If you’ve been through the National Board process, or supported someone who has, you know the scope of the commitment. It’s an exhausting, rewarding marathon of recording lessons, rewatching them, and trying to self-assess against demanding rubric criteria.

For many teachers, the hardest part is the isolation. With Swivl’s M2, candidates gain a comprehensive preparation system that supports them through the messy middle of the process, building the awareness and skills needed to produce a high-scoring portfolio.

Phase 1: Building awareness through structured feedback

National Board commentaries ask candidates to narrate specific instructional decisions. Reconstructing these decisions from memory is a challenge, especially if a teacher is reflecting days or weeks after a lesson.

M2’s My Feedback breaks practice sessions into segments (opener, direct instruction, guided practice, etc.), providing a well-organized map of the lesson. This helps candidates pinpoint exactly when instructional goals were met or missed.

By providing far more structured feedback than teachers would typically get during a school year, M2 helps National Board candidates build their skill of metacognitive reflection, which transfers directly to their submission work.

Phase 2: Targeted self-assessment

The National Board is not only about good teaching; it is also about meeting specific, rigorous standards.

Using the Rubric Builder, candidates or coaches can create criteria modeled directly on National Board standards, such as differentiation or student engagement. Then, a teacher simply turns on M2 at the beginning of any class, and they’ll receive a detailed feedback report based on the National Board rubric criteria.

By self-assessing their practice and making instructional adjustments, candidates can see their scores trend upward over time. When candidates are then ready to record and submit their final submissions, they come to that experience with a sense of confidence built over weeks or months of deliberate practice.

Phase 3: Internalizing the reflective cycle

Reflective practice is the through-line of the entire National Board process. Chat with M2 offers a coaching-style conversation after practice sessions, drawing on transcripts to help candidates talk through their reasoning: Why did I shift strategies there? How would I justify this to an assessor?

M2 provides a unique opportunity for a teacher to have a detailed, evidence-based conversation with a voice that has knowledge of the lesson that was just taught. Furthermore, a teacher can have this experience every day, or even multiple times a day, when they are working with M2.

In early practice sessions, Live Tips act as a digital coach, offering classroom management tips, check-for-understanding suggestions and discussion questions in real-time.

Mid-lesson, a teacher can request a tip from M2, which is tailored to the precise context of the class being taught. The teacher can then implement this adjustment to their lesson and monitor the results. This builds the “muscle memory” for the reflect-adjust-teach loop required by the Board. By the time a candidate is ready for their final submission, these high-impact moves have become second nature.

Phase 4: The final submission

When a candidate has built the confidence and metacognitive skills to meet the standards, the M2 hardware transitions from a coach to a professional recording suite.

For final submissions, candidates can turn off the AI features and use the M2’s high-fidelity audio and tracking to capture the continuous, unedited video required by the Board. Because they have practiced with the same hardware for months, the camera becomes “invisible” to both the teacher and the students, resulting in a more authentic, natural classroom environment.

Preparation that compounds

The National Board process is designed to identify teachers who already practice at a high level. M2 doesn’t do the work for the candidate; it helps the candidate make their practice visible. By the time teachers hit “submit,” they aren’t just hoping for a high score. Instead, they have the data and the habits to know they’ve earned it.

The post Beyond the video submission: Why M2 is a system for National Board success appeared first on Swivl.

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.

What does a coaching model look like when you have five middle schools, a limited budget, high teacher turnover, and academic coaches and school administrators who can’t be everywhere at once? 

For Dr. Loralee Price, Instructional Technology and Data Integration Supervisor for Hawkins County School District in rural East Tennessee, finding the answer to this question was the district’s daily struggle.

Like many districts, Hawkins County has dedicated academic coaches and administrators who care deeply about teacher growth. But care and capacity are two concepts that sometimes fail to become compatible. Coaches split across schools could observe a teacher once or twice a month. Administrators walk through classrooms weekly. But by the time a meaningful debrief occurs, that lesson might be a distant memory. 

The district needed something that could close that gap: feedback that was immediate, specific, and available in every classroom, not just those a coach or administrator was able to visit.

The other challenge is one that many districts in the region are experiencing: constant turnover. A wave of newer educators has flocked to Hawkins County’s middle schools in recent years, many with limited classroom experience. For those teachers, the traditional model of professional development: periodic observations, scheduled debriefs, formal evaluations, rinse/repeat, can feel like too little, arriving too late.

Budget constraints compounded the issue. Hawkins County is a small, rural district where, as Dr. Price puts it, “funding is scarce.” Expanding professional development in any meaningful way meant finding a solution that could scale across five schools without requiring a proportional increase in cost or staffing.

