211. A Tech Platform to Elevate your Standards-Informed Instruction with Chris Hull

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In the episode, we speak with Chris Hull, a former seventh-grade social studies teacher who created an innovative tech platform--Otus—to support student performance. Together, we discuss the transformative impact of standards-based grading on education. 

The episode delves into how this approach can revolutionize grading by focusing on student progress rather than static performance. Further, the integration of AI in education serves as a supportive ally for teachers, managing routine tasks and allowing them to concentrate on meeting student needs. 


The Big Dream 

Chris's big dream for education is to center it around students, making the connection between student and teacher easier and more impactful. He envisions an educational system where teachers are supported in understanding their students better, allowing them to maximize each student's learning potential. By focusing on the connection between teacher, student, and learning, Chris believes education can become even more exciting and effective.


Mindset Shifts Required

A key mindset shift involves viewing assessments as measurements of student progress over time rather than static evaluations. Educators can look at where students are now, and use that to inform the path moving forward. Chris highlights the importance of breaking down complex skills into manageable components, which personalizes instruction and better addresses individual student needs. 

Action Steps  

To better serve student learning, educators can adapt how they are using assessments to measure students’ progress over time. Here are some steps to implement: 

Step 1: Begin by breaking down assignments into specific competencies and skills. This simplifies the grading process and ensures a more accurate depiction of student abilities. It also helps students see their progress, inspiring them to keep learning and growing. 

Step 2: Utilize data to inform your pedagogical and instructional practices. As you document what students know, how many of them understand a specific thing, and other data points, you can adjust your instruction to meet them where they are. Chris’ platform, Otus, leverages AI to collect classroom data and utilize tools to maximize student performance and save time.

Step 3: Engage your families and broader community in the conversation. Data helps frame conversations around equity in education because you can get a clear picture of how students are progressing and can use it to inform instructional practices that best serve the individual student. 

Challenges?

One challenge educators face is a lack of support to manage their “grunt work” (i.e., preparing information, organizing things, running reports). Otus’ AI platform is designed to help educators do this and take some data analysis tasks off their plate. 

Another challenge is the resistance from those accustomed to traditional grading systems, including teachers, families, and colleges. This requires a phased approach and clear communication about the changes you are implementing. 

One Step to Get Started 

To begin the transition to standards-based grading, educators can start by getting clear on the core skills that they want to develop. Educators can then build out the system on how they are going to measure the progression of those skills, which is something Otus can help with. 

Stay Connected

You can find out more from Chris Hull and his work on LinkedIn and the Otus website.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, Chris is sharing a Webinar: How to Tackle Key Grading Reform Challenges as a School Leader with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 211 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 3:01 “It’s really important to look at an assessment as a measurement. You’re measuring where the student is today.”
• 13:21 “That’s a very broad thing—how do I really know what skills you have mastered or are still working on? That’s why the instruction should always be informed about your skill progression or your competency-based instruction.”
• 23:34 “When you go in for your car tune up, it is just like standards-based grading—‘Hey, this is how your transmission is, this is how your engine is, this is how your fluids are, this is where your brake pads are’—that is standards-based grading.”

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Chris, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. 

00:05 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Oh, thanks so much. Really excited to be here, Lindsay. 

00:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I'm excited to have you. Your platform, otis, is really fascinating, so really excited to dive into that today as part of our larger conversation about equitable grading. So that's certainly on my mind. Is there anything on your mind that you think the audience should know about or keep in mind as we jump in today? 

00:24 - Chris Hull (Guest)
No, I think it would be helpful for the audience to know that I was a seventh grade social studies teacher for 11 years and I think it's really important that I did standards-based grading, or what I like to call standards-informed instruction, before it was even really a thing, before all these folks came about it, but it was really focusing on the skills and how we could really measure students' progress on these standards. 

00:49 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Awesome. As a fellow social studies teacher, I'm excited. So, in line with the idea of freedom dreaming that Dr Bettina Love talks about and she describes as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, I think certainly that fits into our conversation today. But how does that kind of inform your big dream? What is that big dream you hold for education students? 

