Students leave Mirror feeling empowered by its feedback because they pushed themselves beyond their comfort zone.

Julie Witczak | Deerfield Public Schools District 109

USE CASE

SEL, self-expression, self-improvement, confidence, motivation

Julie Witczak

Communication Media Arts Teacher (CMA)

School/District:

Deerfield Public Schools District 109, IL

Grade Level 7-8

At the end of a project, my students often turn in journals with reflections about their experiences. I have a hard time grading them because I know how hard they worked on these projects, but the journal entries just don’t represent their efforts. I wasn’t seeing the evidence of the work I knew they were capable of. They also often forget to journal daily or update their entries. They take their final work day to write the entire reflection and numerous things are missing or forgotten, so I end up with a lot of simple answers to complex questions.  

When I introduced Mirror for verbal reflection, students finally took the initiative to talk to it and they didn’t have to be reminded – they were excited to do it! Students also had a lot more to say when speaking rather than writing and Mirror’s personalized feedback makes them each feel individually heard. If I had conducted 1:1 verbal conversations with each student instead of Mirror, my entire class time would be spent listening and I wouldn’t have time to analyze their responses thoroughly or offer fair and accurate feedback.

Instead, through Mirror’s dashboard, I’m able to understand and address students’ immediate problems through their reflection scores. After each reflection they also get immediate feedback directly from Mirror, which they accept more readily because they don’t feel judged. Their reflections are now more detailed, exciting, and structured and the students actually apply the feedback in future assignments.

I’ve been inviting students to use Mirror as an option for every project. I had 5 students per class take me up on it during our first project and participation has tripled since then! Offering choice for using Mirror means students experience more enjoyment over their mandatory journal entries which were often hastily written and painful for them to finish. And as opposed to journaling which doesn’t give the students immediate feedback, Mirror engages them daily and they thrive on its feedback.

Some of my students have even begun to open up more. I’ve gotten to know them better by listening to their thoughts and expressions. Students leave Mirror feeling empowered by its feedback because they pushed themselves beyond their comfort zone.

I have one student in particular who asks me for her reflection score daily. For her, the score is a measure of her daily improvement. When she reflects with Mirror, the next day, her goal is to raise that number. It’s great to see she cares about working on these skills. 

I’m excited to take time over the summer to plan out my next steps with Mirror. I have a class I’ve looped with for two years. They will be 8th graders next year and they meet just once a week for only 27 minutes. I want to start the year with a set of SEL-focused questions and by the end of the year, I expect to have a full dashboard of responses about their experiences from the past three years they have been together. Then I’ll share their reflections with the incoming 6th graders who will start this class with me for the next three years. My current kids can share their struggles, challenges, and growth, and my future kids can hear words of wisdom from kids who have just graduated. I’m excited about this possibility!

I also advise the GSA (Gender Sexuality Alliance) at the middle school. I’m certain that Mirror will offer them a safe space to reflect on their identity journeys and how sharing their experiences may positively impact future students who join the organization.

I am so excited to see where Mirror will help me take my students next year and beyond!

Swivl Mirror demo

Want to experience the transformational effects of reflection with your students? Sign up to try Mirror for free for 30-days. During the demo your school will have dedicated support – from unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with student reflections.

The post Helps students motivate themselves appeared first on Swivl.

Wendy Miller has spent nearly 30 teaching Special Education, so she knows a thing or two about differentiating support for her learners. Enter Wendy’s classroom and you’ll find a vast wonderland of multi-modal interactive tools to offer engagement and stimulation. She has robotics, lego systems, and sensory stations galore. What she didn’t have was a way for her students to reflect on their learning in a format that was comfortable for them and scalable for her. That is until she had them reflect with Mirror.

In the past, student reflection in Wendy’s classroom was something only possible to observe on the spot – during verbal, one-on-one conversations with each of her 12 students. However, this method had significant limitations, especially for her students with autism. These students’ interpersonal dialogue is often mired by their extreme anxiety or challenging articulation. While Wendy has built a strong rapport with each of her students with autism, it was almost impossible for her to immediately spot each student’s specific learning gaps.

A verbal reflection tool 

When Wendy was first introduced to Mirror by Swivl, she thought it could be a viable solution to alleviate pressure for her students to communicate, but she couldn’t imagine the impact it would have within her classroom.

Mirror has enabled her students with autism to be more open and expansive than ever before about what they’re learning.

