We’ve all had that colleague that we’ve gained so much learning from while teaching beside them. I wanted to scale that. I’m setting up Reflectivity so that every teacher has constant access to valuable professional growth.

Karen Fox | Crow Creek Tribal School

USE CASE

Increase district-wide communication and provide constant access to professional development

Karen Fox

Instructional Coach

School/District:

Crow Creek Tribal School

Grade Level

Multiple grades across 21 teachers

Karen Fox, an instructional coach for Crow Creek Tribal School District, in SD, is nearing retirement. She is adamant about ensuring the professional growth of her 21 teachers won’t be diminished with her departure — and with Reflectivity it won’t.

Reflectivity by Swivl has been Karen’s go-to solution for empowering educators she works with. Reflectivity supports self-reflection and peer learning that hinges on written resources, video observation, and a community platform to leverage both. “I’m not going to be here forever but I still want them to utilize this tool that I know will enable them to learn from one another.”

In her previous experience as a superintendent, Karen understands the value of creating a safe, judgment-free environment for teachers to observe and critique themselves. Reflectivity is where they can receive feedback and learn from each other’s strengths. As she puts it, “Despite how people typically feel when they watch themselves for the first couple of times, I know they’ll learn so much from getting into the habit.”

A universal bridge for the faculty 

Crow Creek Tribal School is located on tribal lands and unfortunately, the leadership turnover has been high. The impact of onboarding a new administration affects the entire institution and can slow professional development to a complete halt. Reflectivity bridges the gaps between administrative fluctuation by providing actionable insights generated by teachers for teachers. The end result is streamlined teacher support and more time to work with students. 

When turnover occurs, “we end up focusing a lot of attention on the adults that could be spent supporting the students,” Karen notes. Reflectivity creates more stability for her district. It provides continual and much-needed support on the administrative and teacher level. It is a resource for coaching, conversation, and goal achievement. Constant access to these resources reduces lost growth opportunities between in-person teacher coaching sessions while improving overall communication across the district. Reflectivity is an immediate method of assimilating knowledge for application inside the classroom.  

Fostering a dynamic, risk-taking environment is the key to reaping greater rewards at the district level. “We expect kids to take risks every day for us. But why are we not taking risks in our own practice to help them to grow?” Karen challenges. Reflectivity creates that safe space for vulnerability and experimentation, enabling teachers to continuously learn, adapt, and transform student outcomes.

Creating your Reflectivity plan

Want to see what Reflectivity can do for your institution’s Instructional Coaching? Schedule a consultation with the Swivl team to learn more.

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Swivl’s commitment to supporting our initiatives has opened up incredible possibilities for studying and strengthening math instruction across America’s rural schools.

Dr. Cynthia Carson | University of Rochester

USE CASE

Long-term data collection in higher education research

Dr. Cynthia Carson

Academic Program Coordinator

School/District:

University of Rochester

For math teachers in rural districts across the country, high-quality professional development opportunities can be few and far between. With limited resources and colleagues nearby, these educators often lack access to robust training programs focused on enhancing math instruction and improving student outcomes. Dr. Cynthia Carson, an education researcher at the University of Rochester, and her colleagues from the University of Idaho, recognized this challenge. As a project director, she and her team have made online instructional coaching central to their research work — Project SyncOn (Synchronous Online Video-Based Development for Rural Mathematics Coaches). Throughout this research and as Dr. Carson’s team expanded their projects, Swivl has played a prominent role.

Over the past eight years, the University of Rochester has secured two major 4-year grants from the National Science Foundation to design, implement, and study a fully online professional development learning program. “We wanted a model that could connect teachers from rural districts nationwide and provide them with top-notch training opportunities right from their classrooms,” explains Dr. Carson. “The key was finding the right video technology to capture high-quality footage and audio of instruction while enabling easy sharing and collaboration.” 

Dr. Carson and her team decided to partner with Swivl for the software and hardware solutions that could power their initiative. Using Swivl Robot’s tracking capabilities, teachers could effortlessly record their math lessons from anywhere, capturing crisp audio and wide angle views. These videos, automatically uploaded to Swivl’s secure cloud library Reflectivity, provided instant access for coaches and researchers. Prior to Swivl, Dr. Carson had teachers orchestrate recordings of their classes using traditional cameras, transfer video to flash drives, and mail those flash drives back to the university. Poor file compatibility, postal delays, and low video quality created hurdles for their program and threatened the effectiveness of their research.

“Swivl’s ease of use was a game-changer,” says Dr. Carson. “Teachers didn’t need extensive technical skills – they could just hit ‘record’ and knew the video would be high quality and readily available for their coaches to review. We needed something that was easy, because we didn’t want technology to be a barrier for us in terms of getting the data that we wanted.” 

Privacy matters

Swivl’s impact went beyond powerful recording capabilities. Its robust data privacy controls allowed Dr. Carson to tightly manage video access –  a crucial factor in gaining approval for her research from university ethical review boards. Dr. Carson even recalled meeting with Swivl co-founder Vlad Tetelbaum who worked closely with her team to ensure compliance and additional security criteria for her research. 

Throughout the years, Reflectivity has continued to support the evolving privacy requirements for this project. “To preserve the privacy of data, Reflectivity allowed me to create groups between a teacher and a coach. The only people that would have access to videos posted in these groups were the teacher, the coach, and the researcher who was approved to see the data.”

Robust research support

Swivl’s time-coded commenting feature drives coaching conversations. Instructional coaches are able to pause videos, leave contextual notes at precise moments, and engage teachers in guided discussions around specific teaching practices. “With Swivl’s technology, we could move our entire professional development cycle into the online space,” remarks Dr. Carson. “From discussing and modeling lesson plans to providing targeted feedback on implementation, everything became more seamless and impactful.”

With multiple cohorts spanning rural districts nationwide, Cynthia’s research has explored the immense value her video-based model has had improving math instruction in rural areas and building teacher capacity. And at the center of this transformative work is the power of Swivl’s technology, eradicating geographic barriers and facilitating cohesive data collection.

Supporting research with Swivl

Interested in learning how Swivl can support your research projects? Schedule a consultation with the Swivl team to learn more.

Disclaimer: The opinions, findings, and conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant Award 2006353. This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant Award 1620911. This work was supported by the University of Idaho.

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