This article introduces the key benefits of integrating M2 with your Reflectivity program. M2 is an AI-powered platform that prioritizes teacher feedback, captures video evidence, and manages small groups. Available as hardware, mobile-app and web-software, it uses AI to measure learning via customized verbal reflection prompts. Durable, mobile, and uniquely sized, M2 is a versatile teaching assistant that promotes professional growth, innovative teaching practice, and peer collaboration.

Reflection helps you see more in your classroom 

Teachers often focus on superficial aspects when observing their classes, overlooking crucial elements like student comprehension gaps, patterns within repetitive student misbehavior or passive engagement. Regular reflection can help prioritize their insights and strengthen their metacognitive abilities. To address this:

1. Teachers regularly reflect by chatting with M2 sessions on lesson goals and activities. Here they can dig deeper, working through any discrepancies in what they think they heard and saw and what M2 observed.
2. Teachers record using M2 to capture 180-degree classroom views, track teacher movement, and collect isolated student audio, automatically exporting the video to Reflectivity.
3. In Reflectivity, teachers use time-stamped annotations to identify off-task behavior and bookmark moments of perceived understanding.
4. During the next chat with M2, teachers compare video insights with new realizations to draw conclusions about necessary adjustments they need to make.

This reflect-record-reflect cycle enhances teachers’ self-critique and problem-solving skills and fosters autonomy. This means they require less administrator intervention overall and build resilience when they receive formal observation feedback.

Reflection makes teachers more coachable

Studies demonstrate that systematic progress monitoring leads to twice the implementation rate of new teaching practices. By “systematic” we mean as often as daily, not quarterly or bi-annually. With M2+Reflectivity, it takes minimal effort and setup to make this a sustainable reality.

M2 delivers in-the-moment support to teachers daily by:
1. Actively observing the class and generating feedback to support instruction
2. Tailoring the feedback to teachers’ specific lessons and objectives
3. Aligning recommendations to the teachers’ goals for that day

And when formal observations are needed, M2 captures 180-degree classroom views, tracks teacher movement, and collects isolated student audio, resulting into a ready-to-review video on Reflectivity.

The synergy between M2 and Reflectivity can revolutionize and streamline the entire coaching cycle*. M2 is a powerful tool for daily feedback, allowing teachers to build self-awareness and get support when they need it. This process primes teachers to become more adaptable, flexible, and receptive during 1:1 conversations with their coaches. 

Reflectivity completes the cycle by facilitating rich, structured interactions between teachers and their coaches through the Discussions feature, inspiring their goals for their next cycle. This integrated approach, combining daily feedback with M2 and conversations within Reflectivity, creates sustainable and transformative video coaching programs.

*Using the Impact Cycle? So do many of our M2 users. Watch our webinar to learn what they’re learning and applying in their daily work to grow teachers.

Reflection builds trust

Building trust is fundamental to meaningful professional growth and is a cornerstone in M2 and Reflectivity. Teachers need protected spaces to develop their reflective practice before and after recording. M2 further reinforces the support cycle through several key features.

1. Teachers engage in private chats in M2 customized to agreed-upon objectives
2. With M2, coaches gain invaluable insights into reflective practice. It allows you to skip the recall and jump straight into meaningful, targeted discussions with every teacher that drive real growth.
3. In Reflectivity, teachers privately review observations videos first, using time-stamped annotations to document observations before choosing what to share with coaches
4. Both platforms enable gradual collaboration through selective sharing features, letting teachers open their practice to peers when confident.

This trust-centered design helps teachers build confidence naturally while maintaining ownership of their growth journey. Schools report that this approach leads to more meaningful collaboration as teachers share their practice from a position of readiness rather than requirement.

Reflection inspires teachers to pursue challenges

Providing teachers access to M2+Reflectivity empowers them to pursue more challenges in their own professional growth. A popular mechanism is through National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification, a multi-year process involving deep reflection on one’s planning process, incorporating videos from the classroom, and providing supportive student evidence.

1. With M2, teachers can record their classroom displaying an expansive view of both instruction and a collection of crisp audio of teacher and student discourse through Group Guides.
2. Teachers export their videos to Reflectivity to annotate for self-reflection.
3. Teachers share the video with peers on Reflectivity to facilitate discussions which helps them narrow down the perfect exemplar to attach to their NBPTS submission.
4. Next, teachers set up students to participate in project-based and hands-on activities using M2. 
5. With M2, teachers gather insights through voice-based assessments on student engagement and collect evidence of student learning to attach to their NBPTS submission

Reflection fortifies professional learning communities

Teachers spend an excessive amount of time during in-person and virtual PD workshops analyzing and discussing student assessment data. However, many organizations do not have formal data dialogue protocols to ensure these conversations stay aligned, structured, and impactful. 

