From the beginning, we made it clear that teachers knew M2 would not be about evaluating instruction. It’s for ‘making me a better teacher and seeing those results in my student outcomes’.

Brian Teague | Bowie Elementary, Lamar CISD

USE CASE

Instructional coaching and student outcomes

Katherine Lange

Principal

School/District:

Bowie Elementary, Lamar CISD

Grade Level

K–5 Elementary

One new principal, four instructional coaches, and a lot of new teachers

Katherine Lange had never led an elementary school before she walked through the doors of Bowie Elementary in January 2025, and this particular elementary school had been struggling. 

Tier I Instructional practices were inconsistent, educator turnover had been significant, and the year ahead was shaping up to require more than just a few steady hands at the wheel. Katherine has four instructional coaches on her team, but she was also facing how she would effectively support a brand-new crop of teachers.

“Last year was all about triage. We came out of it earning a B, which we’re all proud to accomplish,” she beamed. “Coming into this year, it needed to be less about triage and more about making targeted instructional shifts. Yes, we wanted to sustain the grade, sustain the growth, but we needed to really expand what teachers can do with the kids in the classroom.”

Students first

One of Katherine’s primary goals was to prepare students for extended constructed responses on Texas’s STAAR exam. She was seeing a trend emerge that students could find textual evidence, but they somehow circumvented answering the question explicitly, and on the STAAR, that could give a student an automatic zero on those questions. To help students improve, M2 was given a spot in many classrooms’ studio rotations (aka: small group stations). Set up this way, teachers could define an ECR as a quick station prompt within M2, then students could orate their written responses and M2 would offer immediate feedback to the students directly.

And when studios were over, teachers could later review a full summary of what had happened across every student interaction, using the data to monitor and adjust instruction and ultimately: improve students’ ECRs on STAAR.

For teachers, M2 narrowed the ever-widening gap in academic feedback. Erin Lundberg, a fifth-grade teacher, had tried lots of strategies to offer daily feedback: exit tickets, ghost rotations, checklists. But what it boiled down to was: she just didn’t have enough time each day to check in on each student.

“When I’m fully engaged with the studio I’m running, I’m unable to listen in on the conversations happening at other studios, so I can’t quickly readjust a student’s thinking or address their misconceptions in the moment. That’s where M2 comes in! He is my teacher partner, and the students check in with him when I can’t.”

For Erin’s emergent bilingual (EB) students, M2 helps her keep a fresh list of never-ending sentence stems to increase their language acquisition. For everyone else, M2 drives student inquiry and increases Erin’s higher-order questions.

Carmen Chavero, who teaches fourth-grade dual language math and science, faced similar constraints. Students working independently while she ran small groups had limited access to daily feedback. As Carmen puts it “M2 has been like having a second teacher. I love how it provides meaningful feedback for every student and is constantly offering them new and creative ways to approach and solve math problems.”

Privacy paves the way

Before M2 became employed for a coaching cycle, Katherine established one non-negotiable rule: all coaching data would remain strictly between the instructional coaches and the teachers they worked with – never used for evaluation, never surfaced to administration (and by default, M2 data is stored in a teacher’s account, not an administrator’s).

That decision, made publicly and kept consistently, fundamentally altered the way teachers perceived the tool.

Brian uploaded LCISD’s instructional look-fors and the T-TESS domains and dimensions framework directly into M2’s customizable platform, so every piece of feedback M2 generated was grounded in the language teachers already used and the standards they were already being measured against. What results is feedback that feels comforting and familiar. 

And that’s when teachers really begin to believe in the tool and advocate for it.

“As the instructional leadership team who purchased M2, of course we can say: ‘yes! this is a great tool.’ But when our teachers talk to each other and say, ‘no, really, it is good, you should use it,’ that always carries more weight,” muses Katherine.

M2 as a coaching partner

One of the more unexpected uses of M2 at Bowie wasn’t in a classroom at all. It was in a coaching conversation.

Brian began bringing M2 directly into his debrief sessions with teachers. He’d start the coaching conversation, work through the normal identifying questions, and then, when a question came up that needed a second perspective, he’d turn to M2. He’d give his input, then ask M2 what it thought. Or he’d let M2 respond first and add to it. Either way, the result was the same: a third voice in the room, grounded in the district’s own framework, providing objective reinforcement to the conversation.

For Brian, who was himself new to the coaching role, this mattered in ways that went beyond any individual teacher conversation. Hearing how M2 framed feedback on engagement, pacing, or rigor helped him develop his own coaching language.

M2 extended into planning time, too. Brian brought the robot into collaborative meetings to generate ideas for differentiation. Certain teachers who might have felt guarded in a one-on-one coaching session found the dynamic felt extremely lighter when these conversations included a third, objective presence.

Greatest risk, even greater rewards

One new teacher came into his first coaching cycle at Bowie hesitant. He was nervous about hearing or seeing himself (video is always optional in M2), uncertain about what he’d uncover after reviewing each lesson.

By the end of the year, he was asking to keep M2 for extended periods of time, to cover entire units. He wanted to see where his engagement dipped, and why. He wanted to connect what M2 was showing him to his own lesson plans, find the gaps, and fix them.

His student data reflected the shift. 

“He was able to go back and look at his trends and find places where he could grow,” Katherine explains. “It really helped him be more prescriptive in the way that he planned.”

He wasn’t the only one. Even master teachers were experiencing their own magical moments with M2. When you walk into a strong teacher’s room, you tend to see strengths but what you can miss are edge cases where strong – but common – instructional moves aren’t quite nailing it, where you need to really try an out-of-the-box strategy.  

“It provided insights for a master teacher that instructional coaches and administrators sometimes even overlook,” Katherine says,

What do Title I funds and screen time limits have in common?

Because M2 addressed objectives embedded directly in Bowie’s campus improvement plan – recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers among them – Katherine was able to fund every M2 purchase through Title I dollars. The investment had a clear, documented justification.

There was one more constraint she hadn’t anticipated finding a solution to: the district had recently implemented screen time limits for early elementary students. This is where Swivl and the district had the same intentions – and stars aligned. With M2, students and teachers are able to interact with the robot conversationally, and its remote microphones prevent anyone from becoming glued to its screen. M2 even intentionally designs its classroom activities and group experiences to promote conversations and emphasize paper-based work time, so it ended up being a natural fit that did not compete with the district’s mandate. 

Bowie’s ‘B’ was for believing

Before M2, some of Bowie’s newest teachers were anxious. About being recorded. About AI in class. About what the data might reveal.

After a few short months, many of those same teachers were requesting M2 on their own, asking to keep it for full units, and encouraging their colleagues to try it. The anxiety hadn’t disappeared because Brian and Katherine reassured them everything was safe and private (though that helped, of course). It disappeared because they saw visible changes in their practice, session by session, trend by trend, unit by unit – and they wanted more of it.