01:09 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I really think it's important that when we're focusing on education, it's really centered around the students. We need to really make sure we are able to learn and listen to who they are, who they were, so we can really meet them and really help them advance forward and really help them maximize their learning. And so, for me, my ultimate dream is to be able to really have that connection be possible and easier and so that each teacher doesn't have to constantly be unlocking every student that they have but they might be able to have some help from the previous teachers. And it's almost like a articulation of like tips and tricks that can help you connect to students and help students feel heard, so they feel like they're not having to restart these relationships over and over again. And once I feel we can get there, once we can really focus on that connection between teacher, student and learning and you know, the student and learning to me, that's really where everything becomes even more exciting. 

02:05 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's awesome. 

02:05
I just last night was on a coaching call around equitable grading where we talked about like the original definition of assessment, to be like to sit beside Right and to like confer about how we're doing like that really resonates for me is that it's relational, Right? 

02:18
This idea of like being in kind of that coach teacher role. It's relational, and so I love that you centered this in in relationships, kind of that coach-teacher role. It's relational and so I love that you centered this in relationships. I mean that actually might even be a big mindset shift for a lot of educators that that is the way that we approach assessment. But are there any other mindset shifts? Or, if you want to go down that path of that piece, like what, when we're thinking about educators who are kind of educated in that traditional way this is how I was graded or this is how assessment worked when I was in school or even in teacher school and we're shifting over to that idea of standards-informed instruction, what have you seen be kind of like a mindset shift that unlocks the new way of approaching assessment? 

02:57 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I think that for me it's really important to look at an assessment as a measurement. I really think if you look at an assessment, you're measuring where the student is today. And I think every teacher goes into teaching because they believe and know students can improve and grow. And so if you know growth is possible, if you know this is going to take place, you want to be able to take measurements along the way, to kind of be your guiding principle of hey, am I on the right track? Are things progressing properly? And to me the mind shift really comes where this is not like a permanent thing, this is really just a moment in time. We're going to take this measurement, and the shift for me in terms of standards-informed instruction is this idea of if I gave a test or a paper, I did a lot of papers or projects as a social studies teacher. I am not looking just at the total score, like that doesn't really exist. So how do we break it down for the student? And so in my classroom we were really focused on the ability to read, write and think critically and independently, and so then we broke that down. So the breaking down of that was informational reading and writing, and then breaking down that further is can you explain who is this situation about? Can you explain where is this situation? When is this situation Like? What is the situation? How does this situation connect to something you already know? And then why is it important? And by focusing on that breakdown of these skills, I was able to better personalize or differentiate my instruction. And I think that all teachers are doing this. They just sometimes don't realize that their observational measurements or their observational looking at where a student is is something that is actually informing their instruction. 

04:42
And when you can kind of take a step back, I think it can click into it. You know, and I have, you know, four kids and it's like when they were in kindergarten. You know you you're helping them tie their shoes or put on their jacket. Well, it's like, you know, you had the I was like the place and flip where they'd flip it over their head. Well, first it's going to get the jacket on their body. Then it's like, oh, now we got to work on the zipper. 

05:02
Well, you're breaking down the skills and I think we all see that in social studies. It's like I can't get to what is this situation before you can tell me who's in the situation, when is the situation? You know, when is the situation? All of a sudden it's kind of taking about. We're breaking it down and it comes into everything we do, like when you're doing a recipe and you're cooking, unless you're really, really, really, really good, you're not just throwing it all together and making it work. No, you're this ingredient plus this ingredient, and I think once you can kind of have that moment to step back. This isn't a change. It's more embracing the fact that you're taking the skills and your observations and now we're just documenting them and making them visible for everybody. Amazing things can happen. 

05:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I really like that because I think there is particularly for new teachers. Sometimes it's like oh, there's this magic that happens once you learn how to be a teacher. You just like figure it out with all of that stuff. But what you're naming is like let's document it so that we can be really transparent almost in our pedagogical decisions. What are we looking to observe and like let's not keep it a secret anymore, which is great. 

