This creates a serious assessment problem. When an ELL student struggles in math, is it a math problem or a language problem? If a student stops participating, are they disengaged or simply unable to follow along? Without the right tools, it’s nearly impossible to tell.

The result: many ELL students end up in Tier 2 and Tier 3 MTSS interventions when what they actually need is better language support. Schools consume intervention resources on the wrong problem while the real need is treated as secondary.

Considering the scale of the ELL population, the stakes to this challenge are real. Performance on language proficiency assessments like TELPAS and WIDA ACCESS influences funding, program placement, and how schools allocate resources. Schools need a way to support both language learning and academic learning at the same time without adding more to teachers’ plates.

M2 supports the whole learner, not just the language learner

M2, Swivl’s AI-integrated classroom robot, listens during instruction and turns what’s happening in the classroom into meaningful support for both teachers and students.

Through translation, speaking practice, small group learning, and more, M2 supports ELL students across both aspects of their learning journey: English and academics.

Keep kids connected to academic content

In-ear language support

With M2’s in-ear audio support, ELL students receive immediate translated summaries of instruction, delivered privately through an earbud without interrupting class. Students grab their assigned M2 remote, plug in an earbud, and tap to hear a brief recap of recent instruction in their home language.

This keeps students connected to the content of their daily lessons while they continue developing proficiency in English. They can follow along, participate, and build comprehension all while their English skills grow through immersion.

Out loud translations and summaries

The Ask M2 feature allows teachers and students to request summaries or translations of class content at any moment. Then, those responses are played aloud in high-quality audio for the whole group. 

This means students can get the clarification they need to keep following the day’s lesson, and teachers can offer immediate language support without needing to speak the student’s native language themselves.

Offer more reps to build communication skills

Proficiency assessments like TELPAS are so challenging because speaking and writing are the hardest domains to develop. Students need to practice communicating, not just listening and reading. M2 creates natural opportunities for that practice.

Adaptive, standards-aligned speaking activities

Talks are M2’s adaptive, standards-aligned verbal assessments that let students process learning in their home language or practice expressing ideas in English.

Imagine having the time to assess every multilingual or Tier 2 and 3 student’s learning in a one to one conversation after any lesson. That’s what Talks can do.

After each Talk, the teacher gets a concise yet informative report on students’ understanding of the standards, skills, and/or content related to the assignment, helping teachers understand what students actually know, not just what they can express in English.

Guided small group learning with language and content support

Guides are small group learning activities that M2 can generate live during class or that teachers can pre-plan for the day’s lesson.

M2 speaks aloud to share each step of a Guide to students, and is available to translate or answer student questions about the content or the activity during the experience. 

Unlike traditional group work that can lack structure and scaffolds, Guides ensure students progress through a learning activity at the appropriate pace and with the support they need, both for language and academics.

When ELL students are paired with native English speakers for a Guide, there is an additional benefit of academic conversation practice in a low-stakes setting.

Use leading indicators to provide proactive support

Traditional MTSS relies on assessment data that often arrives too late. By the time test scores reveal a student is struggling, weeks or months have passed.

M2 changes the equation by providing leading indicators that can help educators flag potential issues before they become entrenched problems.

Data-driven grouping and differentiation 

M2 enables smarter targeted support through grouping students by today’s needs rather than weeks or months-old assessment data. Teachers get a tier-based breakdown after the class completes a Talk.

Admin dashboards for empowered decisions

M2’s admin dashboard offers leaders an organization-wide look into student learning trends and a snapshot of progress on initiatives that affect special student populations.

Importantly, the admin dashboard gives leaders insights without sharing classroom transcripts nor identifying individual students or teachers.

Shape teacher feedback at the org level

When you devote resources to ELL support and MTSS, providing ongoing feedback to support implementation is essential but time-consuming. M2 offers two powerful ways for leaders to scale the strategies and priorities that help ensure everyone in the organization is moving in the same direction. 

The system prompt allows admins to provide high-level guard rails, look-fors, and directions for all teacher feedback, making each M2 a classroom champion for your organization values and goals.