When the district learned about M2, they scraped together what limited budget they could to invest in hardware. And upon learning about Swivl’s AI Innovation Grant in 2025, they applied for and won the remainder that they needed to realize their first full pilot year. With the assistance of grant funds, they were able to ensure that every middle school, every core and special education teacher, every coach and administrator, in the program from day one could be supported by M2. Here’s what they accomplished in that first year.

Noticing the unnoticed

The first thing teachers noticed was that M2 was paying attention to things that no one else was able to spend enough time to notice themselves. 

Sydney Allen, from Church Hill Middle School, moved to the far side of her classroom mid-lesson to check in quietly with a student who was struggling with material. It was the kind of moment that is often missed: too small for a formal observation, too easy to forget by the time a coach arrives. M2 picked up the conversation, provided some concrete next steps for the teacher in her post-session feedback, and bam! A situation that could have led to a student falling through the cracks was rescued by M2’s reminder. 

Wesley Thomas, of Rogersville Middle School, discovered something he hadn’t known about himself. “After reflecting on a lesson with M2 advised I use a timer for certain portions of class. I don’t think I would have realized this on my own.” A pacing problem, invisible to him, made visible by a single reflection with M2.

Shawn Swickheimer, in his second year at Church Hill Middle, found a different kind of value. By comparing lesson summaries and takeaways across class periods, he could see which class hadn’t fully grasped the material and adjust before teaching it again the next day.

Elizabeth Saxena at Church Hill Middle used M2 during a formal evaluation. M2’s scoring aligned closely with the formal evaluator’s score. For teachers like her who can feel anxious about formal observations, that reassurance can make all the difference to preparing for the real thing.

M2 in the classroom: Real examples

The impact wasn’t limited to teacher growth. In Jeffrey Klepper’s ELA classroom at Surgoinsville Middle School, students used Ask M2 to strengthen how they cited evidence from texts — a literacy skill that Klepper was actively building, with M2 reinforcing it in the moment students needed it. 

In Hannah Price’s science class at Church Hill Middle, students weren’t waiting to be called on. They were asking M2 questions on their own, driven by curiosity that the lesson had sparked. 

At Clinch School, Jessica Drinnon’s ELA students worked through small group discussions with M2 providing support alongside them.

Skepticism turned into a superpower

Before any of these gains could be realized, teachers had to trust the tool. That’s rarely a given, especially with technology that assesses instruction.

Heidi Hesoun at Surgoinsville Middle School was one such teacher whose trust M2 needed to earn. “When our district team introduced M2, I initially had a lot of reservations, but I gave it a chance, and I immediately found value in its feedback and instructional ideas. In fact, I look forward to bringing it to my class because I know it will give me inspiration that is actually relevant and helpful for what I am teaching that day. The best part is the instant feedback I can get after every lesson. I don’t have to wait to schedule a meeting for someone to observe me, it’s my own little ‘coach.’”

Heidi’s principal, Karen Bear, also noted the initial hesitation around the school. “Teachers in my building were initially skeptical due to various concerns about who might see the lesson; however, through consistent use and an understanding that all of their lesson data would remain private, they have come to embrace it as an everyday tool that enhances their instructional practice.”

Many teachers felt like Heidi at first, so during one of the district’s onsite trainings, Swivl’s professional development team ran an exercise called “What M2 is NOT Saying.” The goal: help teachers understand how to read M2’s feedback without getting stuck on the details and inevitably spiraling. For example, feedback from M2 that surfaces a pattern in someone’s pacing or questioning isn’t a verdict. It’s simply a data point to grow from. And the point was driven home: your lesson – your data – your privacy. You choose what and when to share. The exercise reframed what M2 observed from something evaluative into something useful.By the end of this crucial session, every teacher had created a personal goal tied to their own data and a concrete coaching plan for acting on it. The room that had walked in with questions walked out with direction.

What’s next for Hawkins

Dr. Price can attest that “by piloting this technology in our middle schools, we’ve moved from a model of occasional observations to a culture of continuous reflection and improvement.” Her vision for M2 extends beyond just a middle school pilot. 

What she has found most encouraging is how the ‘privacy-first’ design of M2 shifted teacher mindset from evaluation to empowerment. Dr. Price notes “our novice teachers, in particular, are using this non-biased feedback to master instructional skills in a low-stakes environment. As we look toward scaling—even amidst budget constraints—we are prioritizing our early-career educators. We aren’t just giving them a tool; we are giving them the autonomy to own their professional growth.”

For any district, rural or otherwise, where budget constraints are constant and capacity is finite, the value of a tool that’s present in every classroom cannot be understated. Catching the quiet conversation in the corner, surfacing a pacing problem the teacher didn’t know they had, helping someone see what’s working and what isn’t before another week passes. Without a constant companion to help teachers grow, these issues pile up, feedback falls through the cracks, and students ultimately suffer.

