Picture a student teacher the morning of their first formal observation. They’ve prepared for days. The formal observations feels high stakes because in a sense it is: observations are rare. Not because anyone has failed them, but because the math of field placement supervision makes frequent feedback hard to deliver.

A university supervisor managing a full roster of student teachers across a dozen school sites, balancing their own teaching load, can often realistically visit each candidate two to three times a semester. 

Between those visits, student teachers do get support, but it comes with real limits:

• Mentor teachers are present and often helpful, but their feedback reflects a teacher working within one building’s context, not necessarily the frameworks a preparation program is building toward
• Cohort meetings and seminar discussions give candidates space to process, but the feedback is secondhand. No one else was in the room.

What if that gap didn’t have to define the experience? How could student teachers receive specific, framework-aligned feedback after every session? Could supervisors arrive at observations with a semester’s worth of data, rather than reconstructing a narrative from two visits?

Fortunately, there’s a way to augment the traditional model to make this all possible.

The problem with episodic observation

When a student teacher knows they’ll be formally observed once or twice this semester, that session carries weight. They prepare differently, perform. receive feedback that reflects a curated version of their practice, not necessarily the daily reality of their work.

Practically speaking, issues that surface in week three of a placement may not get identified until a supervisor visits weeks later. By then, the teacher candidate may calcify certain patterns that are causing persistent issues in classroom management, instructional planning, or elsewhere. All the while, a small course correction could have prevented the larger issue from emerging. The model also asks supervisors to draw broad conclusions from a narrow slice of evidence: two observations, however carefully conducted, are snapshots, not a portrait.

While issues with infrequent feedback are logically clear, the benefits of frequent feedback are research-backed.

• John Hattie’s Visible Learning synthesis puts feedback at an effect size of 0.70, among the highest-impact interventions identified across decades of educational research. 
• Wilcoxen and Lemke reached a similar finding: ongoing, process-focused feedback raises performance in ways that summative evaluation simply cannot.
• Schaefer and Clandinin found that regular observations with constructive feedback were highly valued by beginning teachers
• Garcia and Weiss reported that the highest-performing education systems in the world provide feedback as part of the regular experience of teaching.

A key theme in this body of research is regular and ongoing. Feedback works when it’s frequent, specific, and connected to real practice.

For student teachers, the implication is direct: a placement evaluated through two observations is, by design, a low-feedback environment, which is less conducive to growth.

What three to four months of M2 looks like instead

M2 gives student teachers something the traditional model doesn’t: a feedback loop that runs alongside their practice rather than interrupting it once or twice a semester.

When student teachers use M2 weekly, they receive AI-powered feedback after every session on:

• Questioning techniques
• Participation patterns
• Instructional pacing
• Classroom dynamics

They start identifying their own tendencies before a supervisor ever needs to name them. Early in a placement, when there’s the most room for improvement, that kind of immediate, low-stakes reflection has an outsized impact.

A typical M2 feedback session might surface something like:

*”Students responded well to your opening question, but whole-class participation dropped during the independent work phase. Consider building in a structured think-pair-share before returning to whole-group discussion.”**

That’s the kind of specific, actionable language student teachers can act on immediately. It also maps directly onto the competencies supervisors are already evaluating. M2 feedback aligns to standard teacher preparation frameworks like Danielson and Marzano, connecting AI insights to the rubrics programs are already using.

M2 doesn’t replace formal observations or human judgment. What it gives supervisors is a richer evidence base: a complete arc of real sessions, real classrooms, real decisions, not two curated clips. When coaching conversations are grounded in session-by-session data rather than one visit from three weeks ago, they become more specific, more productive, and more useful to the student teacher sitting across the table. Dr. Natalie Bolton’s experience shows what this looks like in practice.

The habit that carries forward

The question a pre-service program has to answer is clear: do our teachers leave with the skills needed to teach today, and the mindset to get better tomorrow?

