With Mirror, students can talk about their successes, challenges, and plans for future work.

Traci Johnson | Rochester Schools

USE CASE

To increase authenticity and ownership

Traci Johnson

English Teacher & Instructional Coach

School/District

Rochester Schools

Grade Level High School

“Many students seem to struggle with written reflection.” Dr. Traci Johnson is a big believer in the necessity of reflection, especially after a large project or assignment. However, the reflections teachers in her school were getting largely seemed inauthentic, like students were just checking the activity off the list to get it done.

Finding authentic student engagement

“Some reflection prompts worked better than others, but we felt students weren’t doing the work to understand how their successes and struggles helped them grow and how they can apply that to future learning. They were trying to say what they thought the teacher wanted to hear.”

Using Mirror has allowed Traci’s students to engage in more authentic reflection. Students can talk about their successes, challenges, and plans for future work in a less formal manner. Not only are the reflections higher quality, but Traci and her colleagues have been able to share the AI-generated feedback with students so they can work to further improve their reflective skills.

Exploring flexible integration of Mirror

Traci has been flexible in how she places Mirror in her school and how it’s utilized daily, to see what works best. She’s also been observing how others use the device when they borrow it. “In an ideal world, we would have 5-6 devices for teachers to check out to use in their classrooms. Currently, we have two.” Some teachers with large enough rooms have students go to a designated spot to record their reflections. Others have students take it to the hallway to reflect. 

This week, Traci plans to use Mirror in her classroom, and due to her proximity to the library, plans to have students use Mirror there. They will be reflecting on the research process and how they can transfer the skills they are learning in English class to other courses that require research.

Try Mirror free for 30 days

Curious how Mirror can automate reflection in your classroom? Signing up for the Mirror demo gives your school dedicated support and an opportunity to try Mirror for free. Throughout your demo, our team will walk you through unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with reflection.

The post Authenticity over compliance appeared first on Swivl.

We reflect as a piece of every single learning activity. Mirror has significantly reduced my work in reviewing each reflection.

Chris Johnson | Rochester Schools

USE CASE

To streamline feedback and increase growth potential

Chris Johnson

Social Studies Teacher

School/District

Rochester Schools

Grade Level Middle School

“Three years ago I made the decision to intentionally include more student reflection into the curriculum.” Chris Johnson, a social studies teacher in Rochester, IL, had begun testing and using some great reflection tools to make his vision a reality. But he found very quickly that “if I didn’t assign grades for these reflections, students wouldn’t bother to do them.” The decision to include reflection as a regular and integral part of his curriculum has worked very well for Chris as far as his goals for class growth.

Integrating student reflection into the curriculum

When Chris made the decision to amp up the amount of reflection his students were doing, he was typing the prompt and having them record video responses on their own. The problem? All those videos were taking so much time to watch. Chris explains, “I am very happy with my students’ willingness and ability to reflect; however, it has created a massive amount of grading.” He was feeling the demands on his time, and deeply understood each reflection was imperative to learning.

Streamlining feedback

Mirror has alleviated the demands on Chris’ time. Students now provide quick verbal feedback and reflection on the projects they are doing. Chris then skims through their responses and sees their reflections without having to watch each 2-minute video. 

For the teacher, Mirror makes it easy to understand feedback on student learning.

“Currently, I have 3 student reflection stations in my classroom. Two Mirror devices – I borrowed one from another teacher – and 1 laptop. It’s clear that students prefer the Mirror unit, so it looks like I’m going to need a third device!” In Chris’s stations model, being able to add an additional unit has significantly elevated the frequency they can reflect and process.

Maximizing Mirror’s potential

When Chris thinks about his ultimate goals for what success looks like using Mirror, he wants to know how the students see their reflections being useful in the future. “I want them to be better at creating authentic reflections and processing authentic feedback, and I’m excited for the possibilities with Mirror in helping them reach that.” 

Looking forward to Chris’s own personal goals to expand how he uses Mirror, Chris has his sights set beyond the school walls. “I also would like to use it with my athletes. They do a lot of goal-setting and I would like to see how they progress with Mirror as a tool for a higher level of improvement.”

Try Mirror free for 30 days

Curious how Mirror can automate reflection in your classroom? Signing up for the Mirror demo gives your school dedicated support and an opportunity to try Mirror for free. Throughout your demo, our team will walk you through unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with reflection.

The post Radically more reflection in half the time appeared first on Swivl.

Start with Glows and Grows

Sometimes the best feedback comes in the simplest forms. An easy, high impact way to start leaving feedback for yourself or others starts with the click of a button. That’s why we are improving the way you begin your feedback process with Bookmarking. 

During an observation, your focus should be on connecting with your students and delivering the lesson. However, self-reflection helps you to improve and develop your teaching practice more effectively. As you teach, start with simple mental checks: 

“What is unique about my teaching?” 

“What critical skills am I trying to develop?” 

“What am I unsure about so far?” 

This is where Bookmarking can help you with your after-class reflections and guide and support your video observation.

