How We Live Classkick’s Values: Advocate for Learners
Values are real when they are lived. We’ve asked a group of Classkick team members to share their thoughts on the meanings and actions associated with Classkick’s company values: Focus on People, Work Toward Justice, Advocate for Learners, Stay Curious, and Dream.
We’re excited to have Bri Kelly, Customer Implementation Specialist at Classkick, share her thoughts on Advocate for Learners. Bri’s deep experience in higher education with recruiting and admissions counseling, and in K–12 education supporting college readiness, has exposed her to learners of all kinds and lends her a special perspective on learner advocacy.
This post is part 3 of a 5-post series on Classkick’s company values. To read more about Classkick’s values and how they came to be, click here.
What is Advocate for Learners?
Advocate for Learners means focusing on and listening closely to the needs of our teachers and their students. They know what they need more than we do, even those of us who are fresh out of the classroom. Advocating for learners means we’re committed to identifying the needs and challenges of teachers and students and then using our voices and product to address those needs. For me, specifically, it means showing up for students and teachers by having hard conversations about why and how their needs should be met. It means doing my best to offer space and support and believing them when they talk about their current challenges.
What does it mean for Classkick?
At Classkick, when we talk about advocating for learners, this means all of our users — including teachers. Teachers are constantly learning about their craft, their students, and the diverse learning needs in their classrooms. Advocating for learners means using our product to address gaps in education. We live this value by increasing students’ opportunities for innovative learning and academic risk-taking. By advocating for learners, Classkick allows teachers to meet students where they are and provide support whenever and however students need it. It means listening and understanding what changes could be made to our product to provide the best possible learning experience for all of our learners.
How did we know this was important to us as a company?
We knew advocating for learners was important to us as a company because our mission is literally “help teachers teach and help learners learn.” You can’t believe in that mission without also advocating for those teachers and learners. If you want to successfully live that mission and build a tool that positively impacts and helps these groups, you have to be willing to listen to their needs and implement changes. We knew this value was important to us as a company because we really do believe in simply doing what’s best for students and teachers.
How does living this value make us better as professionals?
Advocating for learners makes us better as professionals because it requires us to have (or develop) empathy for the people we are meant to support. It’s been really rewarding to be a part of the Customer Experience (CX) team, where we all truly work hard to listen to teachers and understand the situations playing out in classrooms. We then get the chance to show we care through the work we do, such as holding space and offering time to have 1:1 conversations with our users who are working to learn about the magic of Classkick.
Everyone at Classkick, regardless of role or team, is doing work that directly impacts our teachers and students. We become better professionals when we understand the impact our work has — the “why.” When we advocate for learners, we start to understand the impact our team and company have on this bigger picture. For me, right now, the bigger picture is the current state of education. Living out this value has challenged me to become a better professional because I’ve genuinely become invested in figuring out ways to support and advocate for learners and ensure they are getting the support they need to do their best learning.
How do our team members know we’re succeeding as a company in this value?
We know we’re successfully advocating for learners when we see changes being made to our product based on learners’ feedback, truths, and perspectives. We know we’re advocating for learners when we’re all sitting in accessibility training in order to make our product better and more accessible for everyone. We know we’re advocating for learners when we get bi-weekly invites to discuss user research, and when we use those data and metrics to provide the very best product and support for our learners and their needs.
What will we change since adding this value?
Although we already do a lot to advocate for learners, we can always do more. I think we will change and increase the ways and outlets we use to advocate for learners. We do a lot of advocating for learners when we’re working together to enhance the app and brainstorm new services for our learners, but I am excited for new ways to publicly advocate for learners in a broader way. We’re on the right track, so I’m confident that we will be living this value even more publicly in the near future.