Teaching rewards people who treat their practice as something worth examining. The teachers who grow most consistently over a career are those who stayed genuinely curious about their own work. That disposition is easiest to form at the very beginning, before other habits are established. 

The structure of a field placement helps to shape it. When student teachers receive feedback weekly, they internalize a simple but durable lesson: looking closely at their practice is a normal part of the job. When formal observations are the only occasion for feedback, they internalize that evaluation is rare, high-stakes, and something to prepare for rather than learn from. Whichever lesson they carry out of a placement, they’re more likely to carry forward.

A semester of weekly M2 sessions is a semester spent building that habit. The argument for continuous feedback goes beyond this semester. It’s a foundation for everything that comes after.

The post Why 1-2 observations aren’t enough: The case for continuous feedback in pre-service teacher training appeared first on Swivl.

At Swivl, we take this seriously. This post explains what we’ve done to ensure M2 scores like a trained human evaluator, and how we continue to monitor and refine that accuracy over time.

M2’s Custom Rubrics

M2 provides organizations a way to define the instructional criteria that matter most to their team. Through M2’s custom rubrics feature, organizational leaders can specify performance indicators and scoring criteria that reflect their values and expectations. 

After each lesson, M2 evaluates the teaching activity against those rubrics and returns a score on a 1–4 scale, along with feedback explaining the score, highlighting strengths, and identifying areas for growth.

The promise of this feature is powerful: frequent, consistent, criteria-aligned feedback at scale, without walk-throughs or high-pressure observations. But that promise only holds if the scores are accurate.

The problem we set out to solve

Early in M2’s development, we identified a scoring distribution challenge: the system was returning scores that clustered in the middle of the scale, producing mostly 2s and 3s regardless of actual instructional quality. This is a common challenge when building AI scoring systems. The model hedges rather than discriminates, and the result is feedback that feels generic and uninformative.

We needed M2 to produce a score distribution that looked like what trained evaluators produce, which is an appropriate 1–4 spread that reflects genuine differences in instructional performance.

How we calibrated M2 against expert evaluators

To address this, we built an evaluation dataset using classroom observation videos that had already been scored by highly trained human evaluators. These were not casual reviewers, but evaluators with deep familiarity with professional teaching rubrics and established inter-rater reliability.

We then ran M2 against those same videos and compared the output.

The gap between the two distributions was clear. Our human evaluators produced the kind of spread you’d expect from a well-calibrated rubric: a meaningful range of 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s. M2’s initial output clustered near the middle.

From there, we went through an iterative calibration process: adjusting how M2 analyzes transcripts, restructuring the way rubric criteria are applied, and refining the scoring methodology at each step. Each iteration was tested against the same evaluation dataset and compared to the human baseline.

One key improvement came from how we structured M2’s rubric evaluation process. Rather than evaluating a lesson holistically, we introduced a more structured, criterion-by-criterion approach. Essentially, we gave M2 a more disciplined framework for applying each rubric dimension, similar to how a trained observer would work through an evaluation instrument item by item.

We also differentiated M2’s feedback language by score level. A score of 1 now more clearly focuses on what was missing and what the teacher can do differently. A score of 4 now emphasizes what went well and why it was effective. This mirrors how skilled coaches communicate; the message you deliver to a struggling teacher is structurally different from the message you deliver to a strong one.

After calibration, M2’s score distributions align closely with those of our human evaluators. The gap narrowed substantially, and M2 now produces the range and differentiation that makes feedback actionable.

What the remaining differences tell us

The goal of this calibration was less about achieving a perfect match, and more about understanding where differences exist and why. There are cases where M2 and human evaluators diverge, and those cases are instructive.

Most remaining differences occur at the boundaries of rubric descriptors: situations where a teaching performance sits between a 2 and a 3, for example, and reasonable evaluators could score it either way. This is not a failure of the AI. Instead, it reflects the same ambiguity that human evaluators navigate. 

In fact, inter-rater reliability among trained human evaluators on rubric items like these is rarely 100%, and M2’s agreement rate with our evaluators compares favorably to the agreement rate between two independent human scorers on the same material. 