Teachers can’t see everything happening in their classrooms. Coaches can’t be everywhere all the time. Admins can’t be clairvoyant every day. But M2 can.

The post From grant to growth: How Hawkins County brought AI innovation to every middle school classroom appeared first on Swivl.

We built M2 with a feedback focus on engagement, questioning, and pacing. Why? Because insights in these three areas make a difference for every teacher we know. 

Many districts have also adopted their own high-quality instructional frameworks and initiatives. Turning those priorities into consistent, scalable classroom support, though, is challenging.

This is where M2 can help.

Introducing Rubric Builder

Rubric Builder is a new tool that lets administrators customize the criteria used in M2’s feedback during activities and in teacher reports afterward. With it, schools can add their own scoring criteria to sit alongside M2’s built-in Engagement, Pacing, and Questioning rubrics. 

Unlike traditional rubrics that live in documents or observation tools, these criteria shape what M2 looks for, responds to, and reports on during and after instruction every single day. This means the feedback teachers receive through M2 can now be fully aligned to district priorities, instructional frameworks, or coaching goals. Teachers get more meaningful insights, and administrators get consistency across classrooms.

Because initiatives shift and frameworks get updated, Rubric Builder supports the need for flexible instructional leadership. Admins can toggle custom criteria on or off at any time, and changes apply only to future activities, ensuring that all past feedback is preserved.

What does this all look like in practice? Here are three ways Rubric Builder can support your organization.

Align to teacher evaluation frameworks

Whether your district uses Danielson, Marzano, CLASS, or a local district models, M2 can now take on the same perspective as your organization’s coaches or administrators. After customizing your rubric, M2 will spot and comment on the detailed look-fors related to rigor, differentiation, classroom environment, or academic discourse that are part of your preferred approach to evaluating instruction.

For example, if your framework emphasizes academic language development, you can add a criterion like “Use of Academic Vocabulary.” When a teacher starts an activity, M2 scores and provides feedback using that criterion, and even appropriately mirrors the language used in your rubric.

Teachers get more frequent, more targeted insights, while administrators gain more consistent data. This moves the evaluation from a one-off event to a year-long support plan. 

Support instructional coaching programs

With large teacher rosters and staffing constraints, coaches can only visit a fraction of their teachers each month. Coaches can extend their impact when teachers use M2 weekly or even daily.

By bringing coaching criteria into Rubric Builder, districts can:

• Reinforce the same language coaches use
  
• Give teachers immediate feedback tied to the strategies they’re working on
  
• Support new teachers or teachers in new roles with higher-frequency feedback

Imagine a team focusing on improving questioning techniques. A coach can add a criterion like “Use of Higher-Order Questions” to the organization’s rubric. Each time a teacher uses M2, they receive a score and written feedback tied to that goal without waiting for the next coaching visit. This helps coaching criteria show up consistently in practice, not just during scheduled observations.

It’s a simple way to extend a coach’s impact across classrooms.

Advance district initiatives with consistent feedback

M2 is now your partner in championing district initiatives, ensuring that momentum stays high by massively increasing feedback teachers see on practical implementation of your organizations’ areas of focus. 

Because M2 provides feedback in real time, teachers receive many more touch points to reinforce the initiative each day instead of just on PD days.

Imagine rolling out an initiative knowing that teachers have not only heard about your organization’s new priority from leadership but will get daily reminders, feedback, and coaching about what that priority looks like in practice with every lesson they teach. That vision is now a reality.

This is especially valuable for new teachers or those adapting to new district priorities. M2 helps them know exactly what to look for and how to improve.

A more aligned future for instructional feedback

When teachers receive feedback aligned to their team’s goals, growth accelerates. Coaching conversations become clearer and are grounded in shared context. Expectations stay consistent even when you don’t have the chance to meet. Important initiatives have a greater chance of taking root for the long term.

By embedding rubric criteria directly into live observation and post-class feedback, M2 helps existing frameworks influence daily teaching at a scale that was never possible until now.

Rubric Builder brings alignment between organizational priorities and the daily rhythm of teaching. It’s another step toward a future where every classroom gets the support it deserves, and every teacher has a clearer path forward.

The post Turning district priorities into consistent classroom feedback: M2’s Rubric Builder appeared first on Swivl.

What is MTSS?  Why do districts struggle with it?

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is designed to be elegant in theory: a three-tier pyramid where Tier 1 provides strong universal instruction for all students, Tier 2 offers targeted interventions for students who need extra support, and Tier 3 delivers intensive, specialized services for those with the greatest needs.

But elegant theory doesn’t always translate to classroom reality.

Districts across the country have invested in MTSS frameworks. They’ve trained their staff, bought intervention materials, and hired interventionists. Yet many report the same frustration: inconsistent implementation across schools, staff stretched too thin to provide quality support, and data scattered across multiple systems—making it hard to know if the system is actually working.