How can Bookmarking help?

1. Glow: When the lesson is moving along well and you’re feeling confident it is progressing positively, click the ‘UP’ arrow on your Primary Marker, and on your screen you’ll see a star:

2. Grow: When something isn’t quite right but you can’t put a finger on it, or you have questions that require your attention later, click the ‘DOWN’ arrow on your Primary Marker, and on your screen you’ll see a lightbulb:

Later when you’re watching your video on our web platform, continue Bookmarking using the corresponding web icons. Revisit your internal conversation you started during the recording, focusing on your triumphs and opportunities for growth.

“Bookmarking directs viewers to specific moments that are tied to key information and/or behaviors. This allows focused exploration and refining to enhance instruction. We also love using bookmarking to celebrate good things that are happening!” 

-Jonathan Seabourn, First Baptist Academy, @fbaicampus

Bookmarking is for Everyone

Bookmarking while recording using Secondary Markers (for students or a coach in class) allows students to contribute to their own learning and aids the teacher in identifying where students are thriving or struggling. For coaches, bookmarking using the Secondary Markers is a low-effort, high-impact way to deliver feedback during the lesson.

Bookmarking is a form of feedback, so don’t forget to edit your Bookmarks into actual comments when you are ready to expound upon your moments of reflection. Use Prompts to get ideas on how to start your dialogue or develop your own Comments from scratch. Don’t forget to apply Rubrics to your Comments for even more meaningful dialogue based on your organization’s coaching methodologies.

Update for Teams Owners & Administrators

In addition to our enhanced Bookmarking, you will also notice some big changes in the Team Admin Space. Responding to feedback that it is not always clear whether you are working in the user-facing or Admin-facing side of your account, we made improvements to aid your distinction. 

The post Reflection Can Be Powerful with Teams appeared first on Swivl.

But what about student coaches?

Of course, these are teachers.

Teachers encourage students, motivate them, and help them build skills in one-to-one settings. 

Through all of these acts, teachers are coaching students because they are teaching through relationships.

If teachers are coaching students, but not calling it coaching, why focus on the term? 

Why we need to identify and name the act of coaching students

Putting a specific term on any practice has a few important functions. 

Naming something brings attention to it. We can discuss coaching students easily when we have a name for it. A name makes it easier to measure and improve coaching students, too. We can also ensure teachers have strategies and tools needed to maximize the impact of their coaching moments. 

It’s important to note that coaching is a specific act with a student, not a broad term to describe any interaction. 

It’s not every passing conversation teachers have with kids. It’s not when the teacher is addressing the whole class through a lecture or questioning. It’s not when the teacher is grading a student’s work.

At the same time, coaching can happen in a variety of places and contexts. 

For example, as a high school English teacher, I had some of my most impactful short conversations with students when talking to them outside the classroom right before class began. 

In these moments, I was teaching students through building relationships with them. Those were coaching conversations.

What does student coaching look like?

In most cases, a coaching conversation involves teachers interacting with one student or a small group, likely sitting down, making deliberate time for that individual or group’s needs, and asking lots of questions.

The goal of this is to move beyond helping a student improve a skill. It’s more than ensuring students understand any specific information. Those outcomes might come out of a coaching conversation, too, but they’re not the focus. 

The purpose of coaching conversations with students is to dig into a student’s mindset and the stories behind its development. 

Teachers have all had students who “get in their own way.” This term applies to students who appear to have the skills needed to succeed, but demonstrate behaviors or patterns of thought that prohibit them from doing their best. 

However, when a student is academically successful according to their test scores, grades and GPA, they can also benefit from coaching, and shouldn’t be overlooked in this discussion. Sadly, some of those severe mental health crises I observed while teaching were from high-performing students under tremendous pressure from their family, peers and themselves. 

In short, every student has a story of struggle. Coaching can help everyone.

When a teacher makes time for coaching conversations with students, it’s a chance to dig into this mindset, uncover barriers to learning, and help students conquer mindset issues that may be holding them back from doing their best work. 

Of course, these results usually don’t happen through one interaction. 

As a teacher, I was often “playing the long game” with certain students, understanding that it would take weeks or months to establish a relationship with a student, develop their trust, and show them I was there for them. Only then could I begin to encourage and push them towards doing their best work. 

This required prioritizing relationship building and conversations over other activities over the long term. At times, I might’ve been more lax about these students’ work habits at the moment, knowing that pushing them in this way wouldn’t be helpful. It was the process of teaching through relationships.

My story of discovering the power of coaching students

I once taught a student, who I’ll call Phillip. 

He talked more than anyone in class. However, most of his comments were quick, random thoughts, vaguely inspired by the topic of the day. Occasionally, he’d share a beaming insight that soared over the heads of the other freshmen students.

From this, I knew Phillip had great verbal skills. However, when it came to writing, he was lost. His thoughts were too rapid, and he couldn’t keep up while typing or writing. So he felt blocked.

At first, this frustrated me. 

