A platform that isn’t getting used is purposeless.
Dramatic introduction? Probably. Truthful? Definitely.
This concept is at the center of everything our Customer Success Managers do, including the structure of our Semester Review meetings with district partners.
These are the types of questions schools must ask themselves to measure the ROI (return on investment) of their educational software tools. They’re also the same questions we believe technology vendors should be asking themselves in order to be good stewards of their services.
At MajorClarity, we know that nothing our platform offers can deliver value if it’s not being adopted by students and staff. Even the most exciting features, engaging activities, and carefully curated resources can’t have an impact if they aren’t being accessed.
According to 2018 research by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Learning Analytics, nearly 70% of Ed Tech licenses go unused by school systems in K12 education—and one study found that a staggering 97% are never used intensively.
But the reality of pedagogy is that outcomes come from consistent practice and because our core mission at MajorClarity is to increase the odds that students will have successful career outcomes, we knew this usage rate just wasn’t good enough.
Getting staff to make changes, find classroom time, and embrace a new model for College and Career Readiness (CCR) school-wide isn’t easy though, so our customer success team looked internally for ways we could support and take co-responsibility for the usage outcomes we want our district partners to see.
District leaders are experts in pedagogy and creative in implementation, but we found that most struggled to define quantitative measures of success for software adoption. Our hallmark program—the MajorClarity Power User program—was built to solve exactly that problem. Put simply, it offers a clear, measurable bar for what successful usage looks like.
We started by studying industry data for Ed Tech usage rates. Because Career and College Readiness tools are often considered extracurricular (outside of core subjects like math, reading, etc.,) usage rates are historically even lower for platforms like ours (perceived to be only ~15-20% on average).
In our Power User program, we aim to double that rate and decided that if we could enable our schools to reach 40% student activation or greater on average, that would be worth celebrating.
But getting a student to log in once isn’t sufficient; to be effective, the platform must be used with consistency. In other words, of all students who access MajorClarity in a given school year, how many are coming back a second time or more?
The Power User program looks for signals that MajorClarity has been embedded within school curriculum in a recurring way, rather than with a ‘one and done’ approach, and found that student return rate can be a reliable and simple proxy of such behavior.
So if we’re striving for 40-50% of all student licenses to be activated, then we also want to strive to see at least half of those activated students coming back two or more times annually. When we measure that out of total students licensed, it ends up yielding an ideal benchmark of about 25%+ student return rate (or about one quarter of all licensed students using their account repeatedly).
Because staff are almost always the main drivers of student software usage in the classroom, we would be remiss to exclude them from the framework. Staff adoption can be tricky though; if you have 10 staff rockstar users at a given school but that school services 2,000+ students—are those 10 users still good enough? What if you have all counselors onboard, but another key department (like CTE) doesn’t know about the program and isn’t using it at all?
We use a ratio of engaged students per engaged staff member to determine our final benchmark for our Power User framework. ASCA recommends a counselor ratio of 250:1; our thought was that if schools can maintain a student to staff usage ratio of less than 250, it would suggest MajorClarity programming was being supported by more than just