06:14 - Chris Hull (Guest)
And I think that data piece really allows you to learn we all want to be lifelong learners. 

06:16
We want our students to be lifelong learners. Well, that means you, as a teacher and educator, you want to constantly be reflecting, and to me, when I would be measuring my students and their growth on these skills and their ability to apply these skills and a various set of information as we would change topics, it was really helpful for me, like if I had a class that was all of them were struggling on a certain skill. Maybe it was deciphering a data visualization, which is still reading. Right, you're trying to understand what this data visualization is. Well, what is tripping them up? You know we were able to decipher a short article in the newspaper or online. Why are they now struggling to apply these same questions to a data visualization? Well, if all of a sudden, it's like man, they're really struggling with the when I'm making this up. 

07:02
So maybe my example won't be very good, but all of a sudden it's like teaching them hey, this is how you map that. Or maybe it's a select number of students and then you can differentiate. Okay, well, these 12 kids get it. I'm going to let them do the extension activity. Well, these six kids, I need to kind of work with them and do it. Well, it's informing your instruction and actually making you more efficient and effective by having this documentation of the data, or I like to say the information that's going to really inform what you do next, so that we all are enjoying the progress forward. No one likes hitting a wall or hitting something that's an obstacle. We all thrive on that aha moment of those breakthroughs where we're really able to put it together. 

07:45 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh, you're hitting on so many things here Certainly like that motivational piece when students can see the breakdown of like. It's not just like a 65 or whatever the abstract number is, but it's like no, I'm great at these skills and I need some work in these skills. That is affirming that they have strengths and areas for growth like everyone. And what I also loved I mean mean, maybe we could start talking about Otis as a platform, but what I loved in in some of the visuals that I saw in there like, it's not just for the teacher but it's for the students and the families too that they can see. 

08:15
Firstly, that they can see their most recent you you initially started talking about like. It's where they are right now, which I love, because obviously when they come into our class at the beginning of the year, we don't expect them to have all the skills that we're going to teach them all year and so it's like what is the most recent kind of level or proficiency kind of that they have, and I love that. That's centered. And I also love that there's that visual breakdown of where has this skill been across time while you've been in my class. I don't know if you want to like talk a little bit more about the platform that I just started going off on. 

08:47 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Oh, no, definitely, and I think that's really where we want. We want the tools that we're equipping teachers with to be helpful, and you know, one of our most helpful tools we provide our educators is our standards-based sorry our view in our grade book. That's our standards-based grading view and it's really. It's allowing you to do your normal assessments or assignments. If it's a rubric and all of a sudden you have different descriptors that are breaking down the different components of that assignment, you're just grading that rubric in a really easy, simple couple clicks here and you're all of a sudden providing this information. We then gather that information, or it could be their performance on a typical quiz or test where there are items and questions, but the idea is you're just doing your thing and instead of a traditional grade book where you might be just having an assignment with a total score where you could have kept that on a clipboard or a spreadsheet back in the day, in standards-based grading it's almost like going from two-dimensional chess to three-dimensional chess, because you want to know how they did on the assignment, but you also then need to be able to expand it out and say, hey, how did they do on these six skills or standards that I'm measuring or the competencies that I'm evaluating, then you want to be able to look at those and if all of a sudden there's one skill or competence that you're coming back to over and over again, you want to be able to say, hey, where is their growth been? And again, that's where the tool can help you. It's kind of like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch where all of a sudden, like, yeah, you're just doing your workout, or, in this case, you're just doing your assignment and your grading and then the system is doing all the calculations. Hey, you want to look at what is their most recent score? Great, you want to do decaying average? You want to do mean mode? All of those things are possible and we even allow you to, because you know a lot of folks when they're getting into standards-based grading or standards-informed instruction. It's a transition. We talk about that transition. 

10:39
Otis can actually be that kind of conversion tool. You know again, again, I like to think of everything as a measurement. So it has a unit of measurement and that unit usually for traditional is like points. Well, when you get into you know, standards informed instruction or standards-based grading, you might get into things like um, different labels like mastery, near mastery approaching. You know the labels can be very wide. You know some even use numbers as their labels, but there is still that need for some people to see that crosswalk Well, what did this mean from a point to a standard space. 