I redirected him. I conferred with him 1:1 during class. He would say, “yes, OK, sounds good Mr. Dawson” and then go back to rocking in his chair or talking to students near him. I moved his seat. I lost my patience and appealed to his “grade” or “losing points.”

All the while, though, I talked to Phillip about his interests. I knew he liked music. He liked Magic: The Gathering cards. He was a social person and enjoyed asking me questions about myself and checking to see if I knew other teachers in the school that he liked talking to. 

Eventually, I asked Phillip to stay after school, so we could work on his backlog of missing assignments. Despite my frustrations with his writing, he knew I wanted to help him. 

When we met, I talked to him about one of our writing topics. It was an essay about his love of music and his experience learning the bass guitar. I asked him questions and realized he had great information to share. A perfect personal narrative. 

Then, I turned on my iPhone Voice Memo app, and hit record. I repeated my questions. He repeated his answers. I played back the recording and said, “what if you don’t focus on coming up with ideas and writing at the same time? What if you just focus on writing down what you already said?”

The results weren’t miraculous, but it worked.

As a quick aside, this shift from writing to audio has been a valuable tool throughout my teaching career. School is often focused on writing as the primary means of capturing thinking, but audio is a convenient and accessible method for both students and teachers to use. 

He still struggled with focusing. However, he popped on his headphones and started chipping away at the recording, writing down ideas he heard and wanted to keep. He finished the assignment and turned it in. 

He successfully passed English. This was his second attempt, so it was a big deal.

The spectrum of skill development vs. emotional development

After I made time to build a relationship with Phillip, there were a few results. 

First, he used this recording tactic to do other writing assignments. Second, most of his future writing assignments in class went more smoothly for him.

He built his writing skills. But more importantly, he realized he could write.

It was only through prioritizing conversations with Phillip and exploring his interests, that we discovered this idea to help him break through his struggles. 

While coaching students will often lead to building content knowledge and skills, the biggest impact comes from emotional development. 

When teachers coach students, and help them improve their mindset, they help them with the ultimate transferable skill, useful across classrooms and situations outside of school. 

That is the power of coaching students. The power of teaching through relationships.

The post What Swivl means by ‘student coaching’ appeared first on Swivl.

There have been incredible challenges over the last twelve months but also opportunities to innovate and disrupt traditional ways of teaching. When the pandemic forced school closures in March, over 20,000 educators turned to the Modern Classrooms Project’s blended, self-paced, mastery-based instructional model. 

While there are still challenges that lie ahead, the Modern Classrooms Project can support educators and students as they return to in-person learning and begin to address the social-emotional and academic impacts of COVID-19. Educators can also effectively differentiate instruction and deepen student learning by using technology tools like Swivl coupled with the Modern Classrooms Project instructional model.

Learning levels have widened

There have always been a broad diversity of learning levels within a classroom but the pandemic has only made these gaps more extreme. While some students thrived in the remote and hybrid learning setting, many have suffered academically, socially, and emotionally. A recent analysis of student learning loss due to the pandemic found that students learned only 67 percent of the math and 87 percent of the reading that grade-level peers would typically have learned by the fall. The learning loss was especially severe for students of color, where scores were 59 percent of the historical average in math and 77 percent in reading.

Students’ varying academic levels will need an instructional model that meets them where they are.The Modern Classroom instructional model replaces a one-size-fits-all approach with differentiated instruction and flexible structures that meet the unique needs of each and every student. Students are no longer pushed ahead to a new lesson each day. They can take the time they need to truly master new content and only progress when they are ready. 

Centering student relationships

Children and adolescents have not been spared the unique stresses of the last year. Some students may have lost a loved one or experienced economic hardship due to a parent losing their job. Some may have become more aware of systemic racism, climate change, and other societal issues like food insecurity and healthcare availability. It is critical that schools are responsive to the unique experiences, attitudes, and feelings students will bring back to the classroom. While this is a global problem, there are things that any individual teacher can do to start addressing these needs. When in-person learning resumes, we know there will be a temptation to be singularly focused on academic content to make up for learning loss. While it’s important to build students’ academic skills, it will be equally as important to focus on students’ social and emotional well-being and foster positive relationships with them.

The Modern Classroom instructional model allows educators to spend less time delivering whole group instruction and more time working closely with students. By leveraging blended instruction through teacher-created videos, teachers can use valuable class time for supervising small group work, checking in with students one-on-one, and providing meaningful and personalized support. This small group and one-on-one time helps foster healthy, trusting relationships with students. Relational teaching takes work and time, but it is the key to building supportive school communities for our students. 

Disruptions will continue

Modern Classroom educators report that our model provides them with flexibility to more easily transition between in-person, hybrid, and remote learning environments and assist  students who miss class. According to a 2016 Department of Education report, 21% of high school students miss more than fifteen days of school per year. This number could be even higher next year. Students may miss school for a variety of reasons outside of their control and should have opportunities to access content and pick up where they left off. In Modern Classrooms, students can access content at any time and from any place via teacher-created instructional videos. 

