Assessment 2: Educational Online Community Analysis

Patrick Fernandez
Vanessa Mendoza
Violet Robinson

New Jersey City University

EDTC 816 Advanced Building Online Communities
Spring 2024
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Introduction

AVID is an organization which was founded in 1980 in San Diego, California. AVID is

an acronym which stands for “Advancement Via Individual Determination” to reflect their

organization's mission. Since its founding AVID’s mission has remained consistent; to close the

achievement gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society.

In those four decades, the AVID organization has expanded to 47 states, 8,000 schools and more

than 2 million students as of 2024.

It primarily partners with school districts found in lower income communities to provide

an AVID school curriculum and resources that prepare students for college. According to its site

76% of AVID seniors are from a low socioeconomic status background, and 86% are

underrepresented students (avid.org, 2024). Despite the majority of students coming from a

lower socioeconomic background, AVID students outperform their peers in a number of

nationwide metrics. According to its latest data 94% of their students met 4 year entrance exams

requirements, while 90% of their students who apply to 4 year colleges are accepted (avid.org,

2024).

In addition to providing college preparedness materials the organization provides teachers

with professional development and fosters relationships with school communities to accelerate

and enhance their mission. Their online presence and communities are an extension of their goals

of improving teacher effectiveness, student learning, leadership and equity among school

communities. AVID’s online communities have a presence among popular social media

platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin.

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AVID’s Online Community Goals

AVID’s online community has a reach of several thousand members comprising educators,

students, AVID alumni, educational partners and school community members. AVID's online

community serves as a dynamic and multifaceted platform for the purpose of supporting

educators, promoting collaboration, and celebrating successes within the educational community.

Through strategic monitoring, engagement, and promotion, AVID aims to harness the power of

online networking and collaboration to advance its mission of preparing all students for college

and career readiness success to a global audience.

Ms. Ellen Nickerson who serves as the Director of Teaching and Learning at AVID

Center discussed AVID’s online communities multifaceted approach and goals. AVID’s first

goal for its online community is to gain insights into how partners, including teachers,

administrators, and district directors, utilize their resources. By monitoring discussions and posts,

they can identify common challenges, struggles, and needs within the educational community.

Ms. Nickerson notes “it helps us [AVID] to see where our gaps are” (personal communication,

Feb 23, 2024) . This information helps AVID make informed decisions about resource

development and allocation, ensuring that they provide the most relevant and impactful support

to educators and students.

A second key aspect of AVID's online community is celebrating successes within the

educational community. Ms. Nickerson noted “we [AVID] also aim to see the celebrations… we

want people to share their celebrations with others” (personal communication, Feb 23, 2024).

By highlighting achievements such as schools receiving national recognition or students

obtaining college acceptances and scholarships, AVID fosters a culture of positivity and
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encouragement. Fostering a shared culture and encouraging participation contribute to the

success of online communities (Kraut & Resnick, 2016; Mac Web, 2015). Celebrating these

milestones not only acknowledges the hard work and dedication of educators and students but

also inspires others to strive for excellence. Additionally, sharing success stories reinforces the

value and impact of AVID's programs and resources, encouraging continued engagement and

participation.

The online community serves as a platform for educators to share best practices,

resources, and strategies for implementing AVID principles in their classrooms and schools. By

encouraging collaboration and discussion, AVID fosters a supportive environment where

educators can learn from each other's experiences, gain new ideas, and enhance their professional

development. This knowledge sharing contributes to the collective growth and improvement of

educators' instructional practices, ultimately benefiting students' academic success and college

readiness.

AVID's online community provides a space for educators to connect, network, and build

relationships with colleagues across different schools, districts, and regions. Through networking

the online community continues to grow and strengthen with targeted outreach (Mac Web,

2015). By facilitating interactions and collaboration among educators, AVID fosters a sense of

community and belonging within the educational community. This supportive network allows

educators to seek advice, share resources, and collaborate on initiatives, strengthening their

collective capacity to support student learning and success.