The problem isn’t the framework itself. The problem is the logistics of making it work at scale.

Now, with M2, that’s changing.

The three barriers to MTSS success and the M2 solution

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) is designed to be elegant in theory: a three-tier pyramid where Tier 1 provides strong universal instruction for all students, Tier 2 offers targeted interventions for students who need extra support, and Tier 3 delivers intensive, specialized services for those with the greatest needs.

Barrier 1: Fidelity – The consistency challenge

You can’t improve what you can’t measure, and you can’t measure what isn’t consistent. A major implementation concern for many districts is the lack of uniformity in how MTSS is actually practiced.

What “Tier 1 instruction” looks like at Elementary School A might be completely different from Elementary School B. One teacher is checking for understanding every five minutes; another assumes all students are keeping up. One school has clear classroom routines; another is constantly managing behavior. This drift in practice means that students don’t experience consistent support—and your MTSS framework becomes more of an idea than a system.

How M2 solves it:

M2 standardizes the feedback loop by allowing you to upload your specific district frameworks—whether it’s Danielson, Marzano, or your own custom “Great Teaching” rubric—directly into the M2 Admin Dashboard. Now, every piece of feedback a teacher receives is aligned to your standards and your vision of excellent instruction.

When a teacher at School A and a teacher at School B both use M2, they’re not just getting generic coaching. They’re receiving feedback grounded in the same language, the same expectations, and the same district priorities. It’s not about robotically enforcing rules; it’s about creating a shared language of excellence. That consistency is the foundation of true MTSS fidelity.

Barrier 2: Capacity – The staffing and burnout crisis

Most districts have robust MTSS plans on paper. But executing them? That requires people—coaches, interventionists, specialists, and leaders who can observe, analyze, and support every teacher in the system.

In reality, instructional coaches are stretched impossibly thin. A coach might be responsible for 20, 30, or even 50 teachers. That means classroom observations happen once or twice a semester. Teachers get feedback weeks after a lesson. Critical gaps in professional development go unaddressed. And staff burnout skyrockets because educators feel unsupported and isolated.

This capacity crisis creates a vicious cycle: without consistent feedback, teachers don’t improve. Without teacher improvement, students don’t thrive. And Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventionists find themselves overwhelmed because Tier 1 instruction wasn’t strong enough in the first place.

How M2 solves it:

M2 acts as a force multiplier. By giving every teacher a private, AI-powered co-teacher that delivers immediate, non-evaluative feedback, you’re effectively extending your coaching team’s reach exponentially.

Consider what happened at Newnan High School in Georgia. Their instructional coaches found that M2 transformed their work. One coach said, “It’s almost like it clones me. I’m able to be in more places at once.” Instead of spending hours on observation logistics and writing notes, coaches could focus their expertise where it was most needed—on Tier 2 and Tier 3 support, knowing that Tier 1 instruction was being strengthened daily for every teacher.

Teachers also reported that M2 felt less threatening than a formal observation. It was private, focused on growth rather than evaluation, and available 24/7. This creates a culture of continuous improvement instead of occasional judgment—exactly what sustainable MTSS requires.

Barrier 3: Data – Moving from guesswork to action

MTSS is supposed to be data-driven. But for many districts, the data doesn’t actually drive anything.

Progress monitoring data is scattered across multiple platforms. Some metrics are subjective (notes from walkthroughs). Others arrive too late to matter (semester grades, end-of-year test scores). And collecting it all is incredibly labor-intensive, pulling teachers and coaches away from the work that actually moves the needle.

As a result, leaders make decisions based on incomplete information. They can’t pinpoint where professional development dollars should go. They miss the bright spots of excellence that should be celebrated and scaled. They can’t objectively measure whether their “checking for understanding” initiative is actually happening in classrooms—or if it’s slipping because teachers revert to old habits under stress.

How M2 solves it:

M2 provides objective, real-time data on what’s actually happening in classrooms. It captures engagement patterns, questioning depth, instructional pacing, and student talk time—without bias or subjectivity.

For district leaders, the dashboard offers a bird’s-eye view of these trends across all classrooms. You can see, objectively, whether the practices you’re prioritizing in professional development are taking root. You can track progress over time and identify which schools need more support. You can celebrate the teachers who are crushing it and learn from them.

This turns data monitoring from a compliance burden into a strategic asset. You know exactly where your resources should go. You have proof of what’s working. And you can adjust your MTSS approach in real time, not months later.

From framework to reality

Implementing MTSS with genuine fidelity is heavy lifting. It requires consistency, capacity, and clear data—three things that have historically been hard to achieve at scale.

But M2 changes what’s possible.

