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.