Issue link: https://takingitglobal.uberflip.com/i/1542824
R. Adeboye, C. Flewelling,V. Ogbole, E. O'Sullivan 60 and in what ways—they conducted follow-up activities after sessions. Teachers' responses varied. A few suggested they did not do as much follow up as they would like, while some others described specific practices of follow up that they routinely used. In some cases, that follow up included session discussion and the collaborative completion of the Connected North post- session survey. Others described more or less formal discussions or exercises, such as further research on a topic or the utilization of follow-up activities that were included in the session package. Other teachers indicated that their follow-up often took the form of ongoing references back to concepts learned in a session, rather than, or in addition to, discrete follow-up activities. The content analysis of the teacher survey included a moderate number of responses (98% positive) describing how teachers supported sessions. Survey comments echoed teacher interviews, highlighting how teachers selected sessions to augment their standard curriculum, and also provided some insights into how teachers prepared students for sessions and continued to build on their learning after sessions. To explore whether teachers were equipped to use Connected North to its highest potential, interviewees were asked whether there was a learning curve associated with using the program. Although responses often emphasized the overall user-friendliness of the program, many offered insights into their use of the program more broadly. Many reflected on the critical importance of their role in making the sessions a success 31 , and how the level of sophistication in how they leveraged Connected North to support student learning had evolved over time. Moreover, a few reflected on how they were not always sure that all colleagues fully understood how the program was supposed to function or how to use it to its best advantage. One teacher described how they hoped to lead a professional development session to help other teachers use the program effectively, including how to plan out their year in advance and strategically select Connected North sessions to complement and enhance their learning plan. Unfortunately, the evaluation did not delve deeply into how teachers were onboarded as Connected North users or what ongoing training was available. However, evaluators noted that, at the time of the evaluation, the teacher portal did not include the extensive best-practices guidance and training resources available through the Content Providers' portal, and none of the professional development sessions appeared to be explicitly intended to support teacher use of Connected North. Moreover, Connected North in Our Classrooms, which does provide extensive 31 This reflects numerous comments from the Content Provider survey to the effect that "…the more that the classroom teacher participates in the session and encourages their students, the better the engagement overall;" "When teachers are monitoring the progress of the majority of the students and letting me know when they are ready to move on to the next step of the learning, I feel confident that we will get through the learning in an engaging way." "I feel personally that the more I get to know Connected North and the programming, I feel like it's becoming even stronger in our classrooms." -Teacher Interviewee "At the beginning, I kind of sat at the back of the room and just kind of watched what was going on. Now I find I need to be more of a role model…" -Teacher Interviewee