With student outcomes being the primary motivation for Bowie’s teachers, they’ve come to rely on M2 to be their classroom “wing-robot”. Carmen Chavero envisions that next year, M2 will be a permanent workstation: a standing second small group, always available, always ready for the next student who needs a different explanation or a patient ear. Erin Lundberg is already using what M2 shows her to adjust pacing, deepen questioning, and ensure no student falls through the cracks of a busy rotation. And she’ll come back even stronger in the Fall.

This is exactly what Katherine had in mind when she arrived at Bowie mid-year, inheriting a campus in triage. Their mantra has been “keep your eyes on the A and it’ll be ours in May!” They continue to soar because they built a culture where everyone on campus has a chance to grow, become more accountable, and thrive as learners. No small order, but it just so happens that M2 helps them do that.  

The post #OneLittleSpark: How Bowie Elementary kept its flame aglow with M2 appeared first on Swivl.

From M2’s feedback, our teachers select two instructional goals for their next observation and then the cycle repeats. It’s so streamlined!

Dr. Pallavi Aggarwal | University of Missouri, St. Louis

USE CASE

AI-powered coaching

Dr. Pallavi Aggarwal / Laura Myers

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow / Principal

School/District:

University of Missouri, St. Louis / Biome Charter School

Grade Level: Elementary School

Dr. Pallavi Aggarwal was partnered with The Biome School in 2023 as part of a University of Missouri-St. Louis postdoctoral fellows program where she was introduced to the then–instructional coach–now Principal, Laura Myers. From their earliest observations, they realized that many teachers were struggling with basic Tier 1 instruction. Laura knew it wasn’t apathy that the teachers were experiencing; there were simply no systems in place to drive the kind of standardization around excellence they knew every teacher was capable of. 

As Laura recalls it, “The teachers who were well-prepared and had sharpened their lesson plans: they sparkled. It was the teachers who did not prepare, who would just fly by the seat of their pants – that’s where we noticed behavioral problems, teaching performance issues, and a correlation in lower scores out of those students.”

Pallavi also remembers those days. According to her, “Teachers weren’t required to review their teaching manuals, there were no PLCs for collaborative planning, and there was not a consistent instructional coaching model to guide growth.” 

99 observations, 44 videos, and one unsustainable path

Determined to shift the school’s trajectory, Pallavi and Laura threw themselves into data collection. In their first semester, they conducted 99 observations, meticulously documenting which instructional practices correlated with higher levels of student engagement. They presented their findings to leadership, making the first real case for systemic change.

In the second semester, they introduced GoReact’s video review platform to help teachers reflect on their practice and give leadership visibility into classroom instruction. But this tool came with baggage. After manually viewing and meticulously annotating video observations, Laura and Pallavi were craving some efficiency. Pallavi put it plainly,

In the same year, they piloted Swivl robots, which leveraged multiple microphones to capture classroom audio and provided speech analysis. The data was eye-opening: in most classrooms, teachers talked 98% of the time while students had opportunities to engage only 2% of the time. It was another data point confirming what they already knew – instruction needed to evolve.

The work paid off initially. By the end of that first year, they had developed three critical tools: a lesson template outlining how instruction should flow, two rubrics to assess instructional practices and student engagement, and a shared understanding that teacher capacity-building needed to be the school’s priority. 

Time to scale…and soar

Armed with their custom rubrics and building a culture of trust and partnership, Pallavi and Laura entered their second year ready to implement a more formal coaching model. But even with plans in place, the thought of manually observing, recording, annotating, analyzing, and providing personalized feedback to every single teacher each week loomed over them again like a dark cloud. They’d need to clone themselves just to maintain what they’d started.

That’s when Pallavi heard about M2 in a meeting with other mentors in her post-doctoral program at UMSL.

She was excited by the possibilities immediately: “M2 was a perfect fit in our trajectory because we were already conducting observations regularly, and fortunately, our teachers were amenable to trying new things.” And M2 reinforced a very crucial principle for the teachers at Biome Charter: 

M2 observations are never meant to be punitive. They are designed to support growth. So the teachers approached M2 with curiosity, rather than resistance.

Using AI to bring out the humanness in their coaching

What immediately appealed to Pallavi and Laura was that M2 didn’t compete with their roles as coaches and mentors for their teachers. If anything, it became their trusted sidekick for every observation and helped them establish a baseline of feedback for teachers in minutes, not hours.

Here’s how their hybrid model works: M2 is set up in a classroom at the beginning of each lesson, collecting real-time data on the teachers’ skills: engagement, questioning strategies, and pacing. M2 is guided by the custom rubrics Pallavi developed to assess instructional practices so it knows what to look for and how to support each teacher during their class. After each lesson, M2 provides automatic scores, summaries, and actionable tips for improvement, while a human observer (usually Pallavi) adds context from their perspective of the class.

Teachers then review both sets of feedback and select their own instructional goals. “It’s not just us providing feedback. Teachers are also taking ownership when they view M2’s recommendations,” Pallavi explains. “From M2’s feedback, our teachers select two instructional goals for their next observation and then the cycle repeats. It’s so streamlined!”

The two leaders shared an anecdote that literally had them high-fiving as we spoke about it. One of their teachers, Dr. Washington, has become a model for how powerful this approach can be. Pallavi shared, “She’s actually using the tool in the best capacity possible. She carefully and thoughtfully reads through all of M2’s feedback and it helps her see the bigger picture.” 

Successful experiences like Dr. Washington’s are what make Pallavi and Laura’s partnership so strong and in sync: when they see a teacher take ownership of their own growth and development, it makes coaching and supporting that teacher even more rewarding.

Other teachers are becoming more vocal about their observation protocol too.

The next frontier: co-teaching with M2

Pallavi and Laura’s vision for M2 extends beyond observation and feedback. In Spring 2026, they plan to utilize M2’s Group Guide. With this feature, students can interact directly with M2 to ask questions, engage in small group discussions and receive feedback, and practice their skills, all while M2 provides instructional support and narrated directions.

They’re also exploring using M2’s customized assignment feature, which lets students verbally share their learning based on prompts that M2 designed from the lesson. “It will be really interesting to assess students’ depth of knowledge,” Pallavi muses, thinking about the various ways M2’s software [MirrorTalk.ai] will be able to analyze student reflections.

What M2 was designed for

When asked what guidance they’d give to other schools, researchers, or coaches considering M2, both Pallavi and Laura immediately emphasized the importance of relationships, which is also fundamental to the M2 experience. 

The cultural groundwork matters. Trust matters. And when those foundations are solid, technology like M2 can transform what’s possible–not by replacing teachers or coaches, but by giving them the time, data, and support to do their most important work: helping every teacher grow.

The post How M2 freed coaches to scale instructional excellence appeared first on Swivl.