AVID’s Actions & Accomplishments

AVID's actions towards accomplishing its goals through the online community

demonstrate a strategic and proactive approach to supporting educators, promoting collaboration,

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and celebrating successes within the educational community. By actively engaging with

community members, providing valuable resources and support, and fostering a culture of

collaboration and knowledge sharing, AVID strengthens its impact and relevance in advancing

its mission of preparing all students for college and career readiness success.

AVID actively monitors social media platforms and online forums to stay informed about

partner discussions, questions, and challenges. By regularly engaging with community members

through likes, comments, and responses, AVID demonstrates its commitment to supporting

educators and addressing their needs. This active presence helps foster a sense of community and

encourages ongoing participation and engagement within the online community.

In response to partner inquiries or requests for resources, AVID proactively provides

relevant information, guidance, and support. Whether it's directing educators to specific

resources, offering solutions to challenges, or providing professional development opportunities,

AVID strives to be a valuable and responsive resource for educators seeking support and

assistance. This proactive approach helps build trust and credibility within the educational

community, strengthening AVID's relationships with its partners.

AVID actively promotes celebrations and success stories within its online community,

encouraging educators to share their achievements and milestones. By highlighting success

stories such as schools achieving national recognition or students receiving college acceptances,

AVID inspires and motivates others within the community. Additionally, AVID recognizes and

celebrates the hard work and dedication of educators, reinforcing their commitment to student

success and college readiness.

AVID encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing within its online community by

facilitating discussions, sharing best practices, and providing platforms for educators to connect
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and learn from each other. Through features such as discussion forums, webinars, and virtual

events, AVID creates opportunities for educators to exchange ideas, strategies, and resources for

implementing AVID principles effectively. This collaborative approach fosters a culture of

continuous learning and improvement within the educational community, benefiting both

educators and students.

AVID leads by example by actively participating in discussions, sharing valuable

resources and insights, and demonstrating a commitment to the organization's mission and

values. By showcasing its dedication to supporting educators and promoting student success,

AVID sets a positive example for community members and reinforces the importance of

collaboration, professionalism, and continuous improvement. This leadership role helps inspire

and motivate educators to actively engage in the online community and contribute to its growth

and effectiveness.

AVID’s Metrics Use

Nickerson mentions that AVID employs various metrics to gauge progress towards their

goals through the online community (personal communication, Feb 23, 2024). She highlights

that monitoring social media platforms and observing posts are essential metrics. They assess the

volume of activity, engagement levels, and the types of discussions taking place within the

community. Additionally, AVID looks for indicators such as celebrations, requests for resources,

and responses to inquiries to understand the community's effectiveness in meeting partner needs

and fostering collaboration. Nickerson notes they “gain information or get information out or

see what’s happening” (personal communication, Feb 23, 2024). By monitoring activity levels,

engagement metrics, content themes, and response effectiveness, AVID can continuously

evaluate and refine its strategies to enhance the community's impact and effectiveness in
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supporting educators and students. Furthermore analyzing these metrics, AVID can identify

trends, gaps, and areas for improvement, ultimately informing their strategies and initiatives to

enhance the online community's impact.

Conclusion

In conclusion, AVID’s organization has achieved significant success in preparing

students for college and future success. In particular success with those underserved in higher

education through its increased use of digital resources on a learning management system (LMS)

and its online learning communities in particular facebook (avid.org, 2024). Its strategy on

developing essential academic skills and providing network support for participants has proven

effective. In addition, according to Nickerson, AVID has successfully spread its vision of

providing equal opportunity for all students regardless of their backgrounds. Nickerson stated

during an interview that a key accomplishment has been digitizing AVID’s resources as well as

the expansion of these resources on its Learning Management System (personal communication,

Feb 23, 2024). As a result, AVID has noticed an increase in members and users of its online

learning communities across various social media platforms like, Facebook, Instagram, and

twitter and more. For a nonprofit organization on a mission to close the achievement gap, the

organization has been successful using its online learning communities to achieve this goal.

These learning communities serve several purposes; for example, they create professional

learning opportunities for AVID educators across 47 states in the United States and worldwide.

