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.

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Technology has long been a critical need for supporting our most vulnerable students. It provides accessibility and creates opportunities for students with disabilities to learn and engage in meaningful ways. When considering the right kinds of technology for special education programs, it’s important to find tools that support individualized learning and also support the complex collaboration needs of teachers and providers. However, with so many edTech solutions, it can be difficult to figure out which are the right tools to implement. Not only that, it can be cumbersome and overwhelming to evaluate and learn new tools.  

Over the last 20 years, I’ve come to find the most useful technology solutions share similar attributes: accessibility, inclusivity, and efficiency. As a general rule, if it can do all of these things, it likely is worth the time and effort to evaluate, learn, and implement. Swivl’s Robot+Teams does all of these things. Let’s explore how.

3 Reasons Special Education Programs Need Swivl Robot+Teams

1. Promotes Meaningful Inclusion Practices

Give students the best of both worlds by accessing Livestream instruction from the general education classroom no matter where they are receiving services. They can maintain access to the general education content expert and their peers while receiving individualized support at the same time.

Maximize the use of your special educators by using recorded lessons as an instructional resource for differentiated groups within a co-teaching model. 

2. Facilitates Efficient Data Collection

Multiple evaluators may use the same recorded videos to observe and collect data for assessments required for the evaluation and/or reevaluation process.

Collect and organize classroom video recordings to use data in quarterly progress reports as evidence of growth for individualized goals.

3. Catalyzes Growth for Special Educators and Related Service Providers

Pair new special educators with veteran special educators to improve practice through self-reflection and feedback on lessons. Provide unique opportunities for mentorship among special educators with similar responsibilities.  

Support continued growth and learning for instructional assistants by modeling instructional strategies and use of accommodations through recorded videos.

Invite those who work across several sites to model best practices through recorded related services sessions.

As a former special educator with over 20 years of experience in the field, I believe in the power of technology to create opportunities for connection, inclusion, and growth. Robot+Teams can accomplish all of these things, which is a huge win for students,  families, teachers, and related service providers.

If you have questions about the value Swivl adds to your program, reach out to me at tara@swivl.com. I’d be happy to connect and share more with you on why Swivl is the tech solution for your Special Education program.

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