Now when I ask them a question, they go deeper asking ‘who, what, when, where, how’? So it’s definitely driving deeper inquiry.

Kandice McGlaun | Chattahoochee County School District, GA

USE CASE

Driving student inquiry, redefining classroom engagement with AI

Molly Allen and Kandice McGlaun

Instructional Technology Specialists

School/District:

Chattahoochee County School District, GA

Grade Level

Elementary, Middle, and High School

Tech that missed the mark

We’ve all seen it happen too many times. A student raises their hand with a question that sparked genuine curiosity—the kind of question that could unlock deeper understanding. But in a classroom of 25 or more students, with limited time and an ambitious curriculum to cover, Molly Allen found herself conflicted on whether to slow the roll or keep the class on track. She’d try to be encouraging and tell that student: “That’s a great question! But we’ve got to keep moving today. Why don’t you look it up for homework and bring it back tomorrow?”

The problem? Tomorrow often never came for that moment of curiosity.

“When they have a question and they don’t have the answer right away, you tend to lose them,” Molly explains.

As instructional technology specialists for Chattahoochie School District, Molly Allen and Kandice McGlaun have been trying to bridge the engagement gap with all sorts of AI tools. Last year, they piloted Magic School with their fourth graders. They felt the platform was well-designed and, when effective, elicited thoughtful responses from students, but they found a critical flaw with the structure: everything was text-based.

“It was great,” Molly recalls, “but it pumps out written responses, and I noticed, especially with our younger kids, that they just weren’t reading or able to follow along all of the time.”

Kandice faced a different version of the same challenge. Teachers throughout her middle and high schools wanted the equivalent of Alexa in their classrooms—a voice-activated assistant that could provide instant answers and keep students engaged. But commercial smart devices aren’t allowed under school policy, and for good reason. Students need something to inspire creativity, encourage collaboration, and not just something for rote information retrieval.

“I feel like students today always expect an instant answer, because the internet is always at their fingertips,” Kandice explains.

They needed something in between—not a 1:1 device that isolated students behind individual screens, but a collaborative classroom tool that could engage students together through conversations.

While M2 worked for everyone

When Molly and Kandice discovered M2, they immediately recognized its potential. Here was an AI co-teacher that could interact with students, facilitate discussions, provide real-time feedback on instruction, and support both academic and social-emotional learning—all while bringing students together rather than isolating them behind individual screens.

They started with a small pilot, rotating a couple of devices among their elementary, middle, and high schools. What they didn’t anticipate was just how quickly it would become the most in-demand tool in the district.

I can’t keep M2 in my room! My high school and middle school teachers keep fighting over it.

Kandice McGlaun

From Jeopardy to the American Revolution

The academic applications emerged organically as teachers experimented with M2’s capabilities. In a sixth-grade social studies classroom, a teacher wanted to review latitude and longitude concepts but knew that traditional worksheets wouldn’t engage her students. She decided to try something different.

So Kandice suggested that M2 set up a Jeopardy game. What happened next surprised everyone. M2 created a full Jeopardy-style game, complete with point values and encouraging feedback. With a map displayed on the classroom’s main display, M2 would ask questions like: “For 100 points, this is the latitude, this is the longitude—what country am I?”

Students worked in small teams and when they answered correctly, M2 awarded them points. When they were close but not quite right, M2 encouraged them: “You’re really close, can you guess again for 50 points?”

“I loved that it was positive and never took all the points away,” Kandice notes. The students were so engaged that they’ve been asking to use M2 again ever since.

But perhaps the most powerful example of M2’s impact came during an American Revolution unit with Molly’s fourth graders. After a VR exploration, students gathered around M2 with its remotes in hand, ready to ask their questions. They had written their questions on mini whiteboards beforehand, ensuring they weren’t all asking the same thing.

“They thought they were movie stars talking into the microphone,” Molly smiles.

One student became fascinated with a particular historical figure. “Did he sign the Declaration of Independence?” the student asked.

M2 explained that no, he hadn’t signed it because he was fighting in the war at the time.

“Why didn’t he sign it?” the student pressed.

What followed was a deep dive into Revolutionary War history—the kind of extended, student-driven discussion that rarely happens when questions get deferred to homework. The student kept asking follow-up questions, and M2 kept providing context, always following up with its own questions to push the student’s thinking deeper.

“We wouldn’t have gotten as far if M2 had just given a direct answer and left it at that,” Molly reflects. “It just kept going and going and going, and we really deepened our class discussion.”

More than just a robot – a safe space

While the academic applications were impressive, Kandice saw potential for M2 to address an even more critical challenge: creating safe spaces for students to discuss sensitive topics. “So many times, students do not want to talk to a person,” Kandice notes. “They’re confiding in AI, and unfortunately, that’s not always safe. But with M2, we tried it ourselves—it worked beautifully.”

Working with her school’s social worker, Kandice planned a “positive affirmation station” for suicide prevention week. They tested the concept, with Kandice role-playing a student who is being bullied.

“I told M2 that I’m a sixth grader and I’m being picked on,” Kandice shared in an example. M2 responded with empathy and practical advice, asking if she wanted to role-play ways to respond to the bully.

Throughout the conversation, M2 consistently reminded her to talk to a trusted adult while also providing the immediate support she needed in the moment.

It reinforced positive affirmations about my situation while also reiterating the goal: ensure you confide in an adult who can further support you.

Kandice McGlaun

“Students need to hear affirmations several times, because the more they hear something, the more it becomes prevalent, and they start to internalize it.”

The approach will give students three options during designated weeks: they can speak with one of two adults present, or they can have a private conversation with M2. Students who aren’t ready to talk to an adult yet can work through their feelings with M2 first, building the confidence and clarity they need to eventually seek help from school counselors.

The trickle that turns into a flood

The impact on student engagement has been undeniable. Students have become so attached to M2 that middle schoolers have been naming it, personalizing their relationship with their classroom co-teacher.

But most importantly, it’s advancing inquiry and developing higher-order thinking. Students who interact with M2 are approaching questions differently than ever before. Kandice noticed the change with her own daughters who are in fourth-grade and have also interacted with M2.

Now when I ask them a question, they go deeper asking ‘who, what, when, where, how’? So it’s definitely driving deeper inquiry.

Kandice McGlaun

This transformation in how students think about learning has created what Kandice calls a “trickle effect.” Students who experience M2 in one class go back and tell other teachers about it. Those teachers, intrigued by their students’ enthusiasm, check out the device themselves. And the cycle continues.

Teachers throughout both schools have started saying they want “an M2 in every classroom.”

Cultivating the future with M2

As Molly and Kandice look to the future, they see M2 playing an even more central role in transforming their schools from teacher-centered environments to truly student-led learning spaces.