Blended, self-paced, mastery-based classrooms put students in the driver’s seat of their own learning.  Students don’t have to wait for whole-class direct instruction to access new content: they can easily hit play and watch a short instructional video created by their teacher. After watching this instructional video, students can proceed to their assignments and apply what they have learned. Students control the pace of their learning as they move from lesson to lesson. When students are in control of their learning, they naturally take more responsibility for their learning. This learner independence is a 21st century skill that will benefit students long after their school days are over.

Leveraging technology

Modern Classroom educators were at an advantage when the pandemic struck because they were comfortable leveraging technology to facilitate learning. But for many teachers, technology was not as commonplace in their classrooms and they had to quickly learn how to use new platforms, apps, and technology tools. Now that educators have these new technology skills, they can’t let them go to waste. Educators can harness their use of technology and serve their students even better than before. 

As students across the country adapted to remote and hybrid learning, they, too, became more familiar with education technology and its various uses. For Modern Classroom students, the transition to remote and hybrid learning was made easier by their expertise using technology to access instruction. A study by John Hopkins University found 66% of students in a Modern Classroom report that they learn how to use technology in class compared to only 47% of students in a traditional classroom, and that 100% of Modern Classroom educators felt they used technology effectively. In the last year, districts have invested more heavily in technology devices and infrastructure and it will be important that their instructional models support the effective and efficient use of this new technology.

Preventing burnout 

Teaching is challenging even in the best of circumstances, and  the pandemic has made it substantially harder and put immense pressure on educators. An alarming poll from the National Education Association found that nearly one in three teachers are more likely to resign or retire early due to COVID. At a time when educator’s stress levels are soaring, it’s critically important that they feel supported. 

Modern Classroom educators report that our model makes teaching more sustainable. They are able to focus less on delivering content in real-time and focus more on connecting with students one-on-one and creating learning environments where students flourish personally and academically.

Join the conversation with Swivl and the Modern Classrooms Project

Want to engage in more discussions about this topic and hear first-hand perspectives from Modern Classroom educators? Join us on April 15 at 5:30 p.m. ET and hear from Modern Classroom educator Moira Mazzi on how the blended, self-paced, mastery-based model has helped her overcome the challenges of remote teaching and will ease her and her students’ transition back to in-person learning. 

You can get started learning the Modern Classroom instructional model and bring new teaching strategies to our own classroom by enrolling in their Free Online Course at learn.modernclassrooms.org.

The post Making the Transition Back to School appeared first on Swivl.

The source is Twitter user @AnnieK1221, responding to teacher-influencer @NicholasFerroni. 

The full comment:

“This year has cemented for me how much I love teaching but how much I hate being a teacher. I can’t picture going back next year and giving it my all after the way we have all been treated. I don’t know what my future holds.”

She’s certainly not alone.

As the numbers show, the pandemic has led many teachers to leave the classroom, and many more may follow. At first glance, it may look like this crisis was borne out of the pandemic. 

Truthfully, the root cause and potential solutions to the teacher retention crisis lie outside of the events of the past year.

The data tells a story, and it’s a scary one

Recent studies show the pandemic has educators reconsidering their careers. What specifically about the pandemic is pushing them out?

Horace Mann Educators Corporation reports:

1. A quarter of teachers surveyed are considering leaving or retiring
2. Over half do not feel secure in their districts’ safety precautions
3. 60% do not enjoy the job as much as they used too

A more recent Edweek piece revealed that the number of New York educators who left their jobs by August of 2020 was up by 75 percent over 2019. In this group, 43% cited COVID-19 as their main reason for leaving.

There are also factors in some states that may have skewed retention numbers during the year.

For example, Texas teachers face a penalty, including a teaching license suspension, if they resign late summer or mid-school year. These penalties may keep teachers around until year’s end, when there could be more retirements and resignations.

Though teachers may cite the pandemic for leaving, factors leading to a retention crisis were revealed by the pandemic more than caused by it.

Another trend sped up by the pandemic

Unfortunately, conditions were already in place to drive teachers out of the profession. 

Educators have already faced excessive demands on their time and too little support as they entered the job. Professional development initiatives too often ignored coaching and relationships in favor of an impersonal one-to-many model.

While these issues were stressful to teachers, the rewards likely balanced out the costs.

Then, the pandemic forced everyone into a no-win situation.

Superintendents had to follow state policies about shutting down schools. Building administrators had to follow district policies about remote and hybrid schedules. Teachers had to follow building policies about student participation, attendance and other daily aspects of the job.

These often well-intentioned decisions made the difficult job of teaching feel impossible.

The best parts of teaching, like building relationships and teaching dynamic lessons in class, were removed or obscured. The hard parts of the job got even worse. With this mix, teachers may be compelled to quit.

The pandemic has revealed how you can “love teaching” but “hate being a teacher.”

