ThoughtWorks
  • Contact
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

    Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

    Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

    Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
Go to overview

Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
ThoughtWorksMenu
  • Close   ✕
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

  • Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

  • Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

  • Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

  • All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
Blogs
Select a topic
View all topicsClose
Technology 
Agile Project Management Cloud Continuous Delivery  Data Science & Engineering Defending the Free Internet Evolutionary Architecture Experience Design IoT Languages, Tools & Frameworks Legacy Modernization Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Microservices Platforms Security Software Testing Technology Strategy 
Business 
Financial Services Global Health Innovation Retail  Transformation 
Careers 
Career Hacks Diversity & Inclusion Social Change 
Blogs

Topics

Choose a topic
  • Technology
    Technology
  • Technology Overview
  • Agile Project Management
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Data Science & Engineering
  • Defending the Free Internet
  • Evolutionary Architecture
  • Experience Design
  • IoT
  • Languages, Tools & Frameworks
  • Legacy Modernization
  • Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
  • Microservices
  • Platforms
  • Security
  • Software Testing
  • Technology Strategy
  • Business
    Business
  • Business Overview
  • Financial Services
  • Global Health
  • Innovation
  • Retail
  • Transformation
  • Careers
    Careers
  • Careers Overview
  • Career Hacks
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Social Change
Data Science & EngineeringTechnology

Shifting classrooms to the cloud

Dane Sherburn Dane Sherburn
David Colls David Colls

Published: Sep 3, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted education in an extremely short space of time, and continues to impact schools well into Term 3. As many parents scrambled to sort out remote learning arrangements, Pivot Professional Learning was already ahead of the class, designing a survey for teachers to help chart the disruption and inform effective responses.

ThoughtWorks saw the opportunity to provide extra data science capability to understand some of the more interesting questions posed by the data, and what data scientist wouldn’t sign up for this sort of extra-curricular analysis?

 

About Pivot

Pivot is an ed-tech company that provides data insights on teaching practice to drive continuous improvement for teachers, schools and systems. Their latest research explored the state of education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Changes in teacher's planning time
Changes in Teacher Planning Time. Citation: Flack, C. B., Walker, L., Bickerstaff, A., Earle, H., & Margetts, C. (2020). Educator perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning in Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne, Australia: Pivot Professional Learning.


What drove our collaboration with Pivot?

We’re always interested in projects that make the world a little better, so naturally we jumped at the opportunity to help educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pivot surveyed around 3,700 educators from Australia and New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we jumped at the opportunity to dig deeper into the data to assist in interpreting and summarising their survey responses. 
 

What questions did Pivot want to answer?

Pivot wanted to capture a snapshot of how educators were feeling and suggest recommendations on how best to support students, teachers and school leaders. They were specifically interested in identifying the key challenges faced by educators, how they were using educational technologies, their most immediate and pressing needs and to gauge their wellbeing.
 

How did we approach the project?

Since we had limited time and many questions to explore, we prioritized those questions that were high-impact and easy to deliver. We first identified educators who were struggling to teach remotely. From there we were interested in two questions: why were they struggling, and what support was most critical? In exploring why they were struggling, we looked at the technology they used at home, their type of internet connection and how comfortable they were with technology.
 

What were some interesting findings?

We were able to look deeper into questions regarding how to get the best outcomes for students in remote learning, how educators’ workspaces were set up for remote teaching, and how to provide support most effectively to all parties in remote education. The findings will then inform future research.

Prepared vs unprepared educators

Our key findings were:

  • Roughly 10.5% of educators use mobile data when delivering lessons, which suggests their household internet isn’t adequate for delivering lessons remotely.
  • Educators who self-identified as 'unprepared' felt that instructional coaching and professional learning courses were more important than those that self-identified as 'prepared'.
     

How did our work help Pivot?

Shortly after conducting the survey, Pivot released a whitepaper, Educator perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning in Australia and New Zealand. Our effort helped interpret and summarize responses for the whitepaper, and contribute to helping educators during a stressful and complex time.
 

How did fully-remote collaboration work?

For both Pivot and ThoughtWorks, this was one of our first fully-remote collaborations after the initial introduction of restrictions due to COVID-19. At ThoughtWorks, though we’ve historically employed remote-first patterns in many parts of our business, consulting work generally involves face-to-face ideas-sharing and interaction. It shouldn’t be surprising that after a few months into restrictions, now that fully-remote is the norm, we were really thrilled with how easy it was to come together with shared objectives, complementary skills and experience, and the right mix of collaboration technologies. 
 

What’s next?

Pivot envisages further distilling data-derived insight into remote education into a series of vignettes that can inform future policy, practice and technology support, with targeted interventions. Pivot continues to explore equity in Australian schooling and technology mix being deployed in Australia and New Zealand for remote education. We support Pivot’s mission to transform teaching practice even in these unprecedented times and look forward to future improvements based on their research. 

Technology Hub

An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence.

Explore
Related blogs
Data Science & Engineering

Making the data dream a reality

JoJo Swords
Learn more
Data Science & Engineering

Data-driven responses to new patterns of customer behaviour

David Colls
Sue Visic
Learn more
Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence

Overcoming AI Paralysis: 5 proven ways to start deriving business value

Nagarjun Kandukuru
Learn more
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact

WeChat

×
QR code to ThoughtWorks China WeChat subscription account

Media and analyst relations | Privacy policy | Modern Slavery statement ThoughtWorks| Accessibility | © 2021 ThoughtWorks, Inc.