“I hear much better language samples when they use Mirror than when we talk face-to-face, which has been so powerful. Even my students with the most challenging articulation, Mirror seemed to know what they were saying. I was so impressed because most people cannot even understand what the child is trying to say, and here’s a solution that not only understands what they’re saying, it is also helping me identify learning gaps.”

Time-saving insights 

Wendy’s students, on average, spend two minutes at Mirror reflecting on a lesson. Mirror’s AI then synthesizes the student’s response for understanding, mindset, and social-emotional wellness, saving Wendy up to 20 minutes per day, per student. These instantaneous insights are helping Wendy streamline time spent tracking longer-range goals so she can instead focus on sustaining the core relationships she has built with each student.

“I work with my students for three or four years before they move on so I really get to see how they can grow and change, but these reflections give me more specific data to address their IEP goals and define the next step in their communication and their interactions for their social-emotional learning goals as well.”

Elevating student feedback 

For Wendy, Mirror is the ultimate integration of social emotional learning, academics, and technology. Now she relies on Mirror to elicit higher quality reflections from her students and the data that Mirror extracts from each reflection reveals the hidden lessons they are really experiencing in her class. And for the first time, she has been able to provide her students with the kind of specific and individualized feedback that every learner – on the autism spectrum or not – deserves.

“Normally we just say ‘good job,’ and we move on but can’t go much deeper than that. With the data and feedback that Mirror’s dashboard provides, I can help them improve their grammar, use of adjectives, and level of detail in their responses. It’s been so powerful to really help each child improve their speech.”

Try Mirror, commitment-free, with your students

Interested in finding out what hidden lessons your students are experiencing in your class? You can sign up to demo Mirror for 30-days, free.

The post Mirror helps students with autism reflect for the first time appeared first on Swivl.

Mirror makes it easy to give individualized feedback to every student.

Marcy Curr | Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

USE CASE

Help students improve communication skills through reflection

Marcy Curr

Speech and Debate Teacher

School/District

Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

Grade Level High School

Reflection challenges in speech and debate

Idaho-based speech and debate teacher Marcy Curr has always valued reflection for herself and her students – who are 2024 Debate State Champions. However she faced a few obstacles when she asked her students to reflect on their speaking skills and debate performance.

Marcy began to observe a disconnect between the types of reflection she asked her students to complete and the nature of the course. “I’ve always struggled with asking my students to complete written reflections because this is a verbal communication course.” She tried giving students rubrics for self-assessment but felt they did not foster an authentic reflection experience. Time constraints also limited the amount of personalized feedback she could give students. “There’s not enough time in a day to give feedback to each of our students.”

Providing immediate feedback holds extra value in Marcy’s classes – she seeks to help students improve speech and communication skills that can be challenging to self-correct. “If I wait for the end of the speech to give feedback, they don’t remember what they did,” she explains. Overall, Marcy needed a more engaging and efficient tool for reflection and feedback.

A smooth experience leads to real progress

Marcy sees a direct connection between introducing Mirror as a reflection tool and seeing an improvement in her students’ communication skills. “With Mirror their next speech is better because they’ve taken time to reflect in between speeches on what they could improve on.”

With students reflecting and receiving feedback with Mirror during class, she now has more time to review speech recordings with individual students and provide coaching to them. “Mirror lightens the burden for teachers,” Marcy explains. 

Mirror’s reflection feedback and scoring system also acts as a new source of motivation for her students, pushing them to meta-reflect on their own reflections and seek areas of improvement. “They’re watching their reflections to see where it’s says, ‘next time to improve your reflection work on this.’” This process of self-analysis, sparked by a desire to see their scores rise, has led to a deeper engagement with their reflection process.

Part of why Marcy and her students have adopted Mirror so quickly is its ease of use. “The guided process was super easy,” Marcy explained, describing the reflection workflow. Getting started was also a breeze for her. “I loved Mirror’s unboxing process. It made me feel like I could order a Mirror for anyone in my department.”

Daily reflection and more feedback

Day to day, Marcy’s students use Mirror to reflect on their speech and debate skills, identify areas of improvement, and refine their work. “I make them watch and evaluate videos of their speeches,” Marcy explains.

Mirror allows her to shorten the time frame between when students learn or practice a skill, and when they reflect on it. During debate practice, students will deliver speeches, and then immediately go to their Mirror and reflect. “We did a reflection after every single one of their speeches,” Marcy notes about a recent practice session.