As of now, professional development in many schools leads to diminished levels of autonomy, mastery, and purpose, all essential for employee motivation. A report from the Economic Policy institute showed that only 11 percent of teachers had a significant say on their professional development, about 25 percent take college classes related to teaching, and less than a third found their professional learning “very useful.”

As teachers return to the classroom after the most draining year of their careers, these supports will not make teachers more likely to stay.

Can a new way of coaching be the answer?

If the pandemic ignited the kindling of a teacher retention crisis, then a new focus on relationships and coaching may just help extinguish the flames.

Instead of an impersonal top-down approach, leaders must prioritize relationships and embrace a solid coaching philosophy that supports that. 

What if it could start with a commitment to a better culture? One that helps teachers and students feel supported and empowered in facing their challenges. When all levels within a school are encouraged to participate in coaching, relationships flourish and educators know they are valued and heard. 

To embrace this culture, it could be defined in three stages that build upon one another:

• Set a cultural foundation: Set a trusting foundation of stronger relationships between students and teachers, as well as teachers and administrators, through regular, unstructured conversations that propel ideas and new ways of learning forward.
• Make connecting regularly a priority: Get the whole school to regularly make connections with intention through ongoing meaningful discussion that strengthens relationships, builds esteem and provides opportunities for reflection and growth.  
• Overcome challenges to succeed: Encourage teachers to coach each other on the complex challenges they are facing. Help them optimize through observation, whether in-class or online so they can reach their full potential.

This would enable teachers to have a say in their professional learning. They capitalize on skills and improve areas of weakness. They find meaning through supporting their colleagues and students.

The pandemic has made many teachers and students feel more alone than ever.

Relationships have been greatly strained by masks and screens. Crowded, humming hallways went silent.

If disconnection got us here, we think a commitment to relational coaching can help us overcome it.

The post I Love Teaching But Hate Being a Teacher appeared first on Swivl.

The solution, as it turns out, was within Rob and Kareem all along. Using their teaching expertise and an innovative mindset, Rob and Kareem began incorporating short instructional videos into their teaching to enhance student learning. With time and lots of refinement, they built an instructional model grounded in blended, self-paced, mastery-based learning. Within a few weeks of implementing this new model, Kareem and Rob could see a difference in their classrooms and within themselves—student engagement levels and confidence grew while teaching felt more sustainable and rewarding. There was no going back to the traditional ways of teaching!

 They built an instructional model grounded in blended, self-paced, mastery-based learning.

Kareem and Rob had found success transforming their classrooms and wanted to share their model with teachers everywhere. They knew there were teachers around the world, just like them, who were frustrated with traditional teaching methods and ready for a new approach. So in 2018 they created the Modern Classrooms Project, a nonprofit organization that supports teachers in reimagining their classrooms to meet the needs of all learners. Today, over two million people have watched their Edutopia video and Modern Classrooms Project is a growing movement of 20,000+ educators transforming education across the world. 

Let’s take a closer look and break down the three core components of the model.

Blended instruction

One of the first steps to create a Modern Classroom is to eliminate lectures and replace them with teacher-created instructional videos. These instructional videos explain new concepts or skills to students in an engaging and focused way. Students no longer have to wait for their teacher’s lecture to access new content and they have unlimited access to these instructional videos and accompanying resources. 

There is a common misconception that blended instruction is just ‘teaching behind a screen’. In reality, blended instruction frees up teachers’ class time to work with students individually or in small groups. A Swivl in this classroom wouldn’t show a frustrated teacher at the whiteboard. Instead, it would show a teacher working closely with individual students, and having fun while doing so.

Self-paced learning

With blended instruction, students are now able to control the pace of their learning. Teachers no longer have to move to a new lecture or lesson every day and students can take longer with material they are struggling with, skip topics they already know, or repeat topics they want to reinforce. Similarly, if a student misses class they can easily catch up since they have access to the instructional video and aren’t held to a fixed-pace of learning. They can pick up where they left off and only progress when they are ready. When students are in the driver’s seat of their learning, they become more self-directed and autonomous, preparing them for future success in the real world.

Mastery-based grading

here are myriad ways to grade or assess students but if they don’t truly measure student understanding, these are mere numbers in a gradebook. Numbers that don’t communicate growth or progress. Numbers that aren’t used as the important data points that grades can be. That’s where mastery-based grading comes in. We compare mastery based-grading to building blocks. To build a tower, you first need a base and then one by one you can add blocks to get to the top. The same is true for student learning, a student should only progress to skill two after they have mastered skill one. They must build those foundational skills before moving to advanced content. 

When students achieve true mastery, their confidence grows and they feel more capable.

So what does mastery-based grading look like in practice? In Modern Classrooms, teachers create bite-size, end-of-lesson assessments that efficiently and effectively measure student understanding. These can look like a mini quiz, a sorting activity, or verbal assessments that allow the teacher to evaluate whether a student truly understands a new skill or concept. Revision and reassessment are key to mastery-based grading. If a student is struggling with an assessment, they receive feedback and the opportunity to revise. When students achieve true mastery, their confidence grows and they feel more capable.