Molly is developing a “Lunch with M2” incentive program, where students who achieve certain goals—whether academic, attendance-based, or behavioral—can bring their lunch to the STEAM room for a tabletop discussion with M2 on a topic of their choice.

“It’s about cultivating curiosity,” Molly explains. “Letting them explore what they’re genuinely interested in, with immediate support for going deeper.”

Both specialists are working to expand M2 access across all grade levels and subject areas, ensuring that every student has opportunities to experience this new paradigm of learning—where questions don’t go unanswered, where curiosity drives discovery, and where collaboration happens around a shared “bigger brain” rather than through isolated screens.

“That’s where the real growth happens,” Molly says. “In that space between the question and the next question, and the one after that.”

The post Stand aside, Alexa. M2 is the classroom assistant that drives inquiry appeared first on Swivl.

M2 always gives me great objective feedback like – ‘hey, your pacing might be a little too fast at this point in the lesson because it seems like the students aren’t engaging as much with you.‘

Ella Burgos and Sabrina Miler | Forest City Adventist School, FL

USE CASE

Live feedback, student engagement, and teacher reflection

Ella Burgos | Sabrina Miler

4th and 5th Grade Math & Science Teacher |
Associate Superintendent

School/District:

Forest City Adventist School, FL

Grade Level 4-5

Helping Ella find her rhythm

In her tenth year of teaching, Ella Burgos had achieved mastery in many areas of her professional growth at Forest City Adventist School. Teaching fourth and fifth-grade math and science, she had developed a comfortable rhythm—explaining concepts, asking if students understood, and moving forward based on the nodding heads she saw. But beneath the surface of this seemingly smooth operation lay an uncomfortable truth: some students were being left behind, particularly those who processed information differently than how Ella naturally taught.

“Prior to M2, I relied on my own methods for pacing, delivering content, and engaging my students,” Ella explains. Her experienced eyes could spot the obvious signs of confusion, but the subtle cues—a slightly furrowed brow, a hesitant pencil, an answer that was close but not quite right—often slipped past her attention during the fast-paced school day.

For students who needed alternative explanations or struggled with mathematical concepts, Ella would try different approaches, but often found herself repeating the same explanations in slightly different words. The frustration was mutual—students who couldn’t grasp concepts felt increasingly discouraged, while Ella felt she was missing opportunities to reach them equitably and effectively.

That all changed when M2 entered her classroom, offering not just a second voice for struggling students, but becoming Ella’s partner in refining her craft—reading the room when she couldn’t, suggesting when to slow down or move on, and guiding her through meaningful reflection that transformed her teaching practice from experience-based to evidence-driven.

Ella shared “M2 always gives me great objective feedback like – ‘hey, your pacing might be a little too fast at this point in the lesson because it seems like the students aren’t engaging as much with you.‘”

The common denominator for Ella and her students

One day Ella Burgos stood at the whiteboard, explaining unit fractions to her fourth-grade math class. Despite her decade of teaching experience, she couldn’t help but notice that some students’ eyes were glazing over. Frustration crept in as she tried different explanations, and a student who needed help most—who excelled in reading, writing, and verbal reasoning, but struggled with mathematical concepts—still looked confused.

“I know what a fraction is, but what makes it a unit fraction?” the student asked for the second time.

Ella started to repeat the same explanation, when she remembered her new classroom assistant. With M2 settled at the student’s desk and set to Student Mode, the student read the instructions from her worksheet to M2.

M2 jumped into action immediately, describing how unit fractions work and detailing the steps she should take to try solving the particular problem that the student was working on. 

The student’s eyes widened as she turned to Ella and said “Wait–that’s it?” 

“That’s it,” replied Ella. And that’s when Ella realized the power of the tool she had at her fingertips. 

Ella marveled as comprehension dawned on her student’s face—the same explanation she’d given, but somehow more accessible coming from M2. Instead of feeling replaced, she felt relief. This would become a turning point in how she approached her teaching.

The students constantly ask, ‘When can we use M2 again? They just want to talk to M2 all the time and ask it questions.’

Ella Burgos | Forest City Adventist School, FL

An unexpected bond was formed

What surprised Ella most wasn’t just the academic support M2 provided, but the social connection her students formed with it. Her students eagerly shared their thoughts and experiences with M2, delighting in having another “presence” that listened and responded to them.

Her students are still deciding on a clever and beloved name for their new friend, and we’ll be sure to update this story here when they do. 

Transforming what it means to be a reflective educator

Beyond giving Ella advice on her pacing or supporting her students in their time of true need, M2 with embedded MirrorTalk software encouraged her to reflect on her teaching practices—something she admits teachers don’t always prioritize consistently.

“I did personal reflections on my M2 lessons when I got home,” Ella says. “M2 asked me questions like ‘How am I going to teach fractions better?” 

It takes me five to ten minutes to reflect, but without taking this step, tomorrow comes and I find I’m not actually ready to tackle this lesson.

Ella Burgos | Forest City Adventist School, FL

At first, she couldn’t answer these kinds of questions readily. The reflection prompts motivated Ella to research new approaches and strategies, preparing her to tackle upcoming lessons more effectively. While reflection requires time, Ella found the investment worthwhile: “It takes me five to ten minutes to reflect, but it makes me think. Without taking this step, tomorrow comes and I find I’m not actually ready to tackle this lesson.”

Rather than feeling like additional work, these reflection moments helped Ella become more proactive and prepared, ultimately saving her time and improving her teaching effectiveness.

A partner for every teacher

For Sabrina Miller, Associate Superintendent overseeing 30 schools in her organization, the potential of M2 extends far beyond a single classroom. After witnessing Ella’s experience, she immediately saw broader applications—particularly for their multi-grade classrooms.

“Two-thirds of our 30 schools are multi-grade schools,” Sabrina told us. “The idea that normally we tell them ‘teach one grade level, send the other grade levels to do work’—those kids don’t have access to a teacher. The possibilities of them sitting with an M2 that’s doing more extension of what they just learned with the teacher is an amazing possibility.”

And after Ella and two of her students presented how easy it was to get setup with M2 and get feedback on her very first session with it a recent principals’ meeting Sabrina received immediate interest: “Before the meeting was over, I had received emails from about five principals that said, ‘We’re ready, sign me up, I want one.” 

Turning off autopilot to make room for her new co-pilot, M2

For Ella, M2 is not about replacing her expertise, but augmenting it—providing a second voice in the classroom that helps reach students through a different voice and perspective. It’s supporting her in being more aware of her pacing, more diverse in her instructional approaches, and more consistent in her reflective practices. She’s no longer teaching solo – on autopilot – she’s got an essential ally that’s helping her rediscover her passion for teaching, even in year ten.

Learn more!

Meet M2 – every teacher’s intelligent co-teacher and every coach’s new best friend. MirrorTalk powers it and it helps you take your coaching to catastrophic heights. Learn more.