These well established online communities, with facebook being the most used platform of over

one million users (avid.org, 2024), has been a comprehensive approach which includes strategies

for academic support, college readiness, and professional development programs for educators
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diaspora. According to Kraut and Resnick (2016), establishing social norms of contribution and

increasing the expected benefits can motivate contribution within an online learning community.

Offering incentives such as using rewards, whether they are intrinsic for recognition or

extrinsic to motivate contribution. Moreover, providing external rewards or incentives such as

prizes can increase extrinsic motivation (Kraut & Resnick 2016). The text “Building Successful

Online Communities,” also mentions that identifying particular members and personally asking

them to contribute is an effective strategy to increase motivation (Kraut & Resnick, 2016). In

addition to ensuring the platform is easy to use and accessible to people with different abilities.

Making sure community members understand the benefits of participating and how their

contributions fit into larger community goals. Finally, empowering users with roles and

responsibilities, giving them specific roles or tasks can increase their sense of ownership and

commitment to the community. During the interview with Nickerson, it was evident that the

strategy the organization is currently using aligns with Kraut and Resnick’s recommendations.

The evidence of AVID’s success can be seen in its impact statistics. Students who

participate in AVID programs have higher rates of college enrollment and completion than their

peers (avid.org, 2024). Furthermore, the organization has strategically digitized all of its

resources in turn providing easy access to members of its online learning communities. AVID’s

methods focusing on teaching skills like writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and

reading (WICOR) is among the most popular professional learning topics across all of the

organization’s online learning community platforms. Teachers are able to collaborate and share

their successes and areas of need as members of the AVID community at large. They also share

experiences with each other related to projects, programs and field trip opportunities for students

within their school districts. In addition, users post sample lessons and student projects to
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showcase the effectiveness of WICOR as a strategy used to equip students with the tools

necessary for academic and future career success.

Additional successes include schools participating in the AVID programs report

improvements in standardized test scores, increased numbers of students enrolling in Advance

Placement (AP) courses, and higher graduation rates.

Recommendations

Despite its successes, there are areas where AVID could enhance its online learning

communities in order to increase its impact on users. AVID could develop additional online

tutoring, workshops, and resources. This expansion would allow AVID to reach more students,

particularly in rural or underserved areas where access to quality educational support may be

limited. Another area is the need for continual research and feedback loop to ensure its programs

remain effective and relevant, AVID should invest in ongoing research and feedback

mechanisms. For instance, frequent surveying of online learning communities participants,

longitudinal studies to track the long-term success of these communities. During the interview

with Nickerson, when asked how AVID uses metrics she stated “That’s a tough one because you

know we monitor, you know, we monitor all of the social media platforms and we look at what’s

being posted right, that helps us.” In reviewing Ms. Nickerson’s response, AVID could benefit

from using a research based data collection tool rather than assigned staff members only reading

posted remarks by users. This will ensure it continues to meet the evolving needs of students in

an increasingly complex educational landscape.

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Team Collaboration

Patrick Fernandez: Editor, provided in text citations, references and managed general literary
flow of paper; contributed to Introduction, Organizational Goals of AVID, and Team
Collaboration sections.

Vanessa Mendoza (Team Leader): Managed team communication, scheduled team meetings,
interview, conducted, and transcribed interview with Ellen Nickerson; contributed to
Organizational Goals of AVID, AVID’s Actions & Accomplishments, and AVID’s Metrics Used
sections.

Violet Robinson: Pivotal in communication and securing Ellen Nickerson for interview; assisted
with interview; contributed to Conclusion and Future Recommendations for AVID sections.

*All members collaborated in logistical planning, attending team meetings, creating Interview
Questions, and contributing personal narratives.

Patrick Fernandez’s Contribution Narrative:

On this group project my presence was felt most behind the scenes. Vanessa was

instrumental since the start of the project taking on a leadership role. She organized our first

team meeting and communication with Violet and I. I assisted Vanessa with logistics in the form

of creating shared documents to take note of team roles and responsibilities of the group. After

our second meeting I created a shared document to take note of what interview questions would

be posed to ensure we all know our responsibilities with Ms. Nickerson’s interview. At the

conclusion of the project I assisted with the overall flow of the paper, ensured our work was tied

to research based text and provided citations.

