During these unprecedented times in education, schools and districts across the country have taken creative approaches to teaching and learning, all the way from new learning models such as hybrid or fully virtual, to new teaching resources and digital curriculum. To help our incredible partners, StrongMind sought ways to connect and provide additional supports for administrators, educators, students, and families.
Already, each unique partner receives a dedicated Partner Success Manager to help them reach their goals using StrongMind products. But we wanted to go even further.
So, on November 2, we launched the StrongMind Community to give the teachers, administrators and staff at our partner schools a virtual gathering place.
Our Goal? To develop supportive community space wherein partners can engage with fellow educators, learn more about StrongMind products and services from one another, and develop best practices.
Piloting the StrongMind learning Community
Led by StrongMind’s Learning Community Manager, Kaly Nasiff, select partners participated in a community pilot over the summer. During this time, participants asked each other questions, received great feedback, and shared best practices to help inform teaching and learning with StrongMind products and services. They even collaborated on resources for keeping students engaged and on-track in a virtual environment.
Valerie McCormick, Director of Curriculum at Olive Grove Charter School, was one of the pilot’s most active participants. Olive Grove provides students and families in California a tuition-free home school and independent study education for grades TK-12. A StrongMind partner since 2018, Olive Grove students and families utilize our LMS and award-winning curriculum. McCormick has enjoyed using the StrongMind Community to learn about new and creative ways she and her school can supports students.
“A StrongMind Community is something I’ve been looking forward to for a few years. As the Curriculum Director at Olive Grove Charter School, I’m always interested in other schools’ implementation process, student experience, and teacher feedback. We are provided great support from our Partner Success Managers, but through the pilot, it was helpful to hear about the StrongMind experience from other teachers and administrators. The StrongMind Community provided a collaborative space; participants posed questions and provided helpful hints and tricks. StrongMind staff also participated by lending suggestions or creating discussion topics.
“One of the most valuable ideas I was able to take from the StrongMind Community is the implementation of Math help videos to support StrongMind content. District-wide, our students need more support in math more than any other subject. With the help of two of our tutors, we created support videos that targeted the skills covered in specific workbooks and checkpoints from Pre-Algebra to Geometry. Students had access to these videos via our Google Classrooms and we received feedback that they were great additional resources!”
StrongMind is proud to partner with a number of incredible, innovative schools. Through the StrongMind Learning Community, we are excited to build a collaborative, engaging space to further foster success for administrators, teachers, students, and their families across the United States. To learn more about how we can support your school, including with this engaging community,
contact us today!