By ensuring every teacher receives feedback aligned to your district’s standards, by extending your coaching capacity without burning out your staff, and by providing objective data that informs every decision, M2 bridges the gap between the elegant MTSS framework on paper and the real, thriving support system that students and teachers actually experience.

That’s not just better MTSS. That’s MTSS that works.

The post The missing piece in your MTSS framework: How M2 closes the gap between theory and practice appeared first on Swivl.

M2’s purpose has always been simple: to support great teachers in the work they do every day. Since then, we’ve seen the same pattern in classrooms across the country: teachers are resourceful, dedicated, and creative. What they’re often missing is time. With so much to do, understanding which instructional moves are aligned with the research is something that can quickly fall by the wayside.

Administrators see it too. They know strong instruction depends on consistent structure and rigor. But most teachers don’t have a coach in the room to encourage the use of the most effective strategies. Many are teaching new subjects or grade levels with less training than they’d like. This is where the M2’s latest feature can help.

Introducing Whole Group Guides

Whole Group Guides let teachers launch structured, interactive learning activities for the entire class without any student devices or setup time required.

With a few taps, and a chance to share the day’s objective, M2 gets to work. Whole Group Guides include clear verbal directions that lead students through a learning experience aligned with both the lesson of the day and sound pedagogy. As M2 shares directions out loud, the teacher stays in full control, advancing the activity with just a quick tap. 

Here’s how a Whole Group Guide might look in an elementary Math class: 

The teacher walks up to M2 and taps to request a Guide. She says, “I want my students to practice adding fractions with unlike denominators.” That’s the only prep required. 

Seconds later, M2’s voice grabs student attention by introducing the activity. Today, we’ll practice adding fractions by finding the least common denominator. You’ll need a pencil and paper. Let’s get started! 

From there, M2 guides students through a few questions and problems aligned with the objective. Today, M2 notices that students can benefit from interleaving, or mixing several problem types together to build flexible thinking. 

After each step, students turn to a partner to discuss their thinking. The teacher is free to walk the room, checking in with students, coaching, answering questions, or pulling students aside who need some extra help.

When the Guide ends, the teacher smoothly transitions back to the front and decides to review one problem that sparked extra discussion.

What makes Whole Group Guides different?

• No participant setup. Every student is included without extra steps.
• Teacher-controlled pace. M2 provides the directions, but teachers shape the timing.
• Designed for real classrooms. Activities include individual work, turn-and-talks, and whole-class moments to keep everyone engaged.
• More access to the teacher. With M2 managing the flow, teachers can spend more time giving feedback instead of handling logistics.

For administrators seeking stronger instructional consistency across classrooms, Whole Group Guides model well-structured learning in real time. Teachers participate in the experience alongside their students, gaining a feel for the strategy as it unfolds.

Three forms of Whole Group Guides: Practice, projects, and something new

Practice Guides

Students work individually through repetitions of a skill, often pausing to check thinking with a partner or discuss as a class. Useful for reinforcing learning without relying on worksheets.

Project Guides

Collaborative activities where the entire class moves into small groups at once — helpful for hands-on work, labs, shared problem-solving, or building something together. And then there’s the newest option:

Instructional Strategies: research-backed teaching, available in the moment

We heard the same theme from teachers and administrators again and again: they value strategies like Retrieval Practice or Elaboration, but during a lesson, it can be hard to launch them with clear steps and language. Instructional Strategies help with that challenge. When teachers select Instructional Strategy, M2 looks at the lesson objective and materials, then generates a Whole Group Guide built around a proven learning approach. These strategies draw from the work of researchers like Robert Marzano, John Hattie, and decades of cognitive science:

• Retrieval Practice to strengthen memory
  
• Elaboration to deepen understanding
  
• Dual Coding to connect visuals and ideas
  
• Concrete → Abstract to build conceptual thinking
  
• Interleaving to support flexible problem solving

M2 provides the structure and directions. The teacher brings the expertise, judgment, and support that only a person can provide. For administrators, this means teachers at all levels of experience can model strong instructional practices throughout a lesson. For teachers, it feels like having a prepared partner who can help launch a strategy right when the moment calls for it.

A sustainable way to make every lesson great

Whole Group Guides give teachers more freedom to focus on students. By removing setup, simplifying structure, and offering research-backed steps in real time, M2 helps teachers stay present with their students: circulating, giving feedback, listening in on conversations, pulling small groups, and offering the kinds of support no device can replace. It’s a vision of the classroom where great teaching becomes achievable across the school day because the scaffolding is already built into the experience.

Talk with us: Let’s discuss how M2 can support your goals and explore options to demo, pilot, or purchase.

See it in action: Join one of our upcoming 15-minute webinars to experience M2 firsthand and hear stories from educators already co-teaching with it.

Share your story: We want your voice in the conversation. What makes differentiation sustainable in your school? How are you moving beyond screen dependence? Share your insights with us at community@swivl.com.

