Why exactly did we create Growth Over Time Learning (gotLearning)? As with anything, there is a story. Our founder, Mike Rutherford, returned to the classroom after many years in the private sector. Mike found that the classroom had definitely changed. Each of his students now had a laptop and access to the internet. The amount of qualitative data that he had to manage as a classroom teacher was incredible. Mike’s problem was not with quantitative data – the SIS and grade book did a great job of keeping grades and attendance. It was the qualitative data that was overwhelming. This included: notebooks, paper assignments, conversations with students, emails, feedback on rough drafts, revisions, student reflections, corrections, conferring notes, work stored on EdTech learning apps, videos, podcasts and countless naming and organizational systems of documents and folders on cloud apps etc.
Trying to keep track of all these places where learning data is kept was a huge task just for one student. However, Mike had a 135 students!
gotLearning was created to help teachers and students be more efficient and effective with their learning conversations.
Student learning is in our DNA. Enough so that a former student of our founder created the Growth Over Time Learning logo and even provided this pictorial description. Thanks Daiki Shinomiya!