When written notes from a teacher might be impractical, Mirror has opened up new opportunities for reflection and feedback. “My students frequently have to get up and give a one minute introduction speech. I can’t type meaningful feedback in that time frame. Instead, I’m going to record them. Then, they’re going to use Mirror to reflect.”

Marcy has already planned expanded use cases for Mirror into her upcoming courses. “In my syllabus for next trimester, I’ve built in reflections a couple of times a week using Mirror.”

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 Elevating student speaking skills through reflection appeared first on Swivl.

At my school, we believe that self-reflection is imperative for engagement and engagement is the pathway to academic success.

Gabe Nemiroff | Albuquerque Talent Development Academy

USE CASE

To reflect after each class activity, ELL support

Gabe Nemiroff

Social Studies Teacher

School/District

Albuquerque Talent Development Academy

Grade Level 10 + 11

Gabe Nemiroff, a high school Social Studies teacher, is part of a charter school in New Mexico determined to center reflection within their curriculum. His students were already acclimated to reflection as a monthly requirement, even before being introduced to Swivl. For Gabe and his administrators, “Mirror was an obvious new tool on the market to promote that exact thing, to help us grow something that we already do, but have been doing primitively for a long time.”

His goal is to use Mirror to streamline existing processes, while creating an environment where students reflect more frequently, and with more candor.

How Gabe and his students use Mirror

As an educator and advisor, Gabe is responsible for reviewing monthly reflections from 20 students. Initially, it seemed that introducing Mirror would be a learning curve. “I was expecting a little hesitation at first but was surprised how little there was. I think the screen based verbal engagement hits them in a more comfortable place. The result has been that they are able to be more candid.”

Student reflections have become an unfiltered experience. Gabe can now interact with student reflections in a “raw,” multi-faceted way, through student tone of voice and body language, and with the support of the AI-powered assessment Mirror creates for each reflection.

An unexpected solution

Gabe is also experimenting with using Mirror for building verbal speaking confidence of ELLs, by customizing prompts to prepare them for the WIDA test, New Mexico’s assessment of academic English language proficiency. “At our school, our students are always nervous about taking the WIDA test. They always tank the speaking portion, and before Mirror we didn’t have an efficient way to support them in building their speaking confidence.”

“I think it helped with their comfort levels, working with an interface. And I’m excited to see the results.”

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 A raw and candid shift in reflection  appeared first on Swivl.

When administrators in Dodge City, KS, reviewed their student data in 2019, it was clear that literacy, specifically for their English Language Learners (ELLs), needed to be a top priority.

With 80% of the district’s 7,000 students identifying as Hispanic/Latino, this was already an area of focus. After receiving funding from a state grant, though, the district was ready to take a new approach.

Instead of focusing on top-down PD, Dodge City leaders invested in teacher coaching and self-reflection as a path to student literacy growth. 

To better support ELLs, Dodge City needed to remake their tools and systems for coaching

According to Kelley Clark, Literacy Project Manager and Professional Development Coordinator, this was a research-informed decision.

“We had seen a body of evidence saying that PD sessions alone won’t give us the return we wanted,” Kelley said. “We needed to support what we were doing with instructional coaching.”

In the past, Dodge City had had versions of instructional coaching, and even used classroom video in support of it. But they had identified several challenges to address.

“Coaching looked different across buildings and between individuals. Coaches often did ‘other duties as assigned’ instead of true coaching,” Kelley said.

Their old method of capturing classroom video was also a challenge to address.

“Lots of teachers found coaches visiting classrooms and using iPads to record them intimidating. The teachers had questions: What’s going on with the video? Whose video is it?” Kelley said.

With a clear goal and challenges to address, Dodge City was ready to get to work.

Leaders replaced classroom visits with Swivl Robots to create a more teacher-centered coaching program

Dodge City systematized and focused their coaching efforts by adopting Jim Knight’s Impact Cycle. While coaches used to visit classrooms to record lessons with an iPad, teachers now recorded their own lessons with Swivl Robots. 

Kelley was unsure how teachers would feel about recording themselves with Swivl Robots.

“The teachers actually preferred using the Robots to record themselves over having their coach record them with an iPad,” Kelley said.

At the same time, administrators and coaches audited coaches’ time. This clarified the job’s responsibilities and opened new ways for coaches to offer teacher support.

“Coaches began to leverage video captured by Swivl Robots at multiple points of the coaching cycle,” Kelley said. 