A Model for all Learning Environments

While the Modern Classrooms instructional model was not solely designed for remote or hybrid learning, the blended, self-paced, mastery-based model is adaptable to all learning environments. When COVID-19 forced school closures in March, Modern Classroom educators had the advantage of already knowing how to integrate instructional videos and self-pacing into their classrooms. Modern Classroom educator Monte Woodard reported “this model has given me tools and confidence to execute a framework that allows students to be successful inside and outside of the classroom.”

When students are in the driver’s seat of their learning, they become more self-directed and autonomous, preparing them for future success in the real world.

In a hybrid schedule, blended instruction is a great way to deliver lessons to all students regardless of their learning environment and maintain instructional progress. Students can watch instructional videos from home and can directly apply what they learned when they return to the physical classroom. In-person class time can be reserved for group discussions, collaborative group work, and connecting with students one-on-one. Blended instruction frees educators of lecture, allowing them to utilize the limited and precious in-person class time for relationship building and personalized student support. 

Self-pacing becomes even more important as students transition between in-person and online learning. Some students may excel with online learning, while others struggle and become disengaged or overwhelmed. It’s important that educators have a pulse on their students and can track each student’s progress individually. If they see one student struggling with a lesson, they can provide additional support and prevent extreme learning gaps. Our teachers have long found both student-facing and public pacing trackers to be powerful tools for clarity and motivation in a self-paced learning environment.

Since students can access their teacher through short objective-driven videos and move through a unit of study at their own unique pace, teachers can give students the targeted, personalized feedback–in-person or virtually– that’s necessary for a mastery-based learning environment. Revision is truly possible because the blended, self-paced nature means that students can review materials, get help from a classmate, or receive one-on-one support from their teacher. When the student is prepared, they can revise their work to demonstrate mastery, which builds a firm foundation upon which future skills and content can build. 

Transforming a classroom with this instructional model won’t happen overnight. It takes time, practice, and continual tinkering!  But just as Rob and Kareem started with a few short instructional videos, there are simple steps you can take to move towards blended, self-paced, mastery-based learning.  Visit learn.modernclassrooms.org to learn more.

In the second blog in this series we’ll look at how the Modern Classrooms Project model provides a path forward for educators as they transition out of hybrid learning. 

Want to know how Swivl can support blended, self-paced, mastery-based learning in and out of the classroom? Check out our Classroom Observation page for more information.

Modern Classrooms Project

The Modern Classrooms Project empowers educators to meet every student’s needs through blended, self-paced, mastery-based instruction. They support over 20,000 educators worldwide through their free online course, virtual mentoring programs, and school and district partnerships. Their research-backed instructional model leverages technology and real-time data to improve teacher effectiveness and student understanding. 

The post An Instructional Model That Supports Students, Both Inside and Outside the Classroom appeared first on Swivl.

Teachers should be empowered to face the challenges they experience in their own classrooms. As a fourth grade teacher, I met with my instructional coach just once per quarter. It was frequent enough for administration to check the box indicating that I got coaching, but remained mostly an empty exercise. It was not uncommon for me to have a question or a challenge I was stuck on, but not get any feedback or real help until I had moved on or struggled through it myself. It’s obvious now that I already knew my weaknesses; I didn’t need a coach to always point them out. What I did need was access to tools that would make it easier for me to show my coach exactly what I was questioning in my teaching. 

The barriers of time and lack of coaching resources cause teachers to push their questions aside every day and work around them, which does not lead to elevated performance. With video coaching, simple editing and playback tools make it easier for teachers to maintain ownership of their problems and goals, and make it easier for coaches to do their jobs. 

Traditional video coaching vs targeting challenges

Traditional video coaching is based on reviewing video from an entire lesson and the only way to support the time required for this format is to reduce the frequency you meet with coaches. But in between the occasional coaching sessions, teachers are waiting to receive feedback, are not being supported or growing in their practice, and ultimately miss out on improving student outcomes in the classroom. Instead, what if the goal were to empower teachers to pinpoint their challenges and ask for what they need? 

If a teacher could record their lesson in the morning and share it with their coach by lunchtime, they could realistically receive feedback as soon as the next day. The shorter and more engaging the video shared, the more opportunity there is for teachers to use meaningful and relevant feedback to make real-time changes. 

Though great general purpose tools, commonly-used video editing programs could not have helped me quickly reach the result of short and shareable recorded lessons.

However, the editing tools available within the Swivl Teams platform are specific for teachers and provide a seamless way to integrate coaching sessions into busy school days. 

How it works with Swivl

When a teacher records and uploads a lesson to their Swivl account, they can choose specific video editing tools – Trim and Cut. Together, these allow you to easily remove unneeded parts from the beginning and ends of the video while also removing sections from the middle that aren’t relevant. Now, the video is more engaging since it’s focused on only the most important segments. And more importantly, the teacher has chosen what they want to work on for this session.