For now, one unique capability of human evaluators is eyesight. M2 currently relies on class transcripts for the analysis that leads to scores and feedback. However, we are investigating the safe, privacy-centric approach to bringing visual evaluation capabilities to M2 in upcoming releases.

Understanding boundary cases and the work process of AI vs. humans helps us continue to define clear paths for improvement.

Ongoing monitoring and refinement

Calibration is not a one-time event. As M2 is deployed across diverse classrooms, grade levels, and instructional contexts, we continue to monitor scoring accuracy and precision.

We define accuracy as how closely M2’s scores align with a trained human evaluator. We define precision as how consistent M2’s scoring is across similar lessons. In other words, whether it gives comparable scores when evaluating comparable teaching. Both accuracy and precision matter.

Our team runs ongoing comparisons between M2 output and human-evaluated samples, identifying drift and opportunities to improve. When we find systematic gaps, we refine our approach and re-validate. This continuous loop is what allows M2’s scoring to remain trustworthy over time, not just at the point of initial release.

The result: consistent, trustworthy feedback

When an organization deploys M2 with custom rubrics, they are not getting a black-box AI generating arbitrary scores. They are getting a scoring system that has been explicitly calibrated to match how trained evaluators apply rubric criteria — and that is continuously monitored to stay that way.

This is what makes M2’s frequent feedback valuable. Not just that teachers receive more of it, but that the feedback they receive is grounded in the same framework a skilled evaluator would apply. The score of 3 a teacher receives on Monday should mean the same thing as the score of 3 they receive two weeks later, because M2 applies its criteria consistently.

When teachers and leaders can trust the scores, they can use them. Coaching conversations become more specific. Professional development becomes more targeted. And leaders gain a reliable, ongoing view of where their organization is performing and where it needs to grow — without the cost and inconsistency of traditional evaluation systems.

M2’s AI rubric scoring is built to earn that trust. And we’ve done the work to prove it.

The post How M2’s AI rubric scoring aligns with expert human evaluators appeared first on Swivl.

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!

The post M2 and Reflectivity belong together. Here are five reasons why. appeared first on Swivl.

Though many schools have returned to a semblance of “normal” activity since the pandemic, teacher retention has become a critical issue facing schools nationwide. With increasing rates of burnout, lack of support, unrealistic expectations, educators are still leaving the profession at alarming rates.

In this article, we will explore the root causes behind teacher attrition and how MirrorTalk, an AI tool that helps teachers (and their students) build reflective routines, can remediate these experiences and help educators rediscover their passion for education.

Why do teachers quit?

Burnout is an extreme result of chronic stress that causes depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Teachers experience this more than any other profession in the US.

Teachers who endured the COVID-19 pandemic witnessed the most significant upheaval to their work-life balance than at any other time in their careers.

Overnight they became technology experts, quasi-school counselors for emotionally dysregulated students, struggled to balance work and home lives teaching remotely, and threw themselves even more into their work because of their devotion to students’ success. 

Teachers, like healthcare and frontline workers, are naturally pre-disposed to put their students’ oxygen masks on before their own. So too often, they burnout. Hard.

Educators have begun to feel increasingly isolated, neglected, and unsupported due to myriad factors that have been exacerbated since the pandemic. While they once relished being considered experts in their field, more and more teachers report feeling undervalued by administrators, parents, and students. 

The ending of pandemic-era-related federal funding and budget cuts are hurting everyone and everything in education, but the shortages of key personnel such as mental health counselors, paraprofessionals, and coaches affect teachers worse than anyone else.

Without adequate support personnel, teachers increasingly must manage dysregulated students who disrupt their learning environment while keeping up with their increasing workload (see the next section). Worse, some administrators turn a blind eye and only step in after repeated or escalated events occur involving the same students.