Violet Robinson’s Contribution Narrative:

In our recent group project to interview a member of an organization involved with

managing the organization’s online learning communities, my role was pivotal in facilitating

communication and steering the research direction. My initial contributions involved organizing

Zoom meetings and handling email communications with the group members, ensuring that
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everyone was informed and involved in the decision-making process. During the early states, our

meetings focused on selecting a suitable organization for the assignment. In collaboration with

my teammates, I was able to secure an interview after several weeks of correspondence with two

organizations NJPSA and AVID. We were initially intrigued by learning the behind the scene

decision making for NJPSA however, the organization was not willing to provide the interview. I

made several phone calls and was eventually able to secure an interview with Ms. Ellen

Nickerson who serves as the Director of Teaching and Learning for AVID. Both myself and

Vanessa conducted the interview. In addition, to contribute effectively, I delved into extensive

research on AVID as an organization.

As the project evolved, the group collectively divided the assignments. I was entrusted

with composing the conclusion section of the report. I also took on the task of reviewing and

synthesizing contributions from other group members. This was crucial to ensure that our final

paper had a consistent and unified tone, reflecting a collaborative effort that was cohesive and

well structured.

Vanessa Mendoza-Barahona’s Contribution Narrative:

My collaboration efforts for this group project began by taking the initiative to start our

group project early in the semester. I took the lead in arranging our initial meeting to strategize

and outline a roadmap to ensure the successful completion of the assignment. With the guidance

of Violet and Patrick, we identified potential online communities suitable for our interviews,

leveraging Violet's expertise in this domain to refine our choices. While awaiting Violet's

confirmation of the interview with AVID, Patrick set up a Google document where we

documented the primary questions and brainstormed additional queries for the interview day.
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Continuing in a leadership role, I organized subsequent meetings to keep everyone

updated and coordinated the interview with Ellen Nickerson. On the day of the interview, I

ensured that recording and transcription settings were appropriately configured and led the initial

questioning, with additional queries emerging naturally from the conversation. Violet's

invaluable insights during the interview, stemming from her familiarity with AVID, greatly

enriched our discussion and underscored our research interests. I also took responsibility for

sharing the recording and refining the transcript.

Our final meetings focused on reviewing the interview and putting the finishing touches

on the project. I found the data analysis for questions 3 and 4 particularly engaging. Having both

conducted the interview and analyzed the data provided me with multifaceted insights into the

diverse roles a researcher embodies.

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References

AVID. (2024, February) Home Page. Retrieved from February 28, 2024, from

https://www.avid.org/

AVID. (2024, February) What is AVID?. Retrieved from February 28, 2024, from

https://explore.avid.org/what-avid-is/

Kraut, R. & Resnick, P. (2016). Building successful online communities. evidence-based social

design. The MIT Press.

Mack Web. (2015). The monumental guide to building online communities. MacWebSolutions.
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Appendix A

Interview Questions

1. What is the organization seeking to accomplish through their online community?

2. What actions have they taken towards accomplishing these goals?

3. What metrics do they employ to understand their progress towards these goals?

4. How has AVID changed since its origins? Has any of AVID’s goals changed since the

beginning; if so how?

5. What is your difference in assessing goals among teachers & students? For example: How

would you rate the difference in satisfaction between teachers and students? Can teachers see

value in AVID and students don’t or vice versa.

6. What is the future of AVID ? How do you see yourself taking on that future?
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Appendix B

Interview Transcript - February 22, 2024

Ms. Ellen Nickerson, Director of Teaching and Learning at AVID Center

Mendoza, Vanessa 0:08

My name is Vanessa Mendoza, currently part of Cohort 10 at New Jersey City
University for the Education and Technology program.
With me, is Ms Robinson.
Who is also part of the same cohort
Can you tell us a little bit about the mission and vision of AVID?

Ellen Nickerson 0:32

Yeah.
So AVIDs mission is to prepare all students for college and career readiness
success in a global society.
So our mission is that we ensure that all students have equitable education,
equitable instruction through our trainings and the resources that we provide are
partners.

