December 9, 2024 | Nick Gross
Testimonial: How Find Your Grind Enhances Traditional College & Readiness Platforms in Spokane Public Schools
Testimonial written by Scott Kerwien, Chief of Student Success- Spokane Public Schools.
The perpetual quest for K-12 school districts to find a true “all-in-one” solution for students, staff, and families can be daunting. There are college and career software systems in use across the nation that do indeed offer a wide array of tools, assessments, and features – yet one of the more difficult gaps to fill is enabling and empowering teachers and students to connect meaningfully to take learning and personalize that learning into goal setting and post-high school planning that is “future ready.” Then I found Find Your Grind.
In my initial demonstration of Find Your Grind I was struck by how modern and clean the design of the platform is, making it very easy to understand for both teachers and students. Not only is it easy to understand but it’s also very engaging with subtle navigation that gives students a sense that they are chatting with their own personal career guide. The Lifestyle Assessment is a refreshing approach to help students understand their personalities, interests, and strengths in a way that feels transferable to numerous careers, rather than starting with a list of careers that feels disconnected from who they are.
The platform has numerous resources for teachers including set lesson plans, overview videos, and probably most importantly the ability to demo the platform as a student – to see exactly how students will complete the lesson. Teachers can follow a full scoped sequence of lessons and activities or choose units that are of the most interest to students – one day it might be financial literacy and the next day it might be understanding your digital reputation online. This flexibility allows teachers to build foundational understanding for all of their students, but also personalize based on student interest and engagement in the platform. Find Your Grind then feels like it can be used to develop a standalone class to develop “life readiness” or can also be used within Secondary Advisory curriculum structures as school districts consistently hear that we don’t “teach students how to adult.”
We piloted Find Your Grind in the Spring of 2024 in a few classrooms and have expanded to 13 classrooms and over 500 students during the Fall of 2024. This expansion is largely due to student engagement in the platform.
Students requesting more time in Find Your Grind because they see the value in completing activities and learning more about their futures is probably the best evaluation of the product and if there is a “return on investment (ROI)” which many districts are mindful of in turbulent budgetary times.
One teacher was surprised when his 6th grade students came into class and asked “do we get to use Find Your Grind today?”
I visited one of our middle school 6th grade classrooms to see how Find Your Grind was going and what students thought about the platform. The teacher facilitated a classroom discussion on their favorite features and a wishlist of what they wanted to ask to the Find Your Grind team. It was so wonderful to see students talk about their learning and make presentations in front of the peers – talking about their future career plans including pros/cons of what they liked about the career and what questions they knew they would have to consider in pursuing their career goals.
As a district leader, it can be difficult to get a “pulse” on how things are going in classrooms, but hearing students talk about their futures and seeing actual data in Find Your Grind’s platform makes it very easy to understand the value of Find Your Grind. Teachers feel supported, students are engaged and developing confidence, and data is easily accessible to truly measure impact.
It’s funny, but one measurement for myself on reviewing a platform is if I am jealous of what students have access to – that I wish I had access to when I was their age and I am jealous that students get to use Find Your Grind, but so happy to see them engaging and continuing to ask for more learning. I am confident that we will find more classrooms interested in the platform from CTE classes to AVID classes to Advisory classes as we continue to expand our pilot from middle school into high school.
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