Custom rubrics enable automated, low-stakes teacher feedback and scoring on how daily instruction aligns with your initiatives. Simply upload a document or add the rubric criteria that matter to you, and M2 begins providing feedback and scores focused on that area after every class session.

Real impact in real classrooms

Schools using M2 are already seeing the difference in their ELL populations:

“Our multilingual students feel empowered when M2 responds in their native language, making them feel seen and valued.” – Erika Inka, Instructional Coach, Barrington School District 220

“Students see M2 as a helpful friend, especially those learning English who can now engage more easily.” – Meagan MacDonald, Instructional Coach, Barrington School District 220

When students feel included and supported, everything changes. Participation increases. Confidence grows. Academic performance improves. And schools see better outcomes on the assessments that matter—not through test prep, but through genuine learning.

Better outcomes and smart resource management

Supporting ELL students effectively is the right thing to do and the smartest choice for leaders with a focus on resource management. With the right tools in place, schools can position themselves to:

• Reduce the number of students who need intensive Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions
• Allocate MTSS resources more strategically
• Improve school performance ratings as student outcomes rise
• See gains on assessments like TELPAS and WIDA ACCESS—along with the funding tied to those scores

M2 gives schools a path toward proactive, integrated support that addresses the whole student, not just the language learner.

The post Supporting multilingual learners beyond language: How M2 connects English development and academic learning appeared first on Swivl.

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

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

USE CASE

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

Lauren Briones-Campos

Teacher

School/District:

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

Grade Level

Kindergarten

Dealt a challenging hand

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

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

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

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

M2’s first day on the job

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

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

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

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

Targeted results, at the right time

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

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

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

Her students’ ally

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

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

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

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

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

Her coach’s ally too

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

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

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

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

Ready for every classroom, today

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

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

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

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

Your classroom, your challenges, your co-teacher

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

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

The Group Lesson isn’t just about spotting trends, it’s about finding opportunities to adjust your instruction based on your groups’ latest thinking about their work. MirrorTalk generates your Group Lesson after the first few participants complete your activity. Then, we update the Lesson as more individuals participate. This up-to-the minute, actionable advice formed from your participants’ thinking may never have been practical, until now.

What is the Group Lesson? 

Unlike traditional assessments or surveys that merely summarize learning, the Group Lesson uncovers new discoveries about your participants’ thinking that lead to clear action. The Group Lesson analyzes all of your participants’ reflections to help you:

• Identify common themes and understanding patterns
• Surface paradoxes students are grappling with
• Devise the game plan that moves the needle for your learning outcomes 

Two tailored views

Group Owners

Get a comprehensive view of group-wide thinking patterns plus specific recommendations for improving understanding.

Participants

Access a summary about group-wide learning patterns that help contextualize their individual growth journey.

Try it today

Ready to unlock the why and how behind your group’s learning potential? Start assigning activities today and make thinking actionable!

->Head to MirrorTalk

The post Group Lesson: Make thinking actionable with MirrorTalk appeared first on Swivl.

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

The challenge of reflection

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

Scaffolding the journey

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

1 – Encouragement first:

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

2 – Share the Lesson:

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

3 – Dig into all insights:

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

Embracing the struggle

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

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

Here’s how you can maximize its impact:

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

A tool for thinking, not a replacement for thought

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

Take scaffolding to the next level with MirrorTalk + M2

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

Schedule a live demo to learn more!

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

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

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

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

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

Get them talking

Activity: Presentation/Speech Practice

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

Activity: Collaborative Storytelling

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

Activity: Discussion Warm Up/Calentamiento de la discusión*

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

*available in Multiple Languages

Get them doing

Activity: Prototyping

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

Activity: Tallest Paper Tower

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

Get them in the zone

Activity: Stress Transformer

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

Activity: Brain Break

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

Let them have fun

Activity: Pictionary

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

Activity: Number Hop

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

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

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

*available in English and Spanish

The now for the best part

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

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

See it in action!