Mendoza, Vanessa 1:03

Awesome.
Thank you so much.
What is the organization seeking to accomplish through its online community?

Ellen Nickerson 1:11

So through our online communities, we are assigned to do a few things, we seek to
understand how our partners are utilizing our resources, right?
We seek to understand what our partner’s needs are like those teachers,
administrators, and district directors who are doing the work.
Like what?
What do they you know, what are their needs?
What are their challenges?
What are their struggles?
And we can tell that from reading the posts that they, you know, that they have in the
communities and then it helps us to see where our gaps are.
It helps us to see if our resources are being utilized.
It helps us to know where you know, where we might need to go or if we have to
redirect people in the use of our materials.
But we also look to seek celebrations because there’s a lot of celebrations on our
social media posts.
And so you can you can see when schools are validated as national demonstration
schools are when, when alumni come back to talk to students.
When students receive college acceptances and when they receive.
Scholarships and all those kinds of things.
So we also aim to see the celebrations, you know we want it, we want people to
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share their celebrations with others.

Mendoza, Vanessa 2:54

OK, awesome.
Thank you so much.
What metrics do you employ to understand their progress towards the goals
established?

Ellen Nickerson 3:04

So.
That’s a tough one because you know we monitor, you know, we monitor all of the,
the social media platforms and we look at what’s being posted right, that helps us.

Mendoza, Vanessa 3:23

OK.

Ellen Nickerson 3:24

Those are some of the metrics we look at.
How many are, you know?
UM, and really it’s mostly by, you know, reading and monitoring and seeing what
people are posting that you know helps us towards, you know, our goals of, you
know, ensuring that celebrations like, well, invite if we don’t see a whole lot of
celebrations, we might invite people.
Hey, you know what?
Are you celebrating in your school or in your district, you know, if we are seeing a
request, you know, for a resource, we will write, you know, hey, have you, did you
know that AVID provides XY&Z we couldn’t.
You know, so it’s really through the monitoring, umm, that we that that’s the metric
that we use.

Violet Robinson 4:23

Yeah.
And when I have a follow up question.

Ellen Nickerson 4:27

Yeah.

Violet Robinson 4:27

You were sharing with us earlier the different communities on the different platforms
like Twitter or Facebook.

Ellen Nickerson 4:34

Umm hmm.

Violet Robinson 4:37

I was wondering if for Avid, maybe annually, if there is a strategy or where maybe
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there is an intended goal that it has in mind and it’s just a strategy that internally
you’re using to kind of drive that goal across the different learning communities.

Ellen Nickerson 5:05

So yeah.
So yeah, so for example we will, we will let people know on our social media
platforms that registration for our summer institute is open, right?
And so, you know, a goal we have, we have a metric, a goal to umm to have X
amount of educators come to our summer institute so we can impact more, more
students and so.
We would use that to help, right?
Like we don’t say necessarily we’ve met or metric because we put it on our online
platforms, but that’s one way that we kind of get information out there to meet
various goals and metrics that we have in the organization around training educators
Yeah. Percentage of students you know going to four year colleges and universities, or two
year colleges and universities or whatever they’re doing.
So it’s not like the only way we know, it is a number of ways we try to get to people
you know, a lot of this gets done through.

Violet Robinson 6:25

Umm.

Ellen Nickerson 6:38

The groups that we have in.
For newsletters and things of that nature too.
So it’s just like all of this stuff coming together and our social media platform is just
one way for us to gain information or get information out or see what’s happening.
You know in the schools that we serve, but it’s not the only way.
So there’s not specific metrics just tied to this except for what we see.
How many times we see it?
You know, if we believe that it’s, it’s helping us move the needle towards you know, our goal is
impacting more students.

Violet Robinson 7:17

Yeah, understood.
Of the different mediums that you use to either gather information from your
participants or recruit and gonna hear and utilize it for recruitment, which one would
you say is the most has been the most effective?

Ellen Nickerson 7:28

Umm.
Mm-hmm.