11:11
Now for the people who are further advanced or further along in their pedagogy, they know that they don't want to do that, they want to get completely away from numbers. And hey, you can do that. You can go completely to the pure or the great standards in form of instruction or that transition might need to happen and so sometimes we need to be able to have that crosswalk and conversion and say this is how, this is what it meant, this is what it is. Is that ideal? I think the ideal is what is practical, what is actually gonna help people get to where we need to go and really get to being able to connect with students. 

11:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that because I'm just thinking about the different folks I've been coaching and schools and districts have been coaching around this shift to more equitable ways of grading, thinking about standards-informed instruction, and that is such a concern it is like, but this has been the way that we do it. So what is the crosswalk? What is the conversion and I love that it of situating of that phase being a phase on the way to ultimately being able to potentially release that and just have standards. I know the structures that we live in are very much in people's brains, both teachers and families, and a lot of times teachers are thinking about when they're shifting grading policies, for example, what will the families think, what will the colleges think? Right, like, I really appreciate that you name that and that that that crosswalk is possible. 

12:33 - Chris Hull (Guest)
And I think I think that's one of the key pieces we've we've worked with districts for the past decade around this and in an ideal world where there weren't pressures from the community to just go standards based like, yeah, that would be amazing. And that's really why I use the term standards, informed instruction, because instruction should be informed by the skill progression. That is like without question if we're really going to get into it. The analogy I often use is like a job application. If I'm trying to get a new job, I can't say I got an A in my last gig, hire me. No, I have to tell you what skills I'm proficient in, where I'm you know'm really qualified in, and that's what we want from our students. As a teacher getting a new student, I want to know where were they, what are their skills? 

13:18 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I don't want to know. Hey, you got to be in algebra. 

13:20 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Well, that's a very broad thing, like how do I really know what skills have you mastered, what skills are you still working on, what areas are you doing? So that's why the instruction should always be informed about your skill progression or your competency-based instruction. But the reporting to the community, the reporting to colleges if that is a difficult thing to change, it's okay to say hey, we'll change that later. Let's get every teacher really thinking like this, because then we can begin to have those conversations with the districts. And when we talk about equity, it really is around everybody having the same information to have these discussions with and then to really engage in those discussions. And you don't need to rush them. 

14:07
Hey, let's really work with you. Let's say you're concerned as a high school family community that this is not going to be great for you to get into college. Great, we can show you these are your points, traditional scores that you know how they work. But let's show you in parallel how this can inform our instruction, how it can improve the learning. And really, when you then have that documentation of the information, to me that can drive the equity conversations, because I don't think it's just a simple flip of a switch. It really is something you have to engage with, you have to really think about, you have to be constantly reflecting and improving upon. It elements, all those initiatives or concepts you're pushing forward. They're so much easier to have that happen when you can have a system like Otis document it for you. So you're not dealing with the documentation of the data entry, no, you're really focused on the examination or analysis of this information or the application of it or the communication, and then you can really focus on those things. 

15:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's great, and I love this equity frame as well that you keep referencing, because what I'm thinking about is the last couple of days I've had a lot of conversations and I was a former special education teacher and so thinking about students with IEPs I think this could be so critically important for students with IEPs particularly, or students who have been kind of labeled as like struggling learners or anything, because often what we see is when teachers are overwhelmed and I certainly am like guilty of this as well, you know, you're just like okay, well, these students are going to struggle with this. 

15:43
So I'm just going to kind of reteach this whole group that has the label of having an IEP or something right. 

15:48
And it's like actually, when we break down each of those skills and the standards, we realize that actually these two kids have this struggle with this thing and these six kids are going to right. 

15:56
And so what I really love is one of the things I saw in your platform is that you have this ability to actually zoom into a particular standard and be like who is proficient and kind of at what level of proficiency are students in this particular standard, and then you have the option to actually create groups within the platform to target that instruction. So in like a co-teaching scenario, right, I could imagine, okay, great, now we're going to do some stations around this skill and that the students who maybe struggle with decoding or something right, some sort of literacy standard actually are amazing critical thinkers and so when we look at that, that's like a totally they're in a different group for that and you can break that down and have students actually be motivated by their strengths as well. I don't know if you want to talk about that aspect of the platform or what you've noticed in the use of it. 