Community is so important in education because teachers need a strong support network to help navigate the complexities of their profession, but there is simply not enough time built into a teacher’s already hectic schedule to seek regular support from their peers. And the once-in-a-while networking that happens only during school or district PD is not frequent enough to help struggling teachers connect, collaborate, and grow, despite these events’ promises to deliver on all of these things and more.

Without proper resources and support, dedicated educators inevitably say ‘enough is enough’ and seek alternative career paths.

The nationwide obsession with K12 testing means teachers are constantly under pressure to help their students achieve higher scores year over year.

This is a hefty challenge of its own, but it’s not the only pressure teachers are under. Teachers must also execute differentiated instruction based on student data and native languages, manage IEPs, support behavioral intervention plans, attend department meetings and PD, communicate often with parents, and guide extracurricular programs. 

And while many teachers are often glad to put in extra hours to help students succeed, the endless workload that comes with being an educator means teachers often have virtually no work-life balance. Teachers have kids of their own, get master’s degrees at night school, and trot around the country attending conferences to further their professional development, often on their dime. 

Combine this with burnout and feeling unsupported in their work, even the most seasoned teachers can feel like it’s hard to keep their heads above water.

Reflection is not just another tool

We’ve all heard the collective groan of teachers when you offer “another tool” to fix all their problems. Reflection isn’t just a tool to implement, use it once or twice, and replace it with newer, shinier tools later.

 Hear us out – with the help of AI, MirrorTalk builds empowering reflective routines for teachers (and their students) to help them think deeper about their challenges, call out and regulate their emotions, take ownership over things that are within their control to change and build the mental resiliency to face whatever new challenges come next (because, let’s face it – in education, there will always be new challenges).

MirrorTalk will change the game for teachers

MirrorTalk reduces teachers’ workloads

MirrorTalk’s reflective prompts are generated automatically for teachers, eliminating the need to craft time-consuming formative assessments. All teachers need to enter is their learning objective and MirrorTalk takes care of the rest.

MirrorTalk then instantly aggregates well-rounded insights about the whole child, so teachers don’t have to Macgyver a billion strategies together to find out how to help each student succeed.

MirrorTalk offers SEL support for teachers

MirrorTalk directly supports emotional regulation by having participants reflect out loud privately on topics that are stressful and difficult to share with others

Each reflection offers stress relief with mental and physical recharge activities that are built right in to the experience.

MirrorTalk helps teachers regain some control in their never-ending chaos

MirrorTalk empowers teachers and gives them the autonomy to reflect freely on topics that matter to them. This opens up space for them to wrap their heads around what they’re struggling with and MirrorTalk provides actionable feedback to help them prioritize what’s in their control and what isn’t.

What school leaders are saying

MirrorTalk is a low-impact way for teachers to use AI that also has a high-impact yield for students. MirrorTalk pushes students to go deeper which takes a lot of pressure off teachers.

Ashley Jackson, Principal, Metro Nashville Public Schools, TN

MirrorTalk functions as a supportive coach, offering balanced feedback that highlights strengths while suggesting improvements without judgment. Its personalized, actionable recommendations align with our PLC goals for teacher development.

Patricia Venegas-Weber, Researcher, University of Washington – College of Education, WA

The feedback teachers received from their very first reflection hooked them and made them feel like someone was really listening to their concerns.

Kacy Carter, Principal, Jackson Local School District, OH

MirrorTalk promotes intentional reflection among educators through brief daily moments that build over time. These reflections help prevent burnout by reconnecting teachers with their purpose in the best profession in the world: teaching.

Samantha Fecich, Ph.D, Professor, Grove City College, PA

Give teachers the individualized support they need with MirrorTalk + M2

MirrorTalk + M2 (hardware) is the ultimate support system for teachers, helping them manage workloads, enhance classroom engagement, and create sustainable teaching practices. With real-time feedback on instruction and small-group learning management, M2 lightens the load—so educators can focus on what matters most.

Schedule a live demo today to see it in action!

The post The teacher retention epidemic and how AI can reverse it appeared first on Swivl.