Violet Robinson 7:38

Is the online platforms the learning communities?
Are you finding that to be effective?
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Ellen Nickerson 7:46

So we do find that.
But we have a lot of members of our social media platforms or we have a lot of
Members and so.
If there's information that we want to get at, say we have a new resource that we
want to get to teachers, you know, to help with tutorials, I'm just gonna side with, you
know, with tutorials when we put them on our social media platform, it seems to
really get, you know, get some traction as far as you know people saying hey, thank
you.
Or hey, I didn't know this existed or you know those kinds of things.
So it seems like our teachers are the most engaged, you know, with, with the social
media platform and really go there to seek help and support in their classrooms and
we see a lot of questions around hey, can you help us with this or is anyone else
struggling or does someone have a lesson that will help support something?

Mendoza, Vanessa 8:57

OK.
All right, perfect.
This is a question outside a little bit of what we're instructed to do, but how has avid
changed from its origins to now?
How would you say it has changed over the years?

Ellen Nickerson 9:15

So it’s changed in so many ways.
Umm, when it started it was like 1980 and so it's, you know, it was small, it dealt with
one classroom of students.

Mendoza, Vanessa 9:23

OK.

Ellen Nickerson 9:32

That one teacher was supporting as far as you know.
Ensuring that they have rigorous uh work that they were offered the same
opportunities to be an advanced classes with other students.
And then it is grown from just that one classroom to school-wide, how do we support
all students on a campus?
Not just those students that are in the AVID elective.
We also now have programs for English language learners, multilingual learners that
you know, kind of everything grew from that one classroom.

Mendoza, Vanessa 10:16

OK.

Ellen Nickerson 10:22

We used to be secondary and now we're elementary as well as secondary went from
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one school to 47 states.

So you know, it is really kind of the root and the basis of all of it was in that one
classroom and the premise of the work and you know, and providing the same
opportunities for all students regardless of their backgrounds is still there.
It is just really grown out.
You know, a lot.
Mendoza, Vanessa 10:52
OK, perfect.
I'm just curious what are the three states where AVID it's not present?

Ellen Nickerson 10:58

Oh I'd have to look that up.
I think a couple of them are.
Let me see.
I don't know if I have that off the tip of my tongue.
I just know like it's 47, but I don't know what the three are.

Mendoza, Vanessa 11:09

No worries.
Just curious.

Violet Robinson 11:13

I just have a follow up question.
I remember.
Spent 24 years 23 years from me back.
Being an AVID teacher and just in listening to you, I'm just curious, you know, with
the role of technology today in education.
If you're, if you were able to help to share with us, do you feel that the expansion of
AVID over the years or maybe you could speak a little bit to that, the role that
technology has played, if any, that would be great.

Ellen Nickerson 11:48

Yeah.
Definitely speak to that so.
So we were evolving fairly slowly in the integration of technology into some of our
resources and our professional learning.
And it was it, you know, we were again it was.
We were doing it, but it was slow until the pandemic, right?

Mendoza, Vanessa 12:22

Umm.