16:43 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I think that you hit on a key piece. I think teachers understand that the idea of you know, differentiation or grouping the students is, you know, one of the key ways that we work. You know we really want to be able to do that. You know you have centers or you have all of these things where you're really progressing in this way, and so one of the things we have done is we understand that not every educator is a data scientist or understands the difference between like descriptive or diagnostic or predictive analytics Again understands the difference between like descriptive or diagnostic or predictive analytics. Again, we want to meet these educators where they can gain insights from the information that has been captured and then so that it becomes really practical in its use. And that's really where this grouping comes into play. As you notice, we have a really great ability to group students based upon standard performance. We can also group students about how they answered a certain item on a quiz or a test. We also can group students around their passions or interests. You know, maybe it's something where you have folks who are in a varsity sport, but in addition, we really understand that because of MTSS and RTI and these things, we want to be able to group kids and then track their progress, and so that's really what the system allows you to do, and then with that information, yeah, you can make those classroom instructional decisions that are informed, which is going to bring better results. And then this feedback loop can really be created to where you, all of a sudden, are really meeting your students where they are, and then their engagement goes up and then their learning increases, and it really is empowering to be able to do that. 

18:16
But it all comes back to us really being you know, I'm a former educator. We have about 35-40% of the folks at Otis are former educators. We really want to be listening and learning to. How do we get better? How can this tool really be making folks more efficient and effective? Because there is nothing more valuable to an educator than time. If I hadn't, if we could grant every teacher more time, I think they would be. You know, that would be the ultimate gift, and that's what we're really trying to do. We're trying to make the time more efficient and effective for them, because that engagement or connection with students is something that you can't rush. You can't all of a sudden just streamline that. 

18:55
So we want to be able to hey, let's save you some time in the grading process, let's make it easier. Or let's save some time in the calculation process, or the hey, let's group the kids for you based upon their score or their ranges. You know, we are able to bring in some assessments that could be like NWA or SBAC or DreamBox math or whatever the assessment you have for your students. We can bring that information so that when, instead of having like a day-to-day, that's a data day where you're just, like you know, having like a PLC no, you can actually have the PLC anytime with this information and you all of a sudden can then, oh, on this sub score, or hey, in DreamBox with this score. This is how we're going to do it, so you can use your own classroom assignments, but you can also have some of these like state assessments or common assessments the district can do. 

19:43
They can also be used to group kids, really allowing you to do some amazing things and, at the end of the day, what we allow, our goal is we want to be able to have educators and families be able to ask very specific questions and to be able to give answers that are really about their data, their information, and that's one of the exciting things that we have coming out in just a couple of weeks. It's this data assistant. We're using AI, a piece of technology. You'll be able to ask these specific questions. Instead of building a report or seeing those really nice visuals of the groupings, you can just use plain English and just type in your question and be able to get that answer back, because teaching can be a little bit lonely. This will give you that ability to have a sounding board and everything's going to go to the teacher. It's not, you know, we're not like grouping automatically. No, we're giving insights as recommendations and the teacher can evaluate those on their own and then really decide what's going to make the most sense for them and their students. 

20:44 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that. That's so cool, because not everyone has like an instructional coach or right like a founding board. I mean, I I was wondering if that was maybe a challenge when, when teachers might be new to using the platform, for example, or just even new to like standards of permanent instruction, if that was a challenge that they're kind of like lost in the data and like, okay, this is a lot of information. I used to work with panorama and I know that like that's a response, it's like whoa, it's a lot of information, how do engage with it. That that could certainly be a way to adjust that challenge. I don't know if you want to talk more about that challenge or if you want to talk about like a different challenge. I just wanted to make sure I got a question in around like what challenges do teachers engage around and how have you kind of helped them through that, or what have you seen be effective in helping them through any challenges? 