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

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

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

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

Ashlyn Sutton | Park County School District #16

USE CASE

SEL and small group learning

Ashlyn Sutton

Teacher

School/District:

Meeteetse SchoolPark County School District #16

Grade Level 3-5

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

Taking rural students further with SEL

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

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

Even small class sizes need small group support

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

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

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

Learn more!

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

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

Today, we’re excited to officially announce MirrorTalk.ai the mobile and web version of the Mirror, which we launched earlier this year. MirrorTalk has free and premium plans to cover everyone’s needs.

MirrorTalk is a tool for reflecting out loud that can be customized and focused for assessment, creative thinking, motivation, development, and more. Each reflection brings AI-powered insights on how you are thinking, and how to improve.

Modernity has made us less reflective than we’ve ever been. While engagement gets the overwhelming priority in education and life, we already know learning comes from reflection. Our aim is to restore the balance in our minds between engagement and reflection by leveraging AI to open up unique opportunities that aid how we reflect. 

Reflecting with MirrorTalk is as simple as talking about what you’re working on. Start by stating your learning objective, and you’ll immediately get a set of customized reflection prompts, which can be tailored to the language, length, or focus that fits your needs. From there, MirrorTalk helps you talk it out in the comfort of an objective and impartial listener. When you’re done, you get instant feedback, insights, and scores to help you understand and improve your thinking. You can use it yourself or assign reflections to students, teachers, leaders, and more. 

The reflective foundations

MirrorTalk automates reflection so you can talk it out with the frequency and personalization you’ve always wanted, but didn’t think you had the time for. And MirrorTalk’s Dashboard shows you insights about your thinking you may never have realized you needed, until now.

The lesson

Based on your reflection, we identify the Lesson – a learning gap or adaptive lesson that you may be struggling with. It’s like having developmental psychologists Jean Piaget or Robert Kegan consult you on any one of your reflections. 

Understanding

By reporting on how well you construct knowledge and derive meaning, Understanding identifies how you’re generating insights or coming to new realizations.

Zone

Based on Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), Zone identifies the optimal stress levels for your learning activities and helps you fine-tune the challenges you take on. 

Mindset

Expanding on Carol Dweck’s work, Mirror analyzes your thinking for evidence of a fixed or growth Mindset, then goes even deeper, analyzing the tone of your self-talk and the level of motivation represented in your thinking.

We even present data on developmental stages, cognitive and social skills, and cognitive biases. We also have more unique and powerful insights in the works.

MirrorTalk for everyone

MirrorTalk’s reflections can be customized for PK-12, higher education, and adults, and both the content and language of dashboard insights are developmentally appropriate for the participant.

• K12 classrooms: Set up reflections on any learning objective, for any grade, with the ability to focus on depth of knowledge, retrieval, creativity, problem solving, and more. Get feedback on how students are understanding what they need to learn and use our reflective foundations to guide curriculum, assessments, and PD.

• Professional Development: Most PD and coaching initiatives are slow and create dependence on institutions to make progress. MirrorTalk gets teachers thinking in motion automatically and prepares them to take on curriculum changes, formal coaching, certifications, and more. Also, we believe using MirrorTalk with students – to peer inside the minds of learners – is the next great leap forward beyond feedback from video coaching.

• Higher Ed: Help students across the whole university stay engaged in their academic growth, and help specific departments create better outcomes. Aid student teachers in their field work and even get them instant feedback on their lesson plans from reflection data of the students they are teaching.

New possibilities

We believe MirrorTalk opens up new possibilities in education and for humanity itself. Not only does it help restore balance in our minds with time spent over-engaging, it could help us reflect more. By helping people learn foundational life lessons with less difficulty and suffering, our vision is to help everyone learn and grow better than ever before. 

Get started

Ready to experience MirrorTalk? Sign up on the web or download the mobile app today and get a 60-day trial of our Pro plan, absolutely free. After that, you can continue using the free version, or invest in a plan that fits your needs. Plus, don’t miss the chance to demo the Mirror hardware device, and experience its power as a 3-in-1 reflection station, recording tool, and interactive small group guide. 