The post A lesson in chemistry: when students connect both with their teacher and M2 appeared first on Swivl.

I call it my co-pilot…It’s instantly become a unique part of our classroom.

Lauren Briones-Campos | Watts Elementary, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD

USE CASE

On-the-spot feedback for every lesson, student engagement

Lauren Briones-Campos

Teacher

School/District:

Maxine & Lutrell Watts Elementary, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District, TX

Grade Level

Kindergarten

Dealt a challenging hand

Lauren, a Kindergarten teacher with 15 years of experience, faced a unique set of classroom dynamics this particular school year. Her 21-student classroom presented a distinctive combination of challenges: an unusually rambunctious group, students across varying learning levels, and eight children with speech issues requiring special attention.

As a seasoned professional, Lauren had the pedagogical toolkit to address these challenges piecemeal. However, this year’s particular combination created a complex teaching environment where traditional approaches weren’t quite hitting the mark.

“I have high learners and learners that need differentiation,” Lauren explains. “Then I also have eight students with speech issues, so I am constantly thinking about how to make sure I’m teaching them sentence structures and encouraging their language development, while also keeping everything at an appropriate kindergarten level.”

Despite her wealth of classroom experience, Lauren’s introduction to M2 found her struggling to identify the right focus for her professional development. “I wasn’t sure what to target for myself,” she reflects. Like many experienced educators in this position, she faced the challenge of not knowing what she didn’t know.  

M2’s first day on the job

From the first day Lauren brought M2 into her classroom, things began to change. Without requiring extensive training or setup time, M2 quickly became part of her teaching routine.

Lauren initially used M2 during morning meetings to observe her students’ language development. She simply entered her learning objective and let M2 observe. What happened next surprised her.

“It gave me advice about exactly what I hoped it would,” Lauren explains, which surprised her because she didn’t even identify her objective. M2 was able to pick up exactly what Lauren had been struggling with, immediately provided feedback about creating a calmer environment, addressing the very interruptions that had been frustrating her all year long. 

M2 also offered her specific guidance on using sentence frames and addressing students by name. “It would identify exactly which sentence frames to use with particular students. I’d say to students: ‘Okay, let’s try this again. I want you to share again but use this phrase.’ Then my students would repeat after me and finish the blank,” Lauren recalls.

Targeted results, at the right time

The impact of having M2 as a co-teacher was immediate and significant. Lauren found herself receiving actionable, in-the-moment feedback that she could implement right away rather than analyzing her lessons when students had already gone home.

One of the most surprising benefits came when addressing classroom management, and Lauren ended up using M2’s feedback as leverage to encourage better behavior. Lauren shares her playful idea: “I would tell my students – ‘M2 says it doesn’t seem like calm classroom environment in here.’ Then I whispered ‘Your voices have to match mine so M2 knows that we are calm and learning!’ They immediately changed their behavior because M2 noticed what was happening—even though I had been saying the same thing all year!”

M2 also gives Lauren regular feedback on her pacing, noting that in one lesson she hadn’t been giving students enough time to decode words before providing them with guidance. She also appreciates how she can adjust M2’s feedback interval based on her lesson format—whether she wants tips every minute during mini-lessons or every five minutes during station work and small groups.

Her students’ ally

Rather than causing disruption, M2 quickly became an accepted part of the classroom community. Students were naturally curious about M2, asking what it was for and what to call it. They showed remarkable patience when Lauren needed to check feedback or set up her objectives.

They immediately changed their behavior because M2 noticed what was happening—even though I had been saying the same thing all year!

Lauren Briones-Campos | Watts Elementary, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD

“I call it my co-pilot and my students accepted it as such,” Lauren explains. “They know to wait patiently, just like when I’m turning pages in a teaching guide. It’s instantly become a unique part of our classroom.”

Lauren also found that students were less distracted by M2 than they would be by a human observer entering the classroom, which means: fewer disruptions and more focused learning time.

Her coach’s ally too

Heather Thornblom an instructional coach at Lauren’s school, sees additional advantages to M2’s presence. “As an instructional coach, it’s really hard to keep up with everyone, observe every teacher and try to offer corrections after we debrief,” Heather explains. 

M2 also takes one negative emotional aspect out of the observation process, whereby some teachers feel like they’re not allowed to own their growth. Rather than having coaches always be the ones to identify areas for improvement, teachers come with specific feedback they’ve already received from M2, asking instead for help with implementation. “The coaching cycle is strengthened because the request for guidance and support is their idea, not me coming in saying ‘you need to fix this,'” Heather observes.

The coaching cycle is strengthened because the request for guidance and support is their idea, not me coming in saying “you need to fix this.”

Heather Thornblom | Watts Elementary, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD

Ready for every classroom, today

The remarkable simplicity of M2 is what makes it truly revolutionary. “It was extremely easy to get started with M2, which required little to no training,” Lauren explains. With minimal setup—just entering an objective and setting feedback frequency—teachers can transform their practice immediately. This plug-and-play approach means M2 can enter any classroom.

It was extremely easy to get started with M2 – which required little to no training.

Lauren Briones-Campos | Watts Elementary, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD

For Lauren and teachers everywhere, M2 has become the trusted partner that provides precise, in-the-moment feedback when it matters most. No more waiting for scheduled observations or deep lesson analysis when students have already gone home. By providing that crucial second set of eyes with specific, actionable suggestions, M2 helps teachers engage more students, continuously improve teaching practice, and make even the most challenging classroom dynamics more manageable. 

Your classroom, your challenges, your co-teacher

Meet M2 – every teacher’s intelligent co-teacher and every coach’s new best friend. MirrorTalk powers it and helps you take your coaching to catastrophic heights. Learn more.

The post A teacher with 15 years of wisdom discovers M2: her powerful new co-teacher appeared first on Swivl.

AVID classrooms pulse with energy—students engage in collaborative projects, tackle challenging inquiries, and dive deep into dynamic learning experiences. But when the buzz of activity subsides, educators face a crucial question: How do we effectively measure what each student has truly learned?

Elevating collaborative learning with stations

AVID’s emphasis on collaborative work finds a perfect partner in M2’s physical learning stations. Equipped with built-in tools like Whiteboard, Timer, and Polls, M2 serves as an intelligent group facilitator that keeps students focused and engaged. Teachers can set up M2 stations with customized activities from the Library or create their own based on specific lesson objectives.

Brittany Carpenter, a Technology Instructor and RESA Coordinator at Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, speaks to M2’s versatility: “M2+MirrorTalk is the ultimate blended learning tool. In the pre-reflection workspace, we can set up a variety of tools to assess the students’ actual math skills and their post-workspace reflection deepens our understanding of how their experience went and what challenges they faced.”