21:36 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, we really want to be able to meet everybody wherever they're at. And, as you noted, like my dream or my, I guess, my jealous. My jealous dream was I had college professors who had like five TAs who were helping them run around. 

21:41
I'm like man how great would it be to have like five TAs. That would be really helpful here. That's really what we're looking at for our use of AI. How do we really provide teachers with somebody to do some of that, what I would title grunt work, some of that like, hey, can you help me prepare for a parent-teacher conference for this child? Well, again, you have the information. It's just going to organize it in a nice way Again, giving you a set of notes to go in. 

22:08
Or, hey, I have to prepare for this PLC meeting. These are the assessments I gave. All of a sudden, you did the work. Just help have a summary. And so we really are gearing everything as that supplemental piece, that supplemental assistant for our educators, because we know how much they have on their plate. They they don't have time to dabble and experiment for hours upon hours on the data. I mean that would be amazing if they could, but they're so focused on preparing for the next day, getting all the needs met, making sure that we're again meeting the kids where they're at. So we really are focused on having a really great place for all this information to live, but then having that assistant right. Again, maybe you don't have a teaching assistant. Maybe you don't have that co-teacher with you, but we can provide, like this, ai assistant, which is, again, everything's secure, everything's safe. You then have this place to kind of maybe ask a question that you're worried to ask in the staff meeting, because it's kind of silly. 

23:09
You know, or you know, one of my favorite things, that's you know it's available right now, the Insights is on right now. That we're getting better and better is hey, can you help me explain standard space grading to you? Know, johnny's father? He's a mechanic. You know, and I did this, we were actually with a district and it was amazing because, yeah, like being a mechanic, when you go in for your car tune up, it is just like standard space grading. 

23:35
Hey, this is how your transmission is, hey, this is how your engine is, this is how your fluids are, this is where your brake pads are Like, that is standard space grading, grading. And all of a sudden, when I was working with this district and they were talking about, like, oh, that type of communication is going to allow that, um, communication of information to happen so much better and again back to this equity piece, that's how you drive it we're all of a sudden now we're all talking about the same thing. So now it doesn't feel like I'm talking in a language I'm unable to comprehend or understand. No, we're on the same page. Now I can really help my child, or help my students in a much better way. 

24:10 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh, that's such a cool use of AI to think about how to draw those parallels to people's jobs. Wow, okay, very cool. I'm thinking about kind of transitioning to our close here. There's a lot of things that are possible, I think, with standards, informed instruction. There's certainly like a lot of features on this platform. I'm curious if there is something that you would encourage listeners to do in kind of the like assessment framework we've been talking about that they could do like tomorrow. So one kind of thought I had was like is there pre-work before they get to kind of the Otis like conversation, such as outlining their standards or something right that like needs to happen first. 

24:53 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I definitely think there is. I think, again, you know, again, I'm a socialist I think social science teachers always rely on analogies, because you're trying to explain something to folks and you want to make sure it makes sense to them. So my, the analogy I give to this is if, if it's like a workout plan, it's like a fitness plan, it's like, well, what do you really want to do? Are you trying to like bulk up and like become like a, you know, a world bodybuilder? Are you trying to run a marathon? Are you trying to be able to, you know, get back on the soccer field or, you know, play on the basketball court? Like there are, there has to be some goal that is being had and it can't just be a checklist, it can't just be a checkbox. 

25:31
And I think every district has this vision for what they want their students to achieve and they clearly will have a set of skills. You know, maybe it's about being a good citizen. Again, the world, it's open, right, I think each school can kind of prepare and again, there are state standards and common core standards. But, like, what are the core skills that we want to develop? You can't do everything, you know. It's like, again, there's too much time and there's not enough time. There's not enough time in the day to achieve everything. I can't become the world's greatest musician, the world's greatest basketball player, the world's greatest, any of these things, but what we need to do is being able to teach to a level, or teach to the skills that we care about. And so that's one. And again, this could be at the school level, could also be at the class level. 

