Giving Compass' Take:

· Jordan Silvestri and Melissa Giroux describe how edtech companies can personalize support for educators using their products. Silvestri and Giroux purpose that companies provide personal training for each school individually and reflect on the effectiveness of the product for the students in different classes.

· How can these suggestions ease the transition to new technology for educators?

· Read more about edtech companies and why they need be fully evaluated.

Education is awash with efforts to personalize learning. But what does it mean for a company to personalize its support for the teachers who use its product? School leader, Jordan Silvestri and Kiddom representative, Melissa Giroux, describe what it takes for an edtech company to deliver the kind of personalized experience to its customers that teachers give to their students.

Working together over the course of the year, we—at Torah Academy and Kiddom—together learned three powerful lessons about how to deliver personalized support to educators:

  1. Lead with Inquiry—When teachers hear their administration pause to learn a little bit more about them, learning becomes collaborative. Rather than fighting, they work as a team to figure out if a platform can adapt to meet the needs of a range of educators.
  2. Walk the Talk—No school is the same. Investing the time to send a company’s support team to visit schools and observe users in the field means that teacher advocates learn how to ask questions to troubleshoot and to gain context. They are not merely following tech support flow charts and giving standard responses; they’re relying on their knowledge of pedagogy and the challenging realities of everyday teaching to frame their responses.
  3. Stop and Reflect—School-based staff don’t always have time to step outside of their day-to-day responsibilities and reflect on successes and challenges. But particularly when you start a relationship with a company, educators must ask their partners: How are you measuring success?

Building relationships between teachers and students takes thoughtful inquiry, care and reflection—and the relationship between an edtech company and the teachers who use its products demands the same. When both groups invest the time, authentic learning happens.

Read the full article about support for teachers by Jordan Silvestri and Melissa Giroux at EdSurge.