Your Feedback After Session 1
Big thanks to everyone who shared feedback after Session 1. We reviewed every comment and wanted to respond directly to the themes and questions you raised. See below for the topics, feedback, and our responses!
1. Guide one-on-one check-ins
“We are still getting our bearings as a new family, but would love to know a cadence on the one-to-one check-ins the guides have with each learner. Those were super helpful, as I don’t always get a lot of info out of my heroes yet!”
Once per week in Upper Elementary, and every other week in Lower Elementary, Middle, and High School. Guide touchpoints are ongoing and daily in Spark. You can see updates in Guide Check-in notes.
2. Consolidated communication
“More consolidated communication.”
Working on it!
3. Team communication
“Better team communication.”
Can you be more specific? Text Amber with what would help.
4. IXL transparency
“More transparency with IXL diagnostic and interpretation of where his strengths and weaknesses are.”
We completed IXL diagnostics in Math and ELA with heroes in Upper Elementary through High School, and we’re guiding heroes who missed them to complete them this week. Early this session, we’ll share results with heroes and help them set growth goals. Our first parent-facing progress report will also include growth between the baseline and the next diagnostics in October. If you have additional questions, kindly text Amber and ask.
5. Middle School Exhibition quality / college readiness
“Middle school exhibition presentations and kids’ answers were very below average and made us worried about how they achieve the necessary to graduate and go to college.”
Our advice—Trust the process and the long game. This was Exhibition #1. For some heroes, this was their first time working with real-world budgets and wrestling with these kinds of questions. Forest has a 100% college acceptance rate among heroes who have applied and intended to attend college, and our graduates are thriving at colleges including Georgia Tech, UGA, Morehouse, and many others. We also have world-class college admissions counselors supporting our heroes. Most importantly, heroes grow at Forest. Session 1 is the beginning, not the finished product. If you still have concerns, please reach out to Amber. If your questions aren’t assuaged after that conversation, Tyler is always happy to talk with you as well.
6. Exhibition creativity and learner ownership
“One area for improvement we noticed this session was Exhibition. As audience members during Exhibitions, we have experienced a repetitive pace in the presentations many times. Every team tends to have the same format, the same structure, and the same medium to express their work, sometimes even very similar content. This session, we had a conversation with our learner to try to understand what was happening. We wanted to know whether he had thought of other ways to present their work and convey their ideas to the audience. After our conversation, we came to the conclusion that learners may be simply complying with the guidelines they are given. Our learner felt that he didn't have much of a say in how the work was presented, and as parents, we feel this could unintentionally suppress creative thinking for some learners while becoming an opportunity to do the bare minimum for others. We would encourage you to consider: What is the main purpose of presenting at Exhibition? Is it to demonstrate compliance and completion of the work? Or could it also be an opportunity for learners to expand their ability to communicate and persuade, present ideas and results effectively, consider their audience, make intentional choices about how to communicate their work, and adapt their message depending on what they are trying to accomplish? During our conversation, we talked about school—and especially The Forest School, as a perfect "training ground" to one day be able to, for example, pitch an idea to investors, present to clients, interview for colleges or jobs, advocate for a project, or persuade a group of people to support an idea. We assured our learner that we don't expect them to be at that level right now. However, we see every Exhibition, Discussion, and Genius Hour as a stepping stone toward developing those abilities. We feel that growth may be limited if learners keep presenting their work in essentially the same way every time. In our opinion, every Exhibition can be a rehearsal for real-life situations in which learners gradually learn to ask themselves: How can I best present this idea? / Who is my audience? What do they already know, and what don't they know? / What am I trying to get across? / What do I want my audience to think, feel, understand, or do after my presentation? / What format or medium would be most effective for accomplishing that? / What result am I aiming for? We believe that giving learners more ownership not only over what they present, but also how they present it, could make Exhibition a powerful opportunity to practice creativity, communication, persuasion, and real world problem-solving and/or fail in the process.”
Great feedback—thank you. First, we’d love to empower your hero specifically. Can you text Amber with your hero name and Studio, and she can brainstorm concrete steps your hero can take to share this feedback with Guides and make real change. Beyond that, we’ll keep asking learners for feedback on how Exhibitions are structured. We actually do this quite a bit. If you haven’t already, we’d also encourage you to include this feedback on the Exhibition feedback form.
The two primary structural expectations we try to preserve are: 1) Exhibitions are learner-led, and 2) we use Liberating Structures so Guides can help ensure that all heroes have opportunities to participate and speak. What we value most about Exhibition is that heroes get to speak publicly, make their thinking visible, receive meaningful, real-time feedback from experts, parents, and visitors, and (when possible) transfer their learning to novel situations. Your feedback about continuing to expand creativity and choice within that framework is helpful, thanks.
7. Quest emphasis: user-centered design vs. app-building
“Somehow it felt like the opportunity was to major on user based design, but it became instead a project to build an app. I would have preferred an 80/20 emphasis (guidance!) ucd/app with an emphasis on team process but my learners group was more individual contributor swim lanes with 10/90 ucd/app, in practice.”
We agree with your observation about the nature of this Quest and still feel the experience was valuable. Your feedback is great input for how we might design a future Quest. Thanks.
