Ellevation Strategies is about to get a whole lot better. We’re excited to announce a major update to Strategies that will roll out over the next few months. The updated design is centered around a new Strategies homepage that contains professional learning resources curated for your district’s unique needs. This update will help you:

• Focus educators' limited time on the most critical PD priorities for your district.
• Create consistent learning experiences across your district.
• Enhance engagement through a streamlined, intuitive interface.

In this post, we’ll share what’s changing and why, but these changes shouldn’t feel disorienting. In fact, most of our users are probably very familiar with curated experiences in their technology. For instance, Spotify creates recommended playlists specifically for each user based on taste, algorithms can serve up content on social platforms catered to interests, and now, at Ellevation, we work with our districts to curate resources based on specific needs and goals.

Software technology is a process of ongoing improvement and discovery. With our shift towards a more curated experience, resembling some of the most admired software products, we are pushing Ellevation to be even better than before.

Learning from Districts
To guide our improvements, we worked with and analyzed the experiences of districts who have been the most successful using Strategies compared to districts that were less successful. Clear patterns emerged: the highest impact comes when EL team leaders proactively recommend which PD Modules and Activities educators should prioritize, and then share those resources in a way that aligns with existing district practice.  

The New Strategies Homepage
Building on these customer learnings, the core of the teacher experience will now be the "Strategies homepage." This centralized hub will allow educators to easily access the PD Modules and Activities most relevant to their needs. Teachers will spend less time searching and more time engaging with research-based Activities that district leadership has identified as important. Think of it as curated Spotify playlists - but oriented towards building the capacity of teachers to work more effectively with English Learners.

Curation and Consistency
With support from the Ellevation team, district administrators can now curate educational experiences aligned with their learning objectives. This will provide consistent professional learning programming across the district, creating a shared learning experience that boosts engagement for both educators and students. Even better: research shows that students learn best when teachers use similar, predictable routines that are reinforced throughout their instructional day.

New teacher cohorts, for example, might start with the “Understanding Your Multilingual Learners” Pathway, followed by recommended Activities for “Building Background.”  When teachers know that the resources they are learning from are research-based and also valued by others, it motivates more engagement.

Additional Improvements
To simplify and enhance this new curated experience, we’re streamlining the interface by removing seldom-used features like bookmarks/folders. Some beloved features, such as language connections and content standards from the Collections, will be integrated directly into the updated Activities pages for easier access. In general, we are using the transition to a Strategies Homepage as a way to preserve and amplify the features you love, while trimming or re-purposing the ones that are less utilized.

What to Expect
We’re excited to roll out this improved experience to new customers immediately. Our implementation approach has been updated to reinforce these improvements. 

For existing customers, we can’t wait to show you around your new home. To get started, Ellevation has developed recommended PD Module and Activity lists based on state or regional standards. Districts will have the opportunity to select the recommended lists before the new experience is turned on.

We have already started working with an initial group of districts to get them prepared for the Back to School season. If you would like to learn more, please reach out to your Ellevation account team.

Finally, for all customers, you can get a full tour at our July 23, 2024 webinar: Personalized Professional Learning with Strategies Curation