Now, some coaches prefer to keep the whole video intact for reference – and that’s okay. Swivl has built-in playback tools that have a similar effect as editing. In this case, I recommend using bookmarks and time-stamped comments to highlight specific moments of recorded lessons. If I shared a recording of a lesson that was thirty minutes long, for example, it would be extremely useful for me to be able to bookmark exactly which points of the lesson I felt needed work or indicated a challenge I have. My coach would simply be able to revisit parts of the lesson that I indicated, while maintaining the integrity of the whole video.

Communication builds trust

Had I had access to this kind of collaboration with my instructional coach when I was teaching, I would have felt more supported and confident in my teaching practice. Communicating with a coach through bookmarks and time-stamped comments would provide for faster feedback, and therefore a more supportive professional learning environment.

There still exists the common mentality of “checking a box” to complete an observation or coaching session, and Swivl is working to make this a thing of the past. Ultimately, great coaching is built on relationships, and transactional approaches will not produce effective teachers. 

A journalist’s writing goes through multiple revisions before it is published, a football coach meets to watch film with his players after every practice, and the conductor of a symphony orchestra makes adjustments to the music’s tempo in real time. Without thoughtful feedback, and ownership of their challenges, the journalist’s writing becomes outdated, the football team will not be prepared for success, and the conductor is unable to create a unified work of art. So why shouldn’t teachers also be given time and agency? 

Trust that if all educators are given the tools to form stronger relationships, teachers will have the courage to admit their struggles, and feel confident in their ability to excel.

The post Developing Teacher Agency Through Edited Video appeared first on Swivl.

Fairmont School leaders knew their teachers would be feeling the strain of this situation as they split up the student body into two groups, in-person and at-home, for hybrid learning. Classes were happening synchronously, on a regular school schedule, with teachers instructing both groups at once through interactive instruction.

After exploring a few options for engaging students at home and in-person, Fairmont leaders realized that most options would limit teacher mobility.

When teaching in person, teachers need the freedom to move around the room instead of sitting in front of a computer to address students in the classroom and at home.

Teachers are up and moving instead of “teaching at little squares”

Thanks to the school’s robust hardware set-up based on a daily use of Swivl, teachers are empowered to do more of what they love, even during this time of increased stress and responsibilities.

“No one got into teaching so they could teach at little squares on a screen for eight hours a day,” Fairmont Schools Director DJ Clovis said.

The teachers who have had the most success have committed to using Swivl every day as a way to “get their teacher legs back” as DJ described it.

Parents of Fairmont students who are engaged in remote learning this fall have shared positive feedback with DJ about the school’s use of Swivl to make class interactive for students in the classroom and at home.

“The parents say that the kids at home really feel like they’re part of the class for the whole school day,” DJ said. “They’re getting more of a real classroom experience.”

Importantly, DJ explained that by using Swivl to give students at home a portal into the in-person classroom, it encourages everyone in the Fairmont community to honestly address their health needs.

Because they know they can experience a live interactive class from home, students who don’t feel well can stay home without fear of missing something important. The same goes for teachers, who can broadcast classes from home, too.

DJ believes teachers are essential workers, and he is inspired by the way that Fairmont’s current Swivl set-ups empower them to meet their goal of giving all kids the best access to education that they possibly can.

“We respect our teachers so much, and they’re the real heroes for us,” DJ said.

Entire school community takes ownership of the system

Fairmont uses a solution in over 100 classrooms based on the use of Swivl robots and markers, an iPad, desktop computer, television and projector.

DJ notes that students have quickly adapted to their new environment, and teachers have empowered students to take part in running their hybrid classrooms.

DJ recalled a story of one teacher who was recently absent. Throughout the year, she had marked and labeled all of the devices and had walked students through the routine of setting up for the day. With a teaching assistant, students set-up all of the audio/video needed for the class to continue in-person and for remote learning students, even with a substitute present.

“This is a teacher who invested in our system, and because of that, she has the kids invested in the system, too,” DJ said.

Not only does Swivl free up Fairmont teachers to engage students in a hybrid classroom in a way that feels natural to them, but it also affords them the opportunity to increase student agency and leadership at the same time.

Explore hybrid learning resources.

The post How Fairmont’s Swivl Setup Gives Teachers and Students More Freedom in Hybrid Classrooms appeared first on Swivl.

Even with this promising news, it doesn’t seem like the time to get ahead of ourselves. It is a relief to feel hopeful, but there is still work to do, and it will be some time before we are really considered safe. Schools will likely continue to be impacted by the pandemic at least through the fall of 2021, and with that, we believe this means hybrid is likely in your school’s path to safety.

In an attempt to make sense of everything, we have pored over information as it has become available, and now we can make educated guesses about the way schools might operate for the next year. Here is our best guess as to what 2021 could look like, and the factors that could affect it.

Safety timelines as we know them

Right now, in mid-December, infections are higher in many cities than they have been at any other point during the pandemic. These numbers will continue to surge variably through January and maybe into February, with the only hope for control being to follow what are now standard safety precautions: wear a mask, stay home when you can, etc.