Reflectivity is the catalyst for dialogue that makes good teaching contagious. Teachers take what they learn from their peers and put it into practice. Teachers are who teachers best learn from.

Danieli Parker | Hallsville Independent School District, TX

USE CASE

To provide a district-wide professional development resource

Danieli Parker

Director of Innovation and Instructional Technology

School/District:

Hallsville Independent School District, TX

A powerful tool for our district

Danieli Parker is the Director of Innovation and Instructional Technology for her school district in East Texas. Her role allows her to utilize technology to support teachers in becoming the most powerful educators they can be in the classroom. With experience as a former elementary teacher, assistant principal, and principal, Danieli understands the demands of the classroom through many lenses. These prior roles largely influence which technologies her district decides to invest in. 

In her mission to provide district-wide support, Danieli found the perfect ally in Reflectivity. No other solution could match its versatility and impact on optimizing peer learning and collaboration.

“Makes good teaching contagious”

In 2015, Hallsville ISD was recognized as a model PLC. Even with this recognition, they were still struggling to coordinate live observations.

“We truly believe in learning from each other and using the strengths of each teacher to build peer learning. But, the biggest challenge in scheduling live observations was making them relevant and meaningful to each teacher. We needed a 4th-grade teacher to observe another 4th-grade teacher, even if they were in different schools, instead of having a 4th-grade teacher observe a 2nd-grade teacher because of availability.”

 Everything changed in 2018 when they were introduced to Reflectivity + Robot. Instead of needing to coordinate live schedules for observations, or travel to different schools to learn from each other, these Swivl solutions enabled each teacher to record high-quality video and audio to be watched asynchronously.

“We would record short lesson segments and then watch the videos together during PLC meetings. The recordings were a catalyst to drive conversations. Teachers would pick up on things happening in the video that I didn’t even notice! This allowed us to have deeper discussions about instructional practices.”

Danieli firmly believes that peer-learning lessons are the gems that stick. “Reflectivity is the catalyst for dialogue that makes good teaching contagious. Teachers learn best from other teachers. They take what they learn from their peers and put it into practice.” The videos she has her teachers record are leveraged to empower her teachers which sustains their professional development throughout the entire year.

Built-in adaptability

Reflectivity’s versatile features offered the teachers at Hallsville multiple ways to collaborate. In addition to the deeper instructional practice discussions, and watching relevant recordings asynchronously, teachers have the option to share written reflections. They can join communities around specific skills, and share links to resources, to build a collaborative mindset, outside of watching lesson recordings.

“Reflectivity has been a game-changer for our new teachers. The educators coming out of teacher prep programs are lacking in their conversation skills,” she said. “They’re more comfortable messaging back-and-forth, which they can do in Reflectivity. They don’t experience any barriers to asking for help or finding resources. Reflectivity provides a comfortable space for both newer and veteran teachers to  converse about instruction.”

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.

The post Reflectivity makes good teaching contagious appeared first on Swivl.

I checked a 4th grade lesson board, entered that day’s objective into MirrorTalk, and one minute later I had students reflecting and getting targeted feedback.

Jennifer Rodabaugh | Claxton Elementary

USE CASE

Reflection for students and teachers

Jennifer Rodabaugh

Instructional Coach

School/District:

Claxton Elementary/Anderson School District

Grade Level 4th

Before Claxton Elementary started using MirrorTalk, teachers relied on writing assignments as the primary format for collecting student reflections. A few teachers were even bold enough to try video. But, with each of these methods, teachers struggled to identify students’ underlying needs and students experienced long delays between finishing the reflection and receiving feedback.

Claxton teachers needed a solution that helped them understand student learning gaps in more depth and helped cement authentic and timely feedback loops. After vetting several solutions, they chose MirrorTalk.