Ellen Nickerson 12:23

And along with our schools, you know, we were trying to, you know, match what our
schools and our schools needs were up until, you know, ohh ways.
And so in the pandemic, everything had to go digital.
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And so we went from using a learning management system in just a few of our
trainings, right to using a learning management system in all of for all of our
trainings, we're moving more towards instead of giving analog.
Curriculum, like guides to help support like the book you talked about.
Violet, how do we provide all of those resources now in a more digital format so that people can
search and then I'll have to look at a table of contents or search through
the pages to find something.
But how can we utilize a learning management system so that a teacher or principal
could say I need a resource in XY or Z and it would come up and then we can keep
them up to date because it's digital when you have analog, we would only revise the
analog books on a cycle and so people would have outdated.
Perhaps, especially as quickly as you know, things in education are moving.
They would have some updated information, but as we move more towards a digital
platform, we can keep people current more current and so we are really.
Like embracing the swift move of technology, not only in organizations, and
businesses, but also in schools and what students and teachers need to keep up
with in order to keep current as we move.
As we move forward and so our learning management systems now are the way we
deliver all of our professional learning and our educators have access to the
resources for one year after they take the training.
Where in the past it was a PowerPoint and nobody got the PowerPoint unless you
took pictures of the PowerPoint slides.
Nobody got the PowerPoint, so you know, so we are really evolving and keeping up
with, you know, the demands and needs for technology and education.
We also support virtual schools, and so we, you know, we need to have a lot of our
materials and resources available.
We now ensure that we provide our resources in Microsoft and Google, you know,
Fillable PDF so that everyone can access our resources.
So in the last four to five years, we have really upped our game as far as educational
technology.
We do trainings virtually now.
Our trainings are, you know, bar none as far as virtual trainings where we utilize
breakout rooms and collaborative structures and you know ways to engage people
virtually as if they were sitting in a classroom next to each other.
And so it's interesting though, because the pendulum, you know, kind of like
everyone was using the technology.
And now that people are back to face to face, and you know, and some of our
schools and our teachers have a little bit of that digital fatigue after, you know, those
years of COVID, you know, people want more face to face.
They want more things in their hands, you know, rather than virtual, you know.
So we try to make sure that we are meeting the needs of, you know.
Like you said, in the beginning of you know the presentation, different kinds of
learners, right?
So we're trying to meet those needs, but definitely by lit have right.
We are fast track like how we use AI, how we're going to use AI in our learning
management systems.
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We also offer AI instructional AI to our AVID schools.

Now, there are partnerships that we have where we're not talking about generative
AI, where like chat GPT is student types something in and it just gives you the
information but more of how a student would type in an essay and AI would be a
coach for the student to improve their writing based on criteria that a teacher has put
in a roof, put in a rubric.
So yes, we are fast tracking, you know, educational technology and understanding
how it is so important.
Again, for our mission, you know success in a global society where we are, you
know, where we're we're moving and technology is moving rapidly and our students
and our teachers need to keep up.

Violet Robinson 17:39

Yeah.
I just had two follow up questions for Ellen.

Mendoza, Vanessa 17:46

OK.

Violet Robinson 17:47

I'll start with the second one.
The second question is the different learning communities you shared with us.
So there's Facebook, LinkedIn on the different platform.

Ellen Nickerson 17:58

Mm-hmm.

Violet Robinson 18:00

I'm just curious which one that you found to be the most successful.
Which of the platforms and then and then why you like?

Ellen Nickerson 18:06

So.

Violet Robinson 18:09

What are you contributing to success too?

Ellen Nickerson 18:11

OK.

Violet Robinson 18:13

And then my other question, umm, is with the shift that you just described to us,
which is wonderful.
It's really exciting.
Avid is evolving in this way.
With that shift, have you seen any impact of digitizing resources?
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And that that access the in provided to your users.

Have you seen any impact on the learning communities?

Ellen Nickerson 18:43

OK so.
As far as the first question.
If we're measuring success in like traffic and usage right, I would say that our
Facebook educator page is the most successful.
There's a lot of posts.
There's a lot of activity.
There's a lot of learning that's going on.
There's a lot of appreciation for sharing of materials, not only by us but by
colleagues, teachers around the country.
It's a way that teachers connect and sometimes connect their classrooms as well,
and it seems the teachers are very, very active in, you know, in that as far as as
learning that was one of your questions, right one.

Violet Robinson 19:42

Yes.

Ellen Nickerson 19:44

Umm the.

Violet Robinson 19:45

And the other was the impact.

Ellen Nickerson 19:55

Yeah.Picked up.The.

Violet Robinson 20:02

That's what the entire country, right.

Ellen Nickerson 20:02

But.
Umm.

Violet Robinson 20:06

And are you seeing an impact on the learning communities?
Are you seeing that this shift?
How is that affecting the learning commute?
How's that?
How was the shift affected the learning communities before?
In looking back, I'm like assassin of what?

Ellen Nickerson 20:25

Umm.
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Violet Robinson 20:26

The community is looked like prior to cause.
As soon as I did shift occurred since COVID prior to COVID and then now since we
experienced COVID and then avid, you know went through this transition of wanting
to do your ties or their resources, he's in it difference.