The post Whole Group Guides: A new way to move the whole class forward appeared first on Swivl.

Validation from a veteran coach

Leanne NeSmith, an Instructional Technology Specialist at GA Coastal Plains RESA, has witnessed the incredible evolution of educational technology for 36 years—from implementing gradebook programs loaded onto 5 ¼ inch floppy disks all the way to powering modern classrooms with AI-infused technologies, she’s seen it all.

She supports teachers across 12 school districts in rural Georgia and is always looking for ways to leverage her tech stack to help teachers reach their maximum potential. But like so many instructional coaches around the country, Leanne is also witnessing something troubling.

“Teachers feel incredibly stressed. They feel unprepared for what they’re facing in education today,” Leanne explains. “They’re so overwhelmed by all the non-teaching responsibilities they have, they fail to become the great teachers I know they can be and struggle to keep students engaged.”

The statistics tell a sobering story. Across Georgia, teachers are leaving at alarming rates, particularly in at-risk schools like the ones in the Coastal Plains region. Many educators are entering through alternative certification routes without proper preparation.

Many of these districts don’t employ enough instructional coaches. And those employed are responsible for supporting 60 to 80 teachers while juggling supplemental campus-based responsibilities like bus duty, parent pickup, and administrative meetings.

“Sometimes, I find that the critical piece that is left out of an instructional coach’s job is simply to be the instructional coach,” Leanne reflects.

When support is stretched too thin, newer teaching populations often fall through the cracks first. Many new teachers are afraid to ask for help, worried that admitting their shortcomings could put targets on their backs. So they close their classroom doors and face their challenges alone.

Validation from a master teacher

Enter Kathryn Bailey, a high school English teacher Leanne supports in Lanier County Schools. She’s a master teacher who previously served as an academic coach and knows her curriculum inside and out. But even master teachers like Kathryn exist in this education landscape with daily uncertainties. She wonders: Am I reaching every student? Could I be asking better questions? Am I managing my classroom as effectively as I could be?

When Leanne brought M2 into Kathryn’s classroom, the stakes were clear—any tool claiming to provide teaching feedback and boast student engagement needed to prove its worth immediately. If it couldn’t support someone like Kathryn, it had no business aiding a new teacher.

Neither Leanne nor Kathryn knew exactly what to expect. Would this AI co-teacher understand the nuanced discussions about literary themes? Could it follow the complex dynamics of a veteran teacher managing both honors classes and difficult behavioral situations?

From the first lesson, M2 proved it belonged. As Kathryn guided her students through a comparative analysis of Animal Farm and Frankenstein, M2 quietly observed, analyzing not just her delivery of content, but her questioning techniques, student engagement strategies, and classroom management approaches.

“M2 was 100% correctly following her lesson and understanding what was going on,” Leanne recalls. “I was in the back monitoring the feedback as it rolled in live on M2 and it was spot on.”

The validation was immediate and powerful. M2 would suggest advice like, “That’s a great idea, now ask students a question about____.” And in the front of the room, without even looking at M2, Kathryn would ask that exact question.

“It just gave me chills to see that here’s this AI device mirroring the exact questions that a master teacher is naturally asking,” Leanne explains. “That’s when I realized: this thing is for real.”

Validation for engagement, not evaluation

Beyond delivering stellar feedback, Leanne also wanted to ensure that new teachers felt like they had a partner in class to keep energy high when they’re feeling like the content might fall flat. While working within the Animal Farm and Frankenstein unit, Kathryn discovered another unexpected use for M2 that made engagement soar. After students completed their essays, she simply asked M2 to respond out loud to the same prompt.

“She told students that if they included some of M2’s key points in their own response, they would receive a top score,” Leanne observed. “The students were immediately excited to hear an exemplar to gauge their own responses by.” By modeling out loud, M2 gave them a platform to self-assess their thinking and provided them with a big confidence boost on the spot.

And the best part? M2 integrated itself naturally within the classroom ecosystem. “By the end of the day, she was interacting with M2 and having students ask questions as well,” Leanne recalls. 

Students were curious by it, but not distracted. The technology, enhanced-rather than interrupted-the flow of class. It’s exactly the kind of technology that Leanne hunts to share with teachers.

Validating teachers’ struggles and breaking the cycle of isolation

For too long, teachers have faced a painful paradox: they need support to improve, but they’re afraid to ask for it. They close their classroom doors each day and struggle alone, worried that admitting challenges might threaten their job security.

M2 breaks this cycle by providing private, non-judgmental feedback that pin-points every ounce of good teaching while offering specific, actionable suggestions for improvement. It’s the trusted colleague every teacher wishes they had—always present, always supportive, never evaluative.

