Chapter 97. Agile in Education with eduScrum

Willy Wijnands

I believe that Scrum suits the needs of today’s fast-changing markets and, more importantly, implements an Agile mindset. The workforce of tomorrow will have to cope with the challenges of such fast-changing markets and manage the new way of working. Unfortunately, the current educational system is missing out on these evolutions, thus leaving a big gap between what it offers and what the market requires.

I believe that eduScrum, our way of applying Scrum in the educational system, can be the bridge to close the gap between the educational system and market requirements.

The starting principles of eduScrum are autonomy and authenticity. I believe that children are more than capable of taking responsibility and can work together in teams, more independently from the teachers than the traditional system assumes. When students are trusted to take ownership of their own learning process, they become responsible for what they do. As a teacher, I offer them the freedom and the space they need while being there to facilitate and coach them.

For me, it all starts with the development of personality. Building on this foundation, students become far more engaged. Thriving in intrinsic motivation, they are more productive and have improved results while having more fun.

eduScrum is an active, collaborative education process. eduScrum allows students to make assignments according to a fixed rhythm, organizing work in Sprints. They plan and determine their own activities autonomously, which includes independently keeping track of their progress. The teacher creates the assignments against the learning objectives. But rather than become an instructor, teachers in eduScrum coach, teach, facilitate, and give advice. eduScrum turns education upside down! We move from teacher-driven education to education driven and organized by the students. The teacher determines the why and the what, and the students determine the how. And I have been in situations where the students even determine the why, the what, and the how.

They discover who they are from a personality and talents perspective and what their abilities are. It is a wonderful experience to see students developing themselves. I have found that students working with eduScrum go through a strong and positive personal development. They get to know their individual qualities through working in small teams and finding out how to use the resources at their disposal. They discover the power of engagement, commitment, and responsibility. They train to self-reflect but also to give feedback to their classmates and to continuously improve their own and their team’s working process.

As a teacher, I’m only involved when the team gets stuck or moves in the wrong direction. First, I help them understand what they don’t understand. Then I help them get started or get back on track while exploring these unknowns. And now, by fully knowing what they didn’t understand, they look for knowledge, and this is what true teaching should be about, in my view.