slightly more efficient, could be giving somebody like, "I don't have to go off and research a bunch of things"?
I think one of the things we did at Along is partner with organizations who are experts in these areas. We said, "If we're going to build these questions, let's partner with folks like Character Lab, the Search Institute." We have a whole list of partners on our website of people that we partnered with to say, "You guys are best suited to do some of these things." We partnered with researchers. We take the feedback directly from educators as we're building.And I think that is what I would say to folks working in EdTech is, work directly with the teachers. Really think about what are their needs. Hear from students, hear from administrators.
When we've gone back and talked to administrators, they've shared, "Here's what's challenging for me about prioritizing this." And I think they have given us some of the best insights and being able to then have that research piece and across all of that saying, "Okay, well for the technology, now that we have that foundation, what are the parts that people are saying, 'It would just be easier for me if this could be faster, more efficient. You could help me make this part of my job a little bit easier so that I could really focus. I have the right data in front of me. Get me the right data, help me collect the right data. Help me get access to the right things and put them in front of me in a way where it's easy for me to use it and I don't have to spend 20 extra minutes going off and looking for something'."? And that's where I think technology just plays such a helpful role.
Elana Leoni:
Yes. Yes, 100%. And because like all industries, education is constantly evolving. So what you found when you were talking with educators and students, and shout out for you all because I know that you even co-developed questions with students, which was awesome, so really co-creating and actively soliciting feedback consistently.
But what I see sometimes with Edtechs is they'll go in and they'll maybe get that feedback and they're like, "Okay, great. We know what the challenge is. We know the problem to solve." But when I hear you speaking, it's always this evolution. It's like, "Hey, what we're hearing now, what we're hearing now, we're always thinking about how we can streamline, operationalize, and fit needs for the educator today." And that's something as an EdTech if you're listening, is, "Do I have processes in place? Do I have partners in place to consistently get their voice in, get their feedback in and use it?" Actually use it. Don't give lip service to educators. They know and they say, "Don't waste my time. I actually want you to act upon this feedback as much as you can." But that's what stood out with me because it's a field that's constantly evolving and you can't make assumptions that what worked five years ago or right after the pandemic, is it going to work right now too?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah.
Elana Leoni:
So I know we're all fired up now. We could talk forever about this, and we kind of have, but I would love to be able to close out with you on a topic of inspiration. You get to see very inspiring moments in educator's lives and students' lives, but I know that this field is hard. It's a hard challenging field, and that's why I always open up in the beginning of like, why education, why now? But when you do have those hard days or you just feel drained, what are the things that you do to personally, I don't know, rejuvenate and say, "Gosh, tomorrow I'm feeling better. I'm going to go at it because I've had this time to charge my batteries." What inspires you?
Samia Zaidi:
I think two things. The first would be spending time outside. I am a big trail runner and I am actually probably newer to trails than just running in general, but just being able to truly get away from everything and feel completely back out in nature. And there's something about trail running in particular where every step is different. There might be a tree branch in the way, there might be rocks. You can't really just go. You kind of have to also pay attention to what's happening. And so, it allows you to sort of turn your brain off from other things because I'm able to really prioritize and focus in on like, "Okay, I'm taking in the scenery and I'm making sure that my steps, I'm not going to fall." And so there's this whole experience of that that really helps me feel inspired and rejuvenated at the end of the day of just fully disconnecting.
And then within work, after really hard days, sometimes I look at the calendar and think about other folks on my team, and I think about, "Can I join upcoming calls that we're doing with educators?" I would say that's the other thing that just really inspires me, and I'm always pushing other leaders to do the same thing, is don't get disconnected from the work. It's really easy to have 50 Zoom meetings in a week with all these different people and coordination and so many things happening, but actually hearing the stories from educators and talking directly to administrators or teachers is the thing for me that also helps just remind me of what we're doing and why we're doing it.
Elana Leoni:
Yes, really powerful. I think that, number one, when I talk to founders and people, they feel almost starved at times. And if you're a person working in EdTech now and you're like, "Gosh, I really want to join calls, but we don't have them," that inherently is a problem in itself. And that's a moment to pause, reflect, and say, "How can we actively embed educator voices?" Because what Samia is saying is it keeps her going, and I bet you she's not alone. I bet the whole organization would thrive with educator calls.
So thank you so much for all of your thoughts, your insight, your passion that you bring to education. I really appreciate it. I would love to continue the conversation. I know people may want to reach out to you. If there are ways that people can get in touch with you, is it via email or social? Why don't you go ahead and let them know all the ways?
Samia Zaidi:
Yeah, of course. On our website, just on along.org, we have multiple different ways to reach out to us, be that our Instagram and our Twitter and even our support team. And then for me directly, if folks want to reach out just to talk more, definitely to me via email, it's just szaidi@gradientlearning.org. My door is always open to talk to folks who are thinking about these types of things and really focused in on problems they're trying to solve in education.
Elana Leoni:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. We're going to have you in on again at some point and just go even deeper in relationships.
Samia Zaidi:
Thank you so much.
Elana Leoni:
[inaudible] stop talking about relationships. And for people that know me, my entire business is formed on relationships. It's the power of it, it's the authentic interaction, and that's what matters the most in life.
So again, thank you all for joining us. You can access this episode's show notes at leoniconsultinggroup.com. So that's Leoni, L-E-O-N-I, consultinggroup, two Gs, .com/51. We are now past episode 50, which is a huge thing for us. So backslash, the number 51. We're going to have detailed notes. Samia is going to send some resources if they're appropriate too. You'll be able to listen to this podcast and also access the transcript. So thank you all so much. We will see you all next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast for all show notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends, so please connect with us on Twitter @LeoniGroup. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Samia Zaidi, Guest
Samia Zaidi is the Managing Director of Program on Along for Gradient Learning, which is a nonprofit education organization founded and led by educators who are driven to bring communities, schools, and families together in pursuit of meeting the needs of every student. Over her six years with the organization, she worked as a school and district coach for Summit Learning before transitioning to help launch Along. In her current role, she ensures that educators are supported to use Along in their classrooms so each student feels seen and known. Before Gradient Learning, Samia began her career as a 6th grade Math and Science teacher in Oakland. After teaching, Samia worked in education technology and received her MA in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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