Suggestions From Heroes
8. Challenge instructions
“Clearer instruction for challenges. Descriptions are not often clear enough.”
Can you text Amber and let her know which Studio you’re talking about? That will help us give you a more specific response. Our first advice would also be to put this on your hero: if they don’t understand what is being asked, their next step should be to ask questions and go to a Guide for clarity.
9. Behavior / boundaries
“Nicer heroes, heroes learning to keep hands to themselves, personal space, and boundaries.”
Yes! If your hero sees or experiences something other than their boundaries respected, please encourage them to reach out to a Guide immediately so it can be addressed.
10. Guide launches
“Better launches from the Guides.”
Great feedback. Can you text Amber with more specifics, including which Studio you’re talking about and what you’d like to see improved?
11. More freedom in Middle School work
“Give us more freedom in our submissions for all our SLEs because we feel like we are being constrained by the deliverables, and that limits our creativity. During Quest this session, we had many constraints, especially while preparing the way to exhibit our work. We think a bit more freedom would have allowed certain people who really wanted to do this Quest to flourish, while giving people who might be slacking an opportunity to grow. For example, during Story Arts, we tend to have more freedom. This session, we were presented with a challenge and a world-class example of execution, and you threw us to the "wolves" in a good way. I felt like we had more room to express our creativity in Story Arts compared to our Quest work. Also, I think expert feedback prior to Exhibition, with enough time to make edits if necessary, would be very helpful.”
What a great thought! Part of what makes Quests so challenging—and so meaningful—is the real-world aspect. Learners often have to work within real constraints, problem-solve, and figure out how to navigate what’s possible within those limitations.
Story Arts and Civilization may sometimes feel like they offer more creative freedom, but that really depends on the Quest and the topic. In many cases, the Quest itself can become a wonderful creative outlet, giving learners the opportunity to think outside the box and approach a real-world challenge in their own unique way.
We’ll share this feedback with Guides and keep thinking about the right balance between clear deliverables and creative freedom.
12. Upper Elementary Quest
“We really appreciated the real-world exploration this session with fire, the expert (Captain Core), the fire truck, etc. Many learners expressed that this Quest was not as fun, but I think it might be because we went outside our comfort zone, writing and researching more than other times. I differ in my opinion. I think the writing and researching were important.”
Thanks for sharing. We’re not sure there’s anything actionable here, but if we’re missing something, please text Amber!
13. Use Week 1 better / user research
“Have to use the first week better. Experts camped on getting 100 users vs getting to understanding of users.”
Great feedback. The good news is that we embed design thinking into many Quests, so users and user feedback will continue to be a major part of the Forest experience. In fact, heroes cannot graduate until they demonstrate a deep understanding of users and user feedback. They have to prove mastery in this area with Tyler and the High School Guides before earning the right to graduate.
14. Badge Plan + opportunities for newer learners
“She would like more time spent on the badge plan as currently there’s nothing on it. She would also like for those who are new to the studio to have more opportunities to answer questions as the older kids always get to go first.”
Can you text Amber and share which Studio you’re talking about? We can definitely address this once we know where it’s happening.
15. Math rushing / gaming answers
“He struggles sometimes getting the math done and I notice he’ll try to rush through questions by purposely getting it wrong so he can find the right answer without properly understanding the material. Something we are working on. Slowing down.”
This is a great observation. If he’s in Upper Elementary, Middle School, or High School, encourage him to visit Rhonda during her Math hours. This is exactly the kind of thing she can help with.
BAND / Communication
16. More Studio updates
“More studio updates would be nice.”
Great feedback—thank you. Text Amber and let her know what kinds of Studio updates you’d find most helpful or interesting.
17. Separate information by Studio/class level
“Maybe a separation of information from one class level to the next?”
Good news: it’s already separated. You can click the “#” for your hero’s Studio to see only posts from that Studio. You’ll find it near the top of the app by the “All Posts” button.
18. More Studio-specific posts
“More studio specific posts.”
Thank you. This fits with other feedback we received, and we’ll continue working with Guides on the right cadence and types of Studio-specific updates.
19. Reopen chat rooms
“Open the chat rooms again.”
Can you text Amber and let her know what you found helpful about the chat rooms? As we shared previously, we turned off one-on-one Band chat to simplify communication and avoid confusion. For questions or needs, texting or emailing Amber is the best way to centralize communication and ensure things don’t get missed. Sorry for any inconvenience.
20. Get everyone onto BAND
“Make sure everyone is on BAND :)”
On it.
21. Too many BAND posts / preference for consolidated communication
“There are so many posts. While I appreciate frequent communications, I miss the efficiency of one email with all announcements in it.”
Interestingly, we received the opposite feedback about emails. That’s the communication challenge: some families want more, some want less, and some want it delivered differently. We’re trying to find the happy middle and will keep iterating.
22. Still adjusting to BAND
“No. It’s early days and I’m still getting used to it.”
Thanks. We know any new communication platform takes a little time to get used to.
Keep the Feedback Comin’!
We genuinely value this feedback. Forest is a learning organization, too! If there’s ever more context behind your feedback, please text Amber. She can either help directly or make sure it gets to the right person. Thanks for trusting us with your heroes and for helping us keep getting better.
— Tyler, Head of School, and Amber, Dean of Parents