Ellen Nickerson 20:36

Mm-hmm.
So when we collect our student impact data, it's hard to tease out exactly what it is
that has caused an uptick in, you know in our so data that we collect on a regular
basis or it's mostly around our AVID elective students and we collect data around
you know what the coursework they're taking.
We collect data around, the percentage of students going to college is what their
persistence and colleges.
And so what's difficult with Avid is that when we, when we talk about measuring
impact is that we don't directly work with students, but students is the audience that
we want to impact.
We work with teachers.
And so we provide our resources to teachers to impact students, but we know that
there's so much going on at a school that impacts students.
It's hard for a school to say ohh it was AVID that really made the impact when there
was all this other stuff happening as well and so.
So it's hard to answer that question because.
We looked at student impact, but we don't directly work with students.
We work directly with teachers and administrators.
Does that make sense?
So we're hoping that you all are utilizing the resources that are gonna make that
impact in the classroom and then that's how we see, you know, that's how we see
the change.

Violet Robinson 22:23

Yeah.

Ellen Nickerson 22:34

And so just to say that it's technology is hard to tease out.
But we're always looking for ways to collect better data on student impact, so let me
give you an example with the AI.
OK so.
The way we would look at student impact is we provide training to the teachers on
this AI platform, right?
And then teachers utilize the AI platform with their students, and then we can track
progression through that AI tool, right?
So we have something called a curiosity score, and it's the way the AI evaluates
students in their critical thinking their questioning skills, their use of, you know,
they're use of resources.
 23

Umm, as they're as they're doing their writing and we can track that.
Students are increasing on that particular, you know, writing assignment or in this
level, but how that translates to other areas that they could potentially be using this
and and moving forward we don't, we don't know that.
So we can, you know, we can only track certain pieces.
We don't know sometimes what the overall.
Umm.
Impact is, does that make sense?
Not sure, OK? Mm-hmm.

Violet Robinson 24:17

Yes. Yeah.

Mendoza, Vanessa 24:17

Absolutely yes.
Yep, it seems that there's room for a lot of research that can be done in terms of
what the impact AVID has.
Obviously, the interaction piece it's a good measuring, you know, the more
interaction, the better, and obviously you will take it to the next level.
Ellen Nickerson 24:36
Right.

Mendoza, Vanessa 24:38

What kind of feedback?
Positive and negative.
It's taking place, so that's fantastic.

Ellen Nickerson 24:43

Yeah

Mendoza, Vanessa 24:43

What do you see as the future of Avid five years from now?

Ellen Nickerson 24:48

But we hope to be impacting more and more students, be, you know, working with
more and more schools.
Probably you know.
We're hoping that.
One of our more innovative spaces.
Uh developing resources around multilingual learners.
And that we're gonna be reaching more multilingual learners.
We've had lots of requests from teachers to, you know, in schools about, you know,
how to support this population of students.
And so, you know, we're hoping to see great strides in those areas.
We're hoping to see a more sophisticated way for our partners to access our
resources within five years.
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Uh, hoping that it's user-friendly and easy of, you know, accessing our resources.
We're hoping that we can.
We'll call the stickiness of some of the training that we do.
I'm, you know, in schools in, you know, having these year-round conversations with,
you know, these learning communities and you know, building upon those learning
communities.
So we can so we know that our you know our work is continuing in classrooms and
you know part of what we continually strive to do is ensure that.
When you come to professional learning for AVID that learning continues through the
year.
And so how do we help support that learning and that continued learning throughout
the school year that it’s just not a one-stop like here you go to professional learning.
You’re done. Take it.
Go, but that you have places like these communities to continually learn with us
during the course of the school year.
And you know beyond Mm-hmm.

Mendoza, Vanessa 26:55

Thank you.
Is there any other questions on your end?

Violet Robinson 27:00

No, Vanessa.
Thank you.

Ellen Nickerson 27:02

This was helpful.

Mendoza, Vanessa 27:02

OK.
Yes.
Well, thank you so much for the time.
I think that this will conclude our interview.