An Exploration is a way to organize learning experiences inside a group. Below, we walk through some things to be thinking about when you are creating these learning experiences.
Should we organize Explorations by skill, time frame, or sequence?
All Explorations will have starting dates and ending dates to indicate when someone should complete the Exploration. This question is meant to help think through how to name Explorations in a way that will make the most sense to users in your group.
- Skill. Are your learning cycles focused mostly on demonstrating mastery of specific skills, but the order is unimportant? If so, it's most helpful to name Explorations by their focus topic. For example, "Counting Collections" and "Quick Images" might be two separate focus skills.
- Time. Are your learning events mostly tied to specific time frames? If so, naming Explorations by their general time frame is helpful. For example, September Reflection Cycle, October Reflection Cycle, etc.
- Sequence. If Explorations help track a sequence of events that happen in an explicit order, then naming using sequence will help. For example, indicate order by naming things Observation Cycle 1, Observation Cycle 2, etc.
In each of these scenarios, group participants will be able to sort all Explorations by name and ending dates.
Does the content of an Exploration need to be stored long-term or downloaded by admins?
The default scenario and expectation for teachers in Edthena is that (a) teachers can share and unshare videos, (b) only the teacher who uploaded the video can download it.
If your organization needs copies of all videos or needs to keep records on file for program improvement conversations / accreditation review, it's important to enable "Admin Archive" on Explorations.
This feature will ensure that videos can not be deleted from the Exploration. Read more about enabling this feature here.
Note: Teachers can also share access to download videos on a one-off basis. Ask them to turn on Admin Download with these steps.
Do we want to track growth aligned to specific professional skills?
If your organization utilizes a professional framework to align comments to professional skills, you can utilize Leveled Indicators within Explorations to document the proficiency level on specific skills.
For example, the coach will pick a level for each skill when providing feedback on an Exploration. Then, these data will roll-up into interactive visualizations that help facilitators spot trends across the teacher cohort. See more about what's possible in this blog article.
For more information on how to include Leveled Indicators in your Exploration, click here.
If you need your custom framework input into Edthena, please email success@edthena.com.
Will Explorations be similar across groups?
For some organizations, it makes sense to design Explorations once and replicate them to all groups. This works well in scenarios where the experience or output data should be standardized.
For example, ensuring that mentors observe mentees on a once-a-month schedule. Or, multiple sections of a teacher education course in which all partipants complete the same Explorations with the same Leveled Indicators.
If you determine that the Explorations should be designed centrally for everyone, create a group to stage the Explorations. Then duplicate Explorations to each target group using these steps.