AI that works for you

Jennifer Rodabaugh is an instructional coach at Claxton Elementary. She embraces her teachers using AI. One of her 4th grade teachers was using ChatGPT to develop written reflective prompts for students but it wasn’t the best fit. It was time-consuming and laborious to develop prompts that were grade-level appropriate and standards-based.While looking for other solutions, they signed up for the MirrorTalk demo program. MirrorTalk demonstrated how AI would work for them to uncover gaps in student understanding with minimal lift or prep from teachers. With MirrorTalk, Jennifer and the 4th grade teacher effectively generated reflective prompts in under 2 minutes, a task that previously took them 1.5 hours using ChatGPT. “One minute I entered a 4th grade class, I checked the board for that day’s objective, I entered that objective into MirrorTalk and a minute later, I had students reflecting and getting feedback,” Jennifer recounted.

Faster feedback, never generic

The ability to generate reflective prompts quickly and easily was huge for Jennifer and her teachers, but that’s not all that MirrorTalk’s AI can streamline.

Teachers lament grading written and video reflections. It is a time-consuming process, and teachers can’t immediately provide feedback and positive reinforcement to their students. It is in the moments right after an activity ends when students are most unsure of how they did or what they can do to improve in the future. 

Jennifer says, “With this technology, teachers can teach one group and have students reflect with M2 in other small groups simultaneously, which enables students to get that immediate feedback that teachers typically don’t have time to give in the moment.” MirrorTalk ensures that each feedback is personalized to each student, is relevant to the activity objective, and offers strategies to the student on how to improve their reflective skills.

Helping teachers uncover hidden learning gaps

But MirrorTalk’s feedback loop doesn’t end when a student is finished reflecting at the device. The AI technology works behind the scenes analyzing the responses and assessing various academic and social-emotional insights, such as mindset, sentiment, and understanding of the objective. Then the analysis is posted directly to the teacher’s dashboard within 1 minute. MirrorTalk uncovers hidden learning gaps which led Claxton teachers to realize that students were struggling with concepts they thought students understood. Jennifer says it has been a “game-changer” for Claxton teachers and their students and they’ve only had it for one month. 

See it in action

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

The post Immediate feedback for every student, after every lesson appeared first on Swivl.

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

Julie Witczak | Deerfield Public Schools District 109

USE CASE

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

Julie Witczak

Communication Media Arts Teacher (CMA)

School/District:

Deerfield Public Schools District 109, IL

Grade Level 7-8

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

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

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

I’ve been inviting students to use MirrorTalk on M2 as an option for every project. I had 5 students per class take me up on it during our first project and participation has tripled since then! Offering choice for using MirrorTalk means students experience more enjoyment over their mandatory journal entries which were often hastily written and painful for them to finish. And as opposed to journaling which doesn’t give the students immediate feedback, MirrorTalk engages them daily and they thrive on its feedback.

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

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

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

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

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

Start a free trial of MirrorTalk

Ready to transform your reflective practice? Download the app or sign up now to try MirrorTalk for yourself. Sign up and get started today!

The post MirrorTalk helps students motivate themselves appeared first on Swivl.

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

Marcy Curr | Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

USE CASE

Help students improve communication skills through reflection

Marcy Curr

Speech and Debate Teacher

School/District

Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

Grade Level High School

Reflection challenges in speech and debate

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

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

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

A smooth experience leads to real progress

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

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

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

Part of why Marcy and her students have adopted MirrorTalk so quickly is its ease of use. “The guided process was super easy,” Marcy explained, describing the reflection workflow. Getting acclimated to the tool was also a breeze for her. “It made me feel like anyone in my department could easily get started with MirrorTalk.”

Daily reflection and more feedback

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

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

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

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

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The post Elevating student speaking skills through reflection appeared first on Swivl.

With just a few minutes of setup, teachers gain valuable insights into student learning.

Like most teachers, when I was in the classroom, I recognized the value of reflection and the impact it could have on student learning. Simultaneously, I struggled to find the time for my students to reflect regularly throughout the school day. When my students recorded reflections, it was overwhelming to try to watch 90+ recordings, provide tailored feedback to help them strengthen their reflective skills, and give each student the individual support they needed in person.

Can you truly automate reflection?

