The Global Classroom by Lily Jones

Author:Lily Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510753549
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2019-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

How the Community Was Built

Though the teacher community is immensely strong, it wasn’t always that way. When Klein came to the company in 2017, she was challenged to show proof of concept. Soon after she joined, in March of 2017, a Salt Lake City, Utah, teacher posted a comment on a newsletter inviting other teachers on the platform to come over for brunch. Klein knew that the three VIPKid cofounders would be in town for a conference at the same time as the meet up, so she invited them to go surprise the teachers. About thirty teachers were at the meetup when Klein showed up with the cofounders.

“We went to her house, and it was at that moment that I think we all realized the power of getting people together,” said Klein. “They all shared their stories, and when they left that day, they went and referred more teachers. They went and connected more.”

Jessie Chen remembers this moment well. Seeing the teachers getting together with one another changed the way that she looked at how the company could be supporting teacher communities.

“The teachers were really excited to see us. The three of us were very excited to meet teachers and understand their stories and user experience in VIPKid. We felt very connected,” said Jessie Chen. “It’s good for teachers to have an in-person meetup of their online community. We talked to Kevyn about going in this direction. We should help teachers build the teacher communities. This moment is how we started the teacher communities.”

In February 2017, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook announced a Community Summit. He formed the Summit out of the belief that people needed more connection to one another. A VIPKid teacher, Shannon, ran the largest VIPKid Facebook group at the time and applied to go to the Summit and was able to attend. To Klein, this cemented the idea that the teacher community was onto something. She began thinking about how the company could leverage its teachers’ experience and enthusiasm.

In order to showcase teachers to the world, Klein decided to show more images of actual teachers in marketing materials and within VIPKid. When she arrived at the company, she saw pictures of the Beijing office and Beijing employees on VIPKid’s social media accounts. There was one glaring omission: teachers. Klein began to make sure that pictures of teachers were taken at all meetups. These photos were used to show to potential candidate teachers, making it clear that there are other teachers like them teaching on the platform.

In 2018, the Advocacy and Care team was created. Through the work of this team, VIPKid was able to send hundreds of care cards to teachers when something momentous happened to them. These handwritten cards are sent to teachers during all times of life—in the happy moments, and sometimes in times of sadness. Whatever the occasion, the goal of the care notes was to make teachers feel more than just a number, but like they are a valued member of the VIPKid community.

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