Capturing individual voices in collaborative learning

MirrorTalk transforms post-activity assessment by allowing students to verbalize their understanding through structured spoken reflections. As Gabe Nemiroff, a teacher at Albuquerque Public Schools notes, “Students are immediately curious about their understanding and mindset scores in MirrorTalk which immediately opens the door to conversations about growth.” This approach ensures that even in AVID’s collaborative environment, individual student voices and needs aren’t overlooked.

Immediate feedback drives continuous growth

In AVID’s fast-paced learning environment, waiting days for feedback can break the momentum of student progress. MirrorTalk eliminates this delay by providing instant, AI-powered feedback that helps students understand their progress and areas for improvement in real-time. Annette Lang, a Technology Teacher and Instructional Coach at Bio-Med Science Academy, has experienced this transformation firsthand: “I am able to invite all 104 of my students to talk through their learning experiences regularly and bring feedback to them instantly.”

Empowering data-driven instruction

MirrorTalk’s AI analysis goes beyond surface-level assessment, uncovering nuances in student understanding that traditional methods might miss. This deeper insight enables AVID educators to:

• Identify patterns in student learning, mindset, and challenge levels
• Adapt teaching strategies based on concrete data
• Target support where it’s needed most
• Track individual and class-wide progress over time

Freeing educators to focus on what matters

AVID educators wear many hats—facilitator, mentor, and coach. MirrorTalk automates the time-consuming aspects of assessment, allowing teachers to focus on these crucial roles. Instead of spending hours grading, educators can dedicate more time to supporting and challenging their students, leading to richer, more impactful interactions.

Angela Foley, a Teacher and Principal in Training at Elmore County Public Schools, describes the impact on her workflow: “MirrorTalk offers something more personal than traditional edtech tools. Instead of spending hours reviewing student videos and providing feedback, the AI analyzes their responses and helps me quickly identify what needs reteaching. It’s made my workflow so much more sustainable.”

The path forward

By seamlessly integrating with AVID’s interactive approach, MirrorTalk creates a feedback loop that benefits both students and educators. Its physical stations facilitate engaged group work, while its assessment capabilities ensure every voice is heard. Students gain immediate insights into their learning journey, while educators receive the data they need to make informed decisions about instruction and support. This powerful combination ensures that every student’s voice is heard, every learning opportunity is maximized, and every educator can focus on what truly matters—helping students succeed.

Curious to see how MirrorTalk can collect crucial data for your AVID classroom?

Try M2+MirrorTalk

MirrorTalk + M2 is the unique classroom assistant that captures the best data for observation and daily feedback for teachers, turns small group station dreams into a reality, and prioritizes reflection for everyone in class.

The post Enhancing AVID classrooms with MirrorTalk: Where student voice meets data-driven insight appeared first on Swivl.

In today’s AI-driven world, it’s easy to fall into the trap of letting technology do our thinking for us. But at MirrorTalk, we believe in a different approach: using technology to help you think better, not to think for you.

The challenge of reflection

Reflection is hard. It requires us to pause, look inward, and critically examine our thoughts and actions. For many students, this process can feel daunting or even frustrating. But here’s the truth: if reflection feels challenging, you’re doing it right.

Scaffolding the journey

MirrorTalk is designed to scaffold the reflection process, making it more approachable and rewarding for students. We’ve created a three-stage approach to help educators guide their students through the productive struggle of self-reflection:

1 – Encouragement first:

Begin with a Session group, where students receive immediate feedback focused on praise and small prompts to improve their thinking.

2 – Share the Lesson:

Progress to a Limited Dashboard group, introducing students to their personalized “Lesson” – a key insight they might be overlooking – along with their Understanding score.

3 – Dig into all insights:

Finally, expand to the Full Dashboard, where students gain access to a wealth of insights to help them manage mindsets, refine communication, and more.

Embracing the struggle

Remember, the goal isn’t to make reflection effortless – it’s to make it meaningful. When students grapple with their thoughts and ideas, they’re exercising the most powerful tool they have: their own minds.

By using MirrorTalk’s scaffolded approach, you’re not just helping students reflect; you’re teaching them to embrace the productive struggle that leads to genuine growth and learning. We’re empowering you to take your role as a reflective educator and help your students cultivate this essential lifelong skill for themselves.

Here’s how you can maximize its impact:

• Use the scaffolded approach to gradually deepen students’ reflective abilities.
• Incorporate MirrorTalk insights into your feedback and assessment processes.
• Encourage peer discussions about reflection strategies and insights gained.

A tool for thinking, not a replacement for thought

Unlike AI systems offering instant answers, MirrorTalk is a personalized thinking tool that creates conditions for effective self-reflection. As educators, your role is to help students value this approach. By guiding them through reflection, you’re cultivating a mindset that extends beyond the classroom. In a world where technology will never stop evolving, MirrorTalk helps students develop their most timeless asset: the capacity for thoughtful reflection and critical thinking.

Take scaffolding to the next level with MirrorTalk + M2

MirrorTalk + M2 is the unique classroom assistant that captures the best data for observation and daily feedback for teachers, turns small group station dreams into a reality, and prioritizes reflection for everyone in class.

Schedule a live demo to learn more!

The post Product highlight: Embrace productive struggle – how MirrorTalk helps students grow appeared first on Swivl.

M2 is an AI-powered device that helps teachers engage students better in class, deepen everyone’s thinking, and effortlessly enhance instruction with real-time feedback and automated insights. Its integrated MirrorTalk software automates reflection with customized prompts. Durable, mobile, and uniquely sized, M2 serves as an intelligent co-teacher in various educational spaces.

Your AI Teaching Companion

M2 is more than your average video tool. We leveraged our 12-year expertise in video observation by working with Swivl Robot users around the world to give teachers the best experience when recording themselves for observation and coaching. We built M2 to become your AI teaching companion and help you build skills while you teach by delivering on the spot feedback and strategies for keeping students engaged. For formal observation, M2 features a 180° camera with automated tracking, high-quality audio, and follows up each recording experience with a reflection to capture the teacher’s experience, while its still fresh on their minds.

Small group leader

M2 is also a multi-modal small group leader for classrooms, featuring built-in tools like Recharge, Whiteboard, Links, Timer, Recording, and step-by-step directions to keep students focused. Teachers simply set up M2 at a designated station and load an activity from the Library or create their own based on their lesson plan. After each activity, students reflect on their learning and receive instant feedback.

Reflection kiosk 

M2 prioritizes and measures metacognitive skill development. Its presence constantly offers immediate, personalized feedback for growth as learning happens. Educators gain key insights into participants’ thinking, including understanding, mindset, and challenge level, and actionable feedback to help their participants improve.

In this article, hear from real M2 users about the unique ways they are making the most of this intelligent co-teacher!