The most optimistic timeline for vaccinations reaching the entire population is around June. Even with the new promise to vaccinate up to 40 million Americans by the end of the year, there are 111 million health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, essential workers who are first in line, in that order. By the latest projections, those numbers alone take us into the beginning of March. Then come adults with high-risk conditions (100 million), and those 65 and over (50 million). Only after all of this, in April, will the inoculation of the general population will begin.

In theory, between March and June everyone will have access. But the logistics of vaccine distribution will be long and uneven, and there is no guarantee of the vaccine’s effectiveness over time. According to NPR, “Studies of the new vaccines only measured whether vaccinated people developed symptoms, not whether they got infected.” If precautions are let down even more as people adopt a feeling of safety, it will prolong the risk. 

In the latest report from CNN, Dr. Susan Bailey, the President of the American Medical Association, admits that “the biggest obstacle to the vaccine is people’s willingness to be vaccinated.” It is projected that 60-80% of the population would need to be vaccinated in order to “control” the virus. Even today, a new study reveals that a quarter of Americans claim they will not get a shot. With this many people still refusing compliance, we risk the possibility of localized outbreaks that will last well beyond June of 2021.

The result is that it doesn’t seem realistic to expect an “end” to the pandemic by the summer. Increasingly, experts are guiding us to think in this direction. Bill Gates told CNN on Dec 13, “Even through 2022, we should be prepared for life not to return to normal.” If our lives will remain unpredictable for another year or more, then schools will have to reflect that.

What does this mean for schools?

Because of how localized decision-making is, it has remained difficult to make blanket statements about what schools should do. The way we imagine school response is in phases over time, knowing that there will be geographic variability. The first phase of this looks much the same as it is now — with the need for rolling school closures and movement to fully online models as surges occur. This could also include the ability to reopen circumstantially and operate as you did at the beginning of fall 2020, knowing it could switch back again with another surge. Thus, we should not expect much to change for at least a few months.

Beginning around March we should begin to see some stability and predictability. You can think of this as the second phase. The surges in infections that defined fall and winter will become less common, and so will the need for unexpected closures. This will allow more schools to start relying on in-person classes, combined with either a remote class per grade level or a hybrid classroom model. So, the same strategies that have been developed so far apply, but there will be less disruption to the operation of schools.

By August, we expect the number of students that need to consider remote will be declining steadily, if not exponentially, until early 2022. But this will still be a significant number through the end of 2021 at least. Parent choice will be a major variable here, because even those who have been vaccinated may still opt out of school. So, real safety concerns will persist, still requiring careful consideration for school operations.

Then, by the spring of 2022, you will no longer need to be making special plans for classes; the time will come to focus on how to recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

What does this mean for classrooms? 

At some point next fall, it will likely become unrealistic for most schools to offer a remote class per grade level – it will get harder and harder to maintain separate modes of instruction. 

With the average class size of 24 and grade size of 137, each grade will likely have 10-15 students at home – too small to organize a whole class around. This means most schools will need to operate without a dedicated remote class, and deal with a few students absent in each. Once the percentage of students at home is down to around 10%, it seems likely that a hybrid model becomes the only viable option. 

Relying on asynchronous learning solely for those remote students is not enough. It’s apparent now that a connection is needed to promote accountability and initiative. Live streaming, with limitations, should be used in conjunction with asynchronous work. Zoom fatigue is a real problem, and not just for students.

It is true that there is no replacement for being with students in person, but hybrid classroom models have helped us accomplish what we thought was impossible this year, and it has worked where people have committed to it.

For example, the teachers at Fairmont Schools in Southern California are using a setup powered by Swivl to give students an experience that better mimics a traditional classroom, keeping kids connected to their teachers and classmates – even from home. You can read all about their classroom structure and the significant impact it has made here.

We believe planning to leverage hybrid classrooms both this spring and next fall is likely to be the most flexible and reliable way to satisfy safety concerns, as well as make learning more accessible.

If you do choose to build your hybrid classroom solutions with Swivl, it’s an investment that has dual value. At our core, we are a coaching business. There is no question that Swivl would be a powerful addition to any classroom facing the unknown over the next year; but our solutions can also be used to support coaching in your school after the pandemic. And we think that coaching at every level is going to be necessary to recover from the worst impacts of this crisis – for students and teachers. In the long term, school districts will have to address how this trauma has impacted learning. Our confidence is that radically more human connection and individual attention is required to rebuild what was lost, and prepare educators to change and grow.

The point of our thought process is to remember that even in the best case, there will be no quick fix. There is no way to know for sure how the end of the pandemic will play out, but it is looking more and more like our capacity to adapt will continue to be tested a bit longer. 

For classrooms, it means that students are going to need the best that you can give them, which means hybrid learning is likely in your school’s path to safety.

The post Why Hybrid is Likely in Your School’s Path to Safety appeared first on Swivl.