When students reflect with M2, they gain a “whole-child” analysis automatically, significantly reducing the time it takes to gather data points from various student artifacts. M2’s AI provides insights on individual and whole class understanding and participation levels. Trends are easily identified in M2, giving teachers a head-start during PD time and a basis for ongoing discussions in Reflectivity long after the workshop ends.

Multi-layered reflection using M2 and Reflectivity is the key to organization-wide collaboration and self-sustaining professional development.

1. First, teachers reflect in M2 on their progress and pain points. 
2. Next, they incorporate student reflection data from M2 to discover learning gaps and developmental concerns.
3. Finally, using Reflectivity’s Topics feature, teachers share findings, identify commonalities, and create actionable game plans in the discussion threads that help everyone succeed.

M2 and Reflectivity were made for each other

The integration of M2+Reflectivity creates a powerful ecosystem for professional growth and collaboration in your organization.

By combining M2’s innovative hardware and AI-powered insights with Reflectivity’s robust collaborative platform, everyone in your organization gains access to a comprehensive toolkit that transforms the way they approach professional development.

As teachers become more self-aware, adaptable, and collaborative, the ultimate beneficiaries are the students, who reap the rewards of innovative, responsive teaching practices. And isn’t that the whole point? 

Pilot both

We’re offering a 90-day, commitment-free opportunity to pilot the whole system!

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

Karen Fox | Crow Creek Tribal School

USE CASE

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

Karen Fox

Instructional Coach

School/District:

Crow Creek Tribal School

Grade Level

Multiple grades across 21 teachers

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

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

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

A universal bridge for the faculty 

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

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

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

Creating your Reflectivity plan

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

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

Dr. Cynthia Carson | University of Rochester

USE CASE

Long-term data collection in higher education research

Dr. Cynthia Carson

Academic Program Coordinator

School/District:

University of Rochester

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

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

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

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

Privacy matters

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

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

Robust research support

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

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

Supporting research with Swivl

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

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

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

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In Reflectivity I made a group where we meet, discuss things together, and the teachers watch their video recordings together. Because we can do this asynchronously, I can scale my coaching.

Tammy Tucker | Randolph County Schools

USE CASE

Professional development coaching

Tammy Tucker

District Curriculum Specialist

School/District:

Randolph County Schools

Tammy Tucker is a professional development coach in West Virginia’s Randolph County Schools, and has been a Swivl user since 2019. She has coached up to 12 schools in her district with an average of 7 teachers in each school virtually and in-person. Reflectivity enhances her ability to support those teachers, motivate them, and create a network wherein they can support each other. “Reflectivity is how I communicate with the teachers I coach. I encourage them to use the video feature, conference with me, and communicate with each other.” This structure has created a supportive ecosystem each teacher can use for their professional development.

Tammy designed a schedule where her teachers could engage in weekly written reflections, supplementing their current monthly video reflections. This process, along with discussion between teachers and feedback from Tammy,supports Randolph County teacher development through holistic reflection. “In Reflectivity I made a group where we meet, discuss things together, and the teachers watch their video recordings together. Because we can do this asynchronously, I can scale my coaching.”

A better coaching system

As Tammy plans to retire from Randolph County Schools and begin private coaching through ELFPD, she plans to continue to use Reflectivity. The collaboration of the platform and the video functionality are staples for Tammy’s coaching process. In her upcoming role, she plans to onboard her teachers on Reflectivity for its features. “I can bookmark key points in the video and leave comments about which part of the video to watch. It makes it easier to show larger teams and find key points to share with school administration.”

One of her conditions of taking on private coaching after her retirement was that she could still onboard the schools she works with onto Reflectivity. “I told the organization about the work that I have been able to accomplish with Swivl Reflectivity and Robot, and that I feel like I can’t be as effective at my job without using Swivl solutions.” 

As a coach, Reflectivity has enabled Tammy to build support and community for her teachers while enabling the schools she works with to have more control over their professional development.

Creating your Reflectivity plan

Need support getting started with Reflectivity? A consultation with the Swivl team gives your school dedicated support that effectively achieves your objectives.

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