In a constantly accelerating world, the ability to adapt is more important than ever. Investing in building students’ and teachers’ reflective foundations will make it possible for everyone to thrive.

The post Introducing MirrorTalk.ai appeared first on Swivl.

Sarah Marin, a 7th-grade English teacher at Hildebrandt Intermediate School, assigns all of her students an end-of-year research project where they present on a country of their choice. This year, she gave her students the option to use Swivl’s MirrorTalk to complete verbal project reflections. In previous years, she had her students complete their written reflections. In Sarah’s final tally, 59 of her students chose to complete their reflections with MirrorTalk instead. 

Sarah found that introducing MirrorTalk integrated seamlessly within her classroom assessment dynamic. Most of her students are 12, going on 13, and grew up being comfortable with technology, so they immediately gravitated toward reflection with MirrorTalk. Even students who typically struggle to focus quickly grasped how to use MirrorTalk.  For one of her neurodivergent students in particular, MirrorTalk gave them an immediate confidence boost. Throughout the year, her student had struggled with focus and comprehension in other exercises. While using MirrorTalk, however, this student took the initiative and easily guided themselves through completing the assignment. Her student intuitively understood the reflection’s workflow when presented through MirrorTalk, and stayed focused on the objective throughout the reflection prompts.

Better student outcomes

Sarah loved that her students who chose to complete their reflections with MirrorTalk answered with full fidelity. “It forced them to truly articulate how they had felt about the project,” Sarah explained. “Not having to talk to a teacher and feel judged really enabled my students to open up and use their metacognitive abilities.” 

Reflecting aloud prepared the students for a follow-up reflection discussion. “I noticed that some of the kids who did MirrorTalk first did a better job on their overall reflection because they had already had to put their thoughts into words. It helped some of my students think more deeply about things they had struggled with, making it easier to convey their thoughts in writing.”

Those new dimensions of candor, gleaned through the Dashboard, provided Sarah with new insights into how she could support each student for the rest of the school year and how to structure the project for better results next year.

Sarah plans to continue using MirrorTalk, seeing applications for self-reflection for next year. She is looking forward to using it at the beginning of the school year to measure each student’s comprehension. Sarah is confident she can use MirrorTalk to individually support each of her students more quickly.

Read more about how Klein ISD educators are using MirrorTalk

• Kleb Intermediate School –  Instructional Specialist in Digital Learning, Kim Sharp, introduces MirrorTalk with her co-teaching partner, Christy Stewart, to their Advanced Humanities class.
• Klein ISD –  Monica Shallenberger, the Director of Professional Learning for the Klein Independent School District, uses MirrorTalk to support her teachers amidst stringent state budgets. 

Learn more!

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

The post Using verbal reflections to improve student writing 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.

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In our latest MirrorTalk release, we’ve listened to your feedback and are excited to bring you improved workflows, enhanced visibility for reflection feedback, and more. These updates make reflecting with MirrorTalk more insightful and accessible for educators and students.

Faster student and teacher workflows

Logging in and exiting group mode is now more seamless with email and pin code access. This provides a smoother and more secure log-in experience and takes another thing off a teacher’s plate.

After unlocking student mode, teachers are now brought directly to the Dashboard. This helps teachers gain insights about their students’ learning gaps even faster. 

Immediate feedback on the dashboard

Immediate feedback is now surfaced on the dashboard. This provides a better experience for both teachers and students, allowing them another opportunity to learn from feedback and improve their reflective skills faster.

Other improvements

In addition to these features, we’ve made several other improvements and updates:

• Reflections will continue uploading even after you logout or shutdown your MirrorTalk before the upload has finished.
• The Coach role now allows instructional coaches to view all reflections within a Group.

Next steps

As always, your feedback drives our improvements, and we’re committed to making MirrorTalk better for everyone.

Learn more about your AI classroom companion

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

The post Product update: May 23, 2024 appeared first on Swivl.