Student projects and presentations

M2 enhances projects and presentations by fostering peer collaboration without classroom chaos. Its built-in Workspace tools keep small groups focused, allowing teachers to assist students who need extra help. After completion, M2 prompts student reflection, provides instant feedback, and gives teachers automatic insights into the learning experience.

Hear from several different teachers on how they have transformed their classrooms into project-based learning centers with M2:

M2’s Workspaces are transforming our mathematics instruction. Students enthusiastically solve problems and reflect together, celebrating successes while thoughtfully addressing challenges. It’s remarkable to watch how this guided group work naturally cultivates growth mindsets and genuine excitement for learning.

Brittany Carpenter | Technology Instructor and RESA Coordinator

With M2 Workspaces, science teachers don’t have to keep repeating the same safety procedures and instructions for a lab, they are just built into every activity automatically. This kind of autonomous guidance truly helps teachers meet students where they are with minimal lift on their part.

Phyllis Balcerzak, Ph.D. | Associate Professor, University of Missouri – St. Louis, MO

We love how M2 offers the students many opportunities to practice. Even if a student doesn’t feel like their initial presentation went well or they didn’t master a concept, we can just structure a workspace to include a quick resource, like a video, to watch before they practice it again. And during the reflection, they still get a separate opportunity to explain what they really know about the concept.

Annette Lang | Instructional Coach, Bio-Med Science Academy Stem School, OH

Multi-modal learning for ELLs

M2 assists teachers in balancing ELL and native English speaker needs. It allows ELLs to access content in their native languages and reflect independently, while providing teachers feedback in English. Tools like whiteboard, timers, and group reflection foster digital collaboration, peer modeling, and language practice for all students.

M2 bridges crucial gaps for our newcomer students from El Salvador, recognizing their true academic capabilities while addressing language barriers. By enabling initial reflections in Spanish, then slowly transitioning to English, it builds confidence and creates pathways to their English acquisition, helping these students demonstrate their actual academic potential and integrating them into our classroom community.

Harley DeKeyzer | Librarian/Technology Coordinator, Albany Middle School, Livingston Parish, LA

PBIS that really supports

Transform tense moments into opportunities for growth with MirrorTalk on M2. Placing this powerful tool outside counselors’ or administrators’ offices works wonders for dysregulated students. It guides them through calming exercises and self-reflection, empowering them to process their emotions at their own pace and verbally reflect on their their experiences more productively. Watch as students shift from stressed to serene, ready to engage in constructive conversations. M2 isn’t just a device – it’s a game-changer for student well-being and conflict resolution.

M2 uniquely supports students from challenging home environments by providing a safe, structured space for conflict resolution. Through guided dialogue and calming exercises, it helps students who frequently experience behavioral issues develop essential communication skills and emotional regulation strategies before returning to class.

Rachel Tyson-Wiley | Teacher, City Of Chicago School District 299, IL

Amplify the power of instructional coaching

M2 is the ultimate ally for instructional coaches—because it’s every teacher’s ally too. This powerful tool streamlines teacher development, providing real-time feedback from pre-observation prep to post-lesson reflection. It captures every teachable moment, delivering instant insights and end-of-class summaries that help teachers understand and refine their practice.

With M2, teachers can reflect out loud, deepening their learning, while coaches gain invaluable insights into mindset, tone, and cognitive bias. Skip the recall—jump straight into meaningful, targeted discussions with every teacher that drive real growth.

M2 has completely changed how teachers engage with feedback. The moment they receive a meta-analysis with different strategies, they’re instantly thinking, ‘I can try that!’ The ‘Team Learning Summary’—our coaching strategy—has been a game-changer. Every time teachers see it, they get excited to implement new ideas. It’s not just improving their practice; it’s making them more receptive and fully bought into our coaching cycles.

Meagan Stass-Macdonald | Instructional Coach, Barrington School District 220, IL

Actually measure PD’s impact

Empower everyone with M2! Watch as it transforms post-PD moments into goldmines of insight. Teachers pour out their thoughts at the door, while facilitators instantly gauge their impact. It’s a win-win: educators feel valued, and PD becomes razor-sharp. With M2, every reflection sparks growth, turning feedback into fuel for educational excellence. Get ready to revolutionize professional development – one M2 at a time.

M2 has been an invaluable resource for our PD program: it’s a comprehensive coaching platform, facilitating anonymous PLC feedback, structured support cycles, and data-driven professional development planning.

Amarius Reed | Elementary Math Coordinator, Atlanta Public Schools, GA

Involve the whole community

Unleash M2’s magic at your next school event! From art shows to open houses, M2 captures honest feedback from parents and community members in a private, judgment-free zone and turns them into active participants. Watch as stakeholders dive deep into school initiatives, sharing thoughts that truly matter. Get ready for a avalanche of insights that’ll supercharge your community relationships. With M2, every event becomes a launchpad for meaningful connection and school improvement. Don’t just host events – ignite engagement!

The problem with feedback tools we’ve used in the past is that there is no accountability for the parent (usually a form we send digitally afterward) and then it takes a while for us to sift through the data and publish what we find. M2 is quick, painless, and enjoyable for parents and lets us instantly collect and disseminate the data we gather.

James Wilborn | Elementary Educational Technology Specialist, Atlanta Public Schools, GA

M2 is the intelligent co-teacher that helps teachers engage students better in class, deepen everyone’s thinking, and effortlessly enhance instruction with real-time feedback and automated insights. With all these ways (and more!) it could support your school, isn’t it time to let M2 do the heavy lifting? 

Watch me do even more tricks!

Schedule a live demo to learn more!

The post M2 is the intelligent co-teacher to help you reflect, instruct, and grow appeared first on Swivl.

This article pertains to the M2 device (hardware). Looking for an easy way to get started with MirrorTalk reflection activities that work on any device? Check out this article.

Get ready to meet your new classroom guide! M2 is an AI-powered device to revolutionize small-group learning. This clever all-in-one platform not only offers daily feedback and actionable advice for teachers, it is powered by MirrorTalk, software that automates the entire process with customized prompts and instant feedback for students and teachers. Packed with pre-built thinking activities, MirrorTalk unlocks peer-to-peer chatter, creativity, and teamwork while keeping classroom chaos at bay.

The data you’ll gather from MirrorTalk is a goldmine for student growth, providing educators with automatic insights into understanding, mindset, zones, and more. Say farewell to hours of planning and hello to effortless collaborative experiences from day one – MirrorTalk + M2 is about to become your go-to tool for small-group magic!

Here are 10 fun out-of-the-box activities to get your small group stations rolling! 

Get them talking

Activity: Presentation/Speech Practice

Students need strong presentation skills to thrive in today’s communication-driven world. Whether pitching ideas, defending their work, or simply expressing themselves clearly, the ability to present confidently and effectively opens doors in students’ futures.

Activity: Collaborative Storytelling

Students who become skilled storytellers develop a powerful tool for engaging audiences and conveying complex ideas in memorable ways. The art of storytelling not only enhances communication, but also fosters creativity, empathy, and the ability to connect with others on an emotional level – all valuable assets in school and throughout life.

Activity: Discussion Warm Up/Calentamiento de la discusión*

Increasing opportunities for communication between non-English speaking students and their native English-speaking peers promotes cultural exchange and mutual understanding. These interactions not only accelerate language acquisition for non-native speakers but broaden the worldview of native speakers, preparing both for success in our interconnected global society.

*available in Multiple Languages

Get them doing

Activity: Prototyping

Learning to prototype empowers students to transform abstract ideas into tangible solutions. Prototyping helps students develop critical thinking abilities, learn to iterate on their designs and gain valuable hands-on experience that bridges the gap between concept and reality.

Activity: Tallest Paper Tower

Learning to build things with their hands gives students a unique sense of accomplishment and helps develop practical problem-solving skills that can’t be gained from textbooks or personal devices. Hands-on experiences not only enhance spatial awareness and fine motor skills but also boost confidence, creativity, and the ability to think in three dimensions – all valuable assets for students to possess if they ever want to become engineers, architects, or designers.

Get them in the zone

Activity: Stress Transformer

Learning effective stress-coping techniques improves students’ mental health and enhances their academic performance and social relationships which helps them navigate life’s challenges even beyond the classroom. 

Activity: Brain Break

Brain breaks are essential for students to recharge and refocus, preventing mental fatigue and improving overall learning. These short, intentional pauses during the lesson allow the brain to process information, boost creativity, and enhance attention span, ultimately leading to better retention of material and more productive learning.

Let them have fun

Activity: Pictionary

Pictionary is a fun and engaging way for students to reinforce vocabulary while honing their artistic abilities. As students strive to convey words through quick sketches, they not only practice using and recognizing key terms but also develop their visual communication skills, creativity, and ability to express concepts through art – all while enjoying an interactive game with their classmates.

Activity: Number Hop

Getting kids on their feet to practice math skills transforms abstract concepts into physical, interactive experiences, making learning more engaging and memorable. This approach not only caters to kinesthetic learners but also increases overall student participation, boosts energy levels in the classroom, and helps children associate math with fun and movement – potentially reducing math anxiety and improving retention of mathematical concepts.

Activity: What is your favorite food/¿Cuál es tu comida favorita?*

Discussing favorite foods provides a relatable and enjoyable topic for non-English speaking students and their native English-speaking peers to connect, bridging cultural gaps and fostering genuine friendships. This culinary presentation not only enhances language skills for non-native speakers but also expands the cultural awareness of all students, creating a more inclusive classroom environment. 

*available in English and Spanish

The now for the best part

With MirrorTalk + M2, you’ve got a clever all-in-one platform that offers ready-made activities that foster lively student interaction, imaginative thinking, and collaborative efforts, while maintaining a structured learning environment. You can even copy our pre-made templates to get some inspiration for your own activities.

And perhaps the best part? While M2 keeps your small groups humming along, you’re free to move around the class, giving extra attention to students who need it most. When students are finished, you’ll get actionable insights on their work from their reflection and – perhaps most importantly – get to watch all of the fun they had!

See it in action!

Ready to turn your classroom into a collaborative maker-space?

Schedule a live demo with the Swivl team to learn more.

The post 10 small group activities that M2 offers, right out of the box appeared first on Swivl.

MirrorTalk makes it so easy for students to verbalize what they have actually learned and communicate how they feel about it.

Ashlyn Sutton | Park County School District #16

USE CASE

SEL and small group learning

Ashlyn Sutton

Teacher

School/District:

Meeteetse SchoolPark County School District #16

Grade Level 3-5

In rural Wyoming, Ashlyn Sutton is redefining education at Meeteetse School. Unlike their urban counterparts, rural schools like Meeteetse often struggle with limited resources, smaller staff, and the need for teachers to wear multiple hats. As a first-year math and science teacher for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, Ashlyn faces unique challenges. She juggles multiple curriculums and age groups and teaches in small, isolated community. She was also grappling with engaging her students in meaningful reflection and communication. Before MirrorTalk, finding efficient ways to meet all students’ needs was a constant struggle.

Taking rural students further with SEL

MirrorTalk motivated Ashlyn to embrace her challenges. She set a vision for her classroom that goes beyond traditional academic instruction. Ashlyn explains, “I tell my students it’s not just about knowing how to multiple, divide, and read passages, you also have to communicate, respect others, and work as a team. My goal is to teach them responsibility and soft skills they will need in life.” Her holistic approach is crucial in a rural setting, where students may have limited exposure to diverse perspectives before entering the real world.

MirrorTalk’s efficiency in guiding student reflections and providing immediate data on each student has been a game-changer in Ashlyn’s multi-grade class. “It’s been so easy for students to verbalize to MirrorTalk what they have actually learned and communicate how they feel about it,” she notes. And students love talking to MirrorTalk, which has transformed Ashlyn’s ability to foster deeper connections with them. “My goal has always been to get my kids comfortable enough to tell me, ‘Hey, I’m feeling this way because something happened at home, or I’m feeling this way, because of something in the lesson.’” When Ashlyn spoke with us she admitted, “students feel more comfortable talking to MirrorTalk than they do to me,” but these higher quality responses combined with MirrorTalk’s ability to rapidly analyze the students’ reflections have allowed her to gain deeper insights into their understanding, motivation, and mindset.

Even small class sizes need small group support

For new teachers – especially those supporting as many subjects and grades Ashlyn does – small group lesson planning can be an impossible task. The process is incredibly time-consuming for Ashlyn, and requires to prepare extensive, differentiated resources to cater to each of her student groups effectively and appropriately. Moreover, managing multiple small groups often led to classroom chaos, with some students disengaging or going off-task while Ashlyn’s attention was divided.

With M2, Ashlyn can create Workspaces for each subject and grade level in just two minutes. These step-by-step activity workflows allow Ashlyn to place M2 at different stations in her classroom to guide small group instruction. When students are finished with an activity, they reflect on their experience together, guided by prompts MirrorTalk automatically creates when the activity is set up. This not only saves valuable time and enhances classroom management, but increases Ashlyn’s autonomy to provide more targeted support to students who need it most.

From the automatic reflection prompts to facilitation of small group instruction, Ashlyn is leveraging MirrorTalk’s myriad capabilities to navigate her first year of teaching in a rural environment with confidence. For Meeteetse’s students, Ashlyn and MirrorTalk are nurturing them into well-rounded individuals who can thrive in any environment.

Learn more!

Ready to transform your reflective practice with our reflection station? Schedule a live demo with the Swivl team to learn more.

The post M2 brings small group and SEL support to rural classrooms appeared first on Swivl.