This included:

• Capturing video before coaching to capture the current reality
• Coaches sharing model lessons for teachers to refer to during the coaching cycle
• Recording lessons during the cycle for reflection and richer coaching conversations

Additionally, Dodge City started using Swivl Robots to empower curriculum implementations. When ELA and Math teachers wanted to see a new curriculum taught in a lesson, coaches recorded and shared model lessons. These acted as concrete examples of instructional expectations teachers could revisit and share with others.

“We invested in teachers, focusing on collective efficacy,” Kelley said of the changes Dodge City made to support ELL achievement.

Teachers are empowered to reflect with classroom video, and ELLs show growth in crucial skills

“Change takes time. But we are seeing teacher practice shift,” Kelley said. 

This shift in practice has led to concrete results related to Dodge City’s goal to support ELLs. Recently, the Dodge City ESOL and Diversity Director shared assessment data showing growth in speaking, listening, and reading skills for ELL students.

“It’s steady, incremental growth, which is what we want to see,” Kelley said.

Kelley believes that giving teachers tools to engage in meaningful self-reflection and coaching is a key piece of that growth.

“When the Swivl Robot is in the classroom, it’s an objective observer,” Kelley said. “Teachers look at what they’re doing, and how their kids are responding. That’s more powerful than anyone coming in and saying ‘you should be doing this or that.’”

Kelley looks forward to expanded use of Teams by Swivl (now Reflectivity) for asynchronous discussion through time-stamped commenting, as a way to enrich face to face conversations with teachers.

During a recent coaching session, Kelley observed the power of giving teachers tools to reflect on classroom video.  While watching a video, the teacher saw how often she laughed with students and had fun moments with them during class. 

“She was laughing and having a good time, but she wasn’t conscious of it,” Kelley said. “It’s not always about identifying negative things. There are so many positives to discover.”

The post How Dodge City Schools Transformed Their Coaching Program to Support ELL Achievement appeared first on Swivl.

By June 2021, half of American schools were using a hybrid learning model. 

Since then, schools have invested in hardware and software. Teachers have expanded their tech skills.  It’s been a crash course in using tools and talents to stay connected and solve problems, even when apart.

Now, administrators are applying the same tools and talents to one of the most urgent issues in education: teacher support. 

Let’s look at how two innovative districts re-imagined teacher support using classroom video to build relationships and maximize educator growth.

But first, let’s review current teacher support practices, and why they’re inadequate for helping teachers with the challenges of a return to in-person instruction.

New tools can help improve old teacher support models

Student behavior issues and academic skills gaps make today’s classroom challenges uniquely acute.

Traditional teacher support practices, including new teacher mentoring, observations, one-size-fits-all PD, and walk-throughs, are inadequate to address current instructional challenges because feedback happens too slowly and too infrequently. For most teachers, support drops significantly after year one. 

Some districts have invested in instructional coaching, formal peer collaboration like professional learning communities (PLCs), and personalized professional learning paths. 

While these structures are an improvement, they also bring challenges. Substitute shortages and other stressors on personnel make it impractical to get coverage to observe a colleague’s class. Travel across district makes coaching time- and resource-intensive.

Without a common place for capturing instruction, reflecting, discussing, and planning next steps, support efforts can feel wasted or one-off. 

The perfect storm has emerged, where teachers need more support than ever, and districts need support to be more efficient than ever. The good news? Many districts have already discovered tools and systems that can help make it happen.

Here are two examples. 

How an Arizona district leverages classroom video to support early-career and “singleton” teachers

Littleton Elementary, a district of seven physical and one virtual schools in Avondale, Arizona, was first introduced to Swivl Robots to support remote instruction. 

“Then, we realized the power of video and streaming,” Director of Instructional Technology Jim Verrill said.

Jim and his team saw how Teams by Swivl paired with Robots would address the district’s challenges in supporting high-quality instruction for all students with many early-career teachers on staff.

Littleton has implemented a continuum of teacher support practices all based on classroom video:

• Self-reflection: Principals encourage teachers to identify instructional challenges through self-reflection
  
• Peer collaboration: Singleton teachers collaborate cross-district with colleagues teaching the same subject. Content or grade-level teams record, share and reflect on lessons to maintain curricular alignment.
  
• Coaching: Coaches have increased their frequency and depth of feedback by having teachers share and discuss classroom video through Teams.
  
• Admin support: Leaders assess school progress through remote walkthroughs, where they view and discuss short instructional videos around key themes. 

Through self-reflection, collaboration, coaching and admin support, Littleton has developed an efficient, effective way to build relationships and encourage educator growth.