Swivl is a reflective tools company. We believe there is significant unrealized potential in reflecting and how it can impact thinking and learning whether you are an educator or student. When we set out to build a reflective solution, our first thought was to explore if we could truly automate the reflection process. Could we discover a way to make reflecting fun and engaging? At the same time, could we build a solution that provides educators with robust and unbiased insights about each student or teacher? And, on top of it all, could this solution require minimal time and effort from its participants?

With the help of AI, we developed something that met all of these requirements. We call it M2+MirrorTalk.

MirrorTalk – available on any device – fully automates the reflection process for students. It takes less than 3 minutes to set up the device and record a reflection. Its unique design allows the device to be set up anywhere, so students can record reflections when they’re ready, or when they’re prompted by their teachers.

Here’s how it works on M2:

After powering on the device, teachers scan a QR code to download the MirrorTalk app on any mobile device, then log in.

Once logged in, teachers can create a group and then have students add themselves to the group as they use the device. We designed this experience in this way to resolve privacy concerns of students seeing each other’s reflections and scores and to save a teacher’s time. Groups can be organized for classes by subject and grade level, or by small groups of students based on reading level or interests. A Group can also be created from an existing class rostering service.

Personalize your AI-reflected self

Once a group is created, students and teachers can begin a reflection by either adding their name to the Group new or pick their name from the last time they reflected. This initiates a conversation with their AI-reflected self. An AI-reflected self is an avatar that guides participants through the conversation, asking thoughtful questions throughout.

The reflected self will ask questions like “What are you working on?” or “Were your actions aligned with the objective of the assignment?” These questions are designed to automatically guide a participant through an effective reflection, much like a teacher would. With the help of a participant’s AI-reflected self, reflections become more effective and engaging, without adding more to a teacher’s plate. At the end of each reflection, participants are offered a mindful exercise before transitioning to other activities.

In addition to individual reflections, M2 was built to work with small groups. Small groups can complete a group reflection in the same way they would complete an individual reflection. Each member of the group simply adds themselves to the reflective conversation.

Additional capabilities

As teachers begin to see the benefits of a regular reflective practice, they can utilize the other functionalities of M2+MirrorTalk to bring more time-saving value to their classrooms.

One of the main ways teacher can utilize the system is by bringing more value to their practice is with M2’s silent observation and feedback functionalities to develop their teaching skills, gain in the moment insights into student learning, and actionable recommendations to improve all without having another observer in the classroom.

For students, they can build an outline of the objectives they want students to work towards. MirrorTalk (on M2 or any student device in your classroom) then delivers customizable prompts to students during their reflections to measure if they understood the objective, and if their classroom actions were aligned.

Workspaces, constructed by the teacher, walk students step by step through the activity. Teachers can customize the activities by identifying which interactive tools (whiteboard, timer, recording, etc.) can be access by the students during different parts of the activity. Reflections conclude every activity to give teachers a holistic view of what happened, how it happened, and how students feel about it.

Robust Insights

M2+MirrorTalk were designed to capture short reflections and microbytes of instruction – only a couple minutes in length at a time. Instead of educators spending hours reviewing recordings and transcripts, we created an AI-driven dashboard to bring insights instantly that identify the precise support each individuals’ needs.

With the dashboard, educators can dive into dimensions like understanding, mindset, zone of proximal development and more. All of this data culminates in an summarized reflection card on individual or entire groups. These insights surface applicable analytics for educators to take action on.

In addition to AI-driven insights, MirrorTalk provides teachers with AI-driven feedback. This feedback is based directly on how to improve participants’ thinking and gives strategies on how to do so.

We believe M2+MirrorTalk is pioneering what thinking truly looks like in the modern classroom. Our aim is to leverage AI responsibly to deepen learning, drive engagement, and deliver a differentiated experience that maximizes growth for everyone in education.

Schedule a live demo to learn more!

The post What is M2+MirrorTalk by Swivl? appeared first on Swivl.

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

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

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

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

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

New tools can help improve old teacher support models

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are two examples. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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