“This is the real deal,” Leanne reflects. “It’s asking and following very high-level content and able to understand many different components of a classroom, giving what an administrator and career teacher would say is very good advice.”

Wherever you are, M2 is ready

For the countless new teachers entering classrooms, feeling unprepared and overwhelmed, M2 offers the immediate support they need. For veteran teachers like Kathryn, it provides validation and refinement opportunities that can elevate already strong practice.

For Leanne and coaches like her across the country, M2 represents the solution to an impossible equation: how to support every teacher when resources are stretched beyond limits.

The post The ultimate validation: how M2 earned the trust of a master teacher appeared first on Swivl.

There’s a coaching truth we rarely say out loud: time is tight.

As instructional coaches, our days fill with observations, debriefs, hallway check-ins, data meetings, and emails (so many emails). There’s hardly a moment to pause, let alone reflect.

And yet… reflection is where the real growth happens.

That’s the challenge: How do we create space for teachers to think, process, and grow — when we barely have space ourselves?

That’s where tools like M2 from Swivl change the game.

M2 buys you back time – and makes it count

We can’t always be in the room when the magic (or the mess) happens.
But M2 can.

M2 quietly collects daily, bite-sized feedback on key teaching practices, such as engagement, questioning, and pacing, without requiring a full sit-down or formal observation.  It does this without requiring a full sit-down or formal observation. Think of it as an extra set of eyes, offering teachers honest, data-backed snapshots they can review on their own time.

• No more waiting for a debrief to process.
• No more coaches scrambling to remember everything.

M2 holds the data, reflects it, and gives it back—clearly, without bias or pressure.

That’s a gift — for them and us.

Reflection needs breathing room

When teachers have time to reflect on their own first, something shifts:

• They stop searching for the “right” answer.
• They start asking their own thoughtful questions.
• They begin to lead their own growth.

That’s not a small thing; that’s exactly the point. Instructional coaching isn’t just about what you say. It’s about the space you deliberately create for teachers to think differently about what they do.

And sometimes, that space isn’t in a scheduled meeting, it’s in quiet moments, reviewing yesterday’s data and wondering, “What’s one small shift I can make tomorrow?”

Coaching moves: give them the pause first

Want to help teachers grow without filling every second with strategy? Start with these:

• Point to the data. M2 gives you a shared starting place. Ask: “What stands out to you?”
• Use M2’s Reflect feature. Invite teachers to jot their thoughts before you meet, so your coaching builds from their insights.
• Schedule the pause. Leave a day between a lesson and a debrief. That space helps teachers think, and gives you time to plan a meaningful conversation.
• Shift your opening line. Instead of, “Let’s talk about what worked,” try, “What’s one thing you’d try again?”

This isn’t about doing less; it’s about coaching smarter, with intention, space, and clarity.

Final thoughts: time is the new superpower

You’re busy. They’re busy.
But growth doesn’t wait for everything to be perfect.

With M2, we don’t have to choose between depth and efficiency.
You get both.

We get more time to coach well — not rushed, not reactive, but rooted in real moments.

And teachers get more space to reflect — not just to do better, but to think better.

So take the pause. Make the space.
Let teachers learn on their own — and trust that M2 has your back while they do.

You don’t need to be in every room.
You just need the right tools — and the courage to let learning unfold.

The post The power of pause – letting teachers learn on their own appeared first on Swivl.

Let’s get real for a second.

Instructional coaching isn’t about knowing it all. It’s not about walking into a classroom with a clipboard and a multi-point plan. And it’s definitely not about running the show while the teacher watches from the sidelines.

But let’s be honest: sometimes it’s hard to let go of control.

You want to help. You want to support. You want to make sure things go well. And in that effort, it’s easy to start steering the ship a little too tightly by overplanning conversations, rescuing mid-lesson, or filling every silence with advice. 

But here’s the truth:
Growth doesn’t happen when we do the work for them.
It happens when we create space for teachers to explore, reflect, and try again, even if it means letting them wobble a bit along the way.

Let’s name it: feedback feels risky

We ask teachers to be vulnerable. To reflect. To grow.
But here’s what that really means for them:

They’re being asked to look at something they thought was going well… and consider that it might not be.

That’s hard.

Because when a teacher is putting their full heart, energy, and intention into their practice, and the feedback suggests something still isn’t landing, it can feel like a punch to the gut. Like, “If I’m doing my best and it’s still not enough, then what?”

That’s where fear creeps in.
And that’s why our coaching presence matters.

Coaching isn’t about control – it’s about trust

The most impactful coaches don’t walk in with the answers. They walk in with questions. They’re not directing every step; they’re noticing, nudging, and making room for discovery.

When we release control, we’re not abandoning teachers. We’re honoring their capacity to lead their own growth.

Because the goal of coaching isn’t to impress. It’s to empower.