These Florida coaches use video to expand teacher support and reduce distractions

While traditional coaching can be powerful for teacher support, it comes with the potential for distraction. 

“What we want teachers to do is maintain their power in the room,” St. Lucie Instructional Specialist Dana Miller said. “And we don’t want distraction for students.” St. Lucie Public Schools is a Florida district with 50 schools and over 40,000 students.

St. Lucie had a strong foundation of coaching pre-pandemic, and they used their Robots to help absent students stay up-to-speed with missed work.  They now leverage Swivl Robot + Teams with Jim Knight’s Coaching Framework to make their coaching more efficient and discreet. 

St. Lucie does not require teachers to record themselves, but offers Robots to teachers looking for support. After teachers self-reflect, coaches encourage teachers to identify where they may want to work with a coach. Because teachers have already captured video, teacher and coach can discuss without having to schedule a new observation. 

This year, St. Lucie coaches have pushed their work further using Robots for live-streamed lessons with in-ear coaching. 

“As a coach, we see a problem in the moment, and we can help the teacher make a fix right away,” Dana said. “We use as few words as possible so the feedback is quick, immediate, and not distracting to the teacher.”

In a time of uncertainty, the need for teacher support is clear

While much is uncertain for school and district leaders in the coming months, a few things are certain. 

Teachers will need support to overcome challenges and help students continue to make academic progress. These support interventions will need to be effective, but also time and resource efficient because of the circumstances districts face. 

As both Littleton and St. Lucie demonstrate, it’s time to repurpose the tools and talents adopted for hybrid and remote learning. It’s time to offer teachers a continuum of support options and pathways to get help. And it’s time to make classroom video the centerpiece of teacher growth.

The post From Florida to Arizona, Districts Have Reimagined Teacher Support appeared first on Swivl.

We love seeing how our Swivl Community keeps connections and relationships at the forefront of all they’re doing this school year, while still offering robust teacher support. A great example of these efforts is Littleton Elementary School District #65 (LESD) in Arizona.

Teachers at LESD are incorporating the Swivl Robot+Teams (Teams is now Reflectivity) into their classrooms. By live streaming with Swivl Robot+Teams, teachers are able to broadcast their lessons to remote learners. Using these tools gives remote students a view of everything going on within the classroom, which helps them feel more connected.

In this video, Jim Verrill (Director of Instruction Technology/Integration) and Rio Stinger (Tres Rios Elementary Teacher) talk about their experience using Swivl Robot+Teams in their classrooms.

Littleton Elementary School District at a glance:

• Location: Avondale, Arizona
• # of teachers: 334 teachers
• Grade level: K-8
• Swivl products used: Teams+Robot
• Started using Swivl Teams+Robot in 2021 

For more information about how educators around the world are using Swivl tools to build relationships with students, follow Swivl on social media.

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Fairmont’s Hybrid Learning Tech Set-up

Ivan Almazan created this diagram outlining the Swivl setup used by Fairmont Schools.

In order to bring their vision for dynamic, inclusive hybrid instruction to life, Fairmont Schools leaned heavily on Swivl to develop a hardware and software solution for their daily instruction.

Fairmont Schools features 122 classrooms with the following set-up: 

• • For streaming video of the classroom to kids at home: a Swivl is placed on a stand with an iPad
  • For streaming audio from the teacher and in-person students to kids at home: there is a Swivl marker, as well as two other mics to pick up sound in the classroom. 

• A speaker plays a central role: it acts as the sound for the whole classroom, by sharing any audio that comes from students over Zoom, as well as the audio from any digital content presented by the teacher. Read more about best practices for audio set up here. 

• For projecting content to students at home and in-class: teachers use a computer or laptop connected to a SMART board or projector. The computer also uses Zoom to share content with remote students.
• So all students see each other:  Each classroom has a 50” TV. On this screen, the teacher and in-person kids can view the students learning from home. 

With this set-up, “teachers can think more about what they’re teaching and less about what’s on the iPad screen,” DJ explained. 

To streamline the process, DJ and teachers created standard operating procedures (SOPs) for how to set-up the Swivl and other tech in the beginning of the day, how to ensure everything ran smoothly during the day, and how to end the day effectively.

The pandemic has brought new challenges for all education stakeholders, but has been especially hard on teachers and students. By integrating Swivls into daily instruction, Fairmont Schools has taken a big step towards supporting teachers in dealing with their current demands, and making sure that parents know their kids have a positive learning environment to attend class every day.

Explore hybrid learning resources

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