Riverview is a school district in the USA with three schools and about 1700 students, where they, for several years, have used Skooler as their LMS. Skooler, founded in Norway, is closely connected to Microsoft 365. When Skooler incorporated Loops in their company the Principal of Riverview, Christopher Collins, was asked if they wanted to try Loops in their organisation.
Mr Collins började med att prova Loops själv och blev snabbt biten av aMr Collins started by trying out Loops himself and was quickly very interested in building loops. One of the first loops that he built was to educate his pedagogues on how to use Skooler. He used the loop in a workshop with the teachers to let them try the system themselves. The teachers became interested and shortly thereafter several of them tried to transform their own teaching material into loops. For the most part they used the material that they had just posted on the school’s website, to instruct their students on how to work at home in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
The teacher immediately saw how the loops simplified their students’ everyday work, helped them keep track of what they were supposed to do and made it easier to keep up with the set study pace. It also gave them an opportunity to easily communicate with their teacher about each task. Loops was implemented in the entire school district and during the pandemic all the 238 teachers started teaching through Loops. Very soon, the teachers realised the extended possibilities that Loops provided. In several subjects they started building very creative loops where they, and their students, communicated a lot through film and where students’ learning benefited by the communication they had with each other.
About a year into the project, early spring 2021, Mr Collins asked us for numbers on how active Riverview was in Loops. We could then tell him that his pedagogues up until then had created 1934 loops and that they, every month, have between 500 and 600 started loops up and running in the school district. The loops have an average of 20 participants and the average time that the loops are active is 9 days.
Many loops have been used several times and among the favourites we find the following titles:
- Practice Loop
- Digital Reading Log
- Loops for students
- Grade 4, Unit Zero
- Fingerprints
- Mrs. Bauer’s Homeroom Loop
- I am experimenting
- Oregon Trail Week 3
- Fantasy Book Clubs – Bend 1
- Grade 3- 3.5 Expanding Multiplication
In Riverview they are very pleased with Loops and how the tool can be used in their education. They appreciate how well it functions with their other digital tools, not to mention the fact that Loops has helped them maintain high quality education throughout several lockdowns during the pandemic. Teachers tell us that the very students they were worried would have problems handling their studies during the pandemic, have managed well thanks to Loops. Seeing a clear structure for their work, learning in the fun layout of the loop, and being able to easily communicate with teachers and fellow students has made a difference for them.
“It has been fully embraced, we love it”.