Why letting go feels hard (but matters so much)

Letting go feels risky.
You think: What if they don’t notice what I noticed? What if they don’t change? What if the lesson tanks?

But what if we flipped that thinking?

What if the moment things don’t go perfectly is the moment learning actually begins?

Teachers don’t grow from perfectly executed suggestions.
They grow from insight, from reflection, from the sometimes-messy process of figuring things out for themselves.

Your coaching moves: from control to curiosity

So how do we do this in practice? How do we shift from leading the charge to walking alongside?

Here’s what it looks like:

• Ask before you advise. Try: “What do you think your students needed more of in that moment?”
• Embrace the silence. Don’t rush to fill the space. Let reflection breathe.
• Use data, not direction. M2 feedback gives you a shared snapshot to start with. Let the data guide your conversation about next steps.
• Notice your instincts. That moment you really want to jump in? Pause. Let them process first.

This isn’t passive. This is powerful. Because the moment a teacher starts asking their own questions? That’s when the real coaching begins.

Final thoughts: growth needs room to breathe

The teachers we coach don’t need us to carry them.
They need us to walk beside them while they build confidence, capacity, and clarity.

Letting go isn’t losing impact — it’s multiplying it.

So the next time you feel the pull to take over or over-guide, remember this:

• You’re not here to drive.
• You’re here to co-pilot.
• To reflect. To support. To make space for growth.

Trust the process.
Trust the teacher.
And trust yourself: you’re doing the work that lets real change take root.

Stay curious. Stay grounded. And let them grow.

The post Trust the process – letting go of control in coaching appeared first on Swivl.

Feedback can feel like a gut punch. It’s scary, personal, and sometimes uncomfortable. But if you want to grow as an educator, you need more than bravery.

You need clarity.

That’s why daily, evidence-based feedback is essential. And where M2 comes in.

Real growth doesn’t happen in isolated snapshots. It happens in the daily hustle, in those real teaching moments, when you have clear, practical insights into what’s working… and what might need change.

Welcome to bravery with a blueprint

Being courageous doesn’t mean guessing. It means taking the next step with purpose, informed by real data—not hunches or isolated observations.

M2 is your low-key, data-loving sidekick, helping you reflect and move forward one step at a time.

Why evidence-based feedback changes the game 

Researchers like John Hattie and Robert Marzano have studied what really helps students learn, and the answer is clear:
Feedback is one of the top drivers of student growth—if it’s clear, specific, and focused on real classroom practice.

• Marzano’s research shows that feedback on actual teaching moves can power up what students achieve.
• Hattie’s work proves you get the most out of feedback when you can make timely, real-world adjustments—supported by regular tips and encouragement, not just big, rare evaluations.

Meet M2 feedback: your daily teaching GPS

M2 isn’t about judging you on a single lesson or performance. Instead, it provides fast evidence-based feedback on core teaching moves like:

• Engagement: Are your students involved and responding during lessons?
• Questioning: Are your prompts pushing them to think deeply, not just recall facts?
• Pacing: Does your class move at the right speed for real learning—not rushed, not dragging?
  

Every school and teacher has unique priorities, so M2 is designed to focus on what matters most to you and your community.. Administrators and teams can tailor the feedback focus to reflect the skills that matter most in their context — making it both meaningful and actionable.

And those M2 scores? They’re not grades.
They’re just honest snapshots to help you adjust, reflect, and grow at your own pace.

Growth happens in small steps

No one grows by taking giant leaps every day.
Real progress comes from steady, practical changes, built on real feedback.

With daily, evidence-based feedback, you can:

• Make small, timely shifts before habits get “stuck”
• Focus on what will make the biggest difference for your teaching
• See your own confidence build, lesson by lesson, as you track your steady progress

What the research says

• Marzano: Teachers who use specific, frequent feedback see students thrive.
• Hattie: The greatest growth happens when teachers act on feedback—reflecting and adjusting, not just receiving.

Final thoughts: feedback is just the beginning

Here’s the truth again: teaching is tough. Feedback is personal. Growth takes courage. 

But you’re not in this alone.

With M2, feedback isn’t something to fear—it’s a daily nudge toward clarity, progress, and meaningful change.

You don’t have to get it all perfect.
Just keep showing up, keep reflecting, and keep working for your students—one smart adjustment, one brave step at a time.

And remember: the best growth happens when you team up with fellow teachers, coaches, or mentors who support you.
M2 gives you the data. Trusted colleagues help you dig deeper and bring that feedback to life—on your terms.

So the next time you get feedback, don’t flinch.

 Face it. Use it. Grow from it. Together.

You’ve got the clarity. You’ve got the support. You’ve got the tools.
Now grow with purpose. You’ve got this.

The post Turning M2 feedback into your growth gameplan appeared first on Swivl.