26:16
Again, when I was doing this, social studies was really supposed to augment and support reading, the ELA class, and then also critical thinking, and so for me, I really said, hey, if I can teach my students how to read critically and independently right, being able to read, write and think critically and independently, and focusing on informational skills such as what I mentioned, those basic questions, if those are my focuses, then when I am now looking at the US colonies and I'm teaching that subject, or if I'm teaching the Civil War, or if I'm teaching World War I, world War II, whatever, if I'm teaching reconstruction, any of those things, I now have this framework of skills that I'm going to be measuring, and so step one is like what are the skills that you want to be measuring? Again, it's funny when you look, you know, kindergarten, pre-k sometimes they have the easiest ones, like, oh, I want my kids to be able to put on their jacket, I want them to have these. You know, you know fine motor skills or whatever it is like define what is success. And then you want to, once you have those key skills, you're going to be measuring you. 

27:22
You want to, once you have those key skills you're going to be measuring you want to then decide what unit are you going to be using to measure it, like, how do we know against sparkles, how do we know something is successful? And once you have the framework and how you're going to measure it and how you're going to engage your kids, then then you need the system, and that's really what otis then comes into play. You know a system like otis where it's like, okay, now I need to measure it because it's going to be too difficult to do with pen and paper, and then do the calculations all myself and then to track all these all myself, and then where is it going to go. You know, and I want to use Google, I want to be integrated with these tools that some of these platforms like Otis are. It's really starting there. 

28:04 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
What are the skills and how am I going to measure it? And then it's well-timed this will air at the end of May, so people will have that kind of summer to think on it, like what are those skills, be ready for the new school year with those ready to go. So that's fantastic, thank you. And to close, the last two questions are a bit bit personal. So one is kind of what have you been learning about lately? Now, this could relate to work, but it could also be like totally outside of your profession, in a personal sense, things you've been learning about yeah. 

28:33 - Chris Hull (Guest)
so learning is something I care too much about. I guess I could go in so many different directions. I am an obsessive reader but I guess the skills that I focus on most are I'm really working. I'm continuing to work on my dual language, dual lingo. So my all four of my kids are in a dual language program and I feel like I'm on the 25 year plan to learn Spanish. I do a dual lingo every day. I'm actually looking on my phone right now because I'm curious. 

29:03
My streak you know my streak is I'm really proud of myself. I'm over 1600 days in a row, but it's embarrassing. My fifth grade daughter is better at Spanish than me, so it's one of those things where I I'm trying to continue to get better at it. I miss, you know, I taught several years ago. I missed it. My students are the ones who started to teach me and you know I missed that application, which was very fun. Duolingo is an amazing product, nothing wrong. But again, there's nothing like that real live, like there were some students who I think they would talk to me and they would know, and it was like pushing yourself. So I guess what I'm learning right now is learning to speak in Spanish. 

29:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Amazing. Oh my gosh, I love that response. My learning to this question would be I'm learning ASL, so similar idea of just like I want to be multilingual. What does that look like? Awesome. And then finally you know people are going to want to connect with you, learn what kind of product dates Otis has, connect and get kind of a demo of Otis. 

30:05 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Where can people go to connect or get that information? Yeah, definitely. I think the best way to learn about Otis is to go to our website. That's otuscom. So Otis with a U, not an I like the elevator company. 

30:12 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So Otis with a U, and so really that's organizing technology for us. 

30:15 - Chris Hull (Guest)
So our website, otiscom, really has a ton of information about how we're helpful with. You know standards based grading, or helpful with progress monitoring, or helpful with MTSS, or helpful with common assessments. We can be helpful in a ton of ways. If it involves how is a student doing, you know their performance and their information, either academic or behavior, or you know any of these things that really tie in, we can really help you know with that If they want to be able to connect with me. Linkedin is a great place. It's probably the best able to connect with me. Linkedin is a great place. It's probably the best way to connect with me. So that would be the great way to connect, and then the website will be the best way to learn about Otis. 

30:52 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Awesome. Thanks so much, Chris. So nice talking to you today. 

30:56 - Chris Hull (Guest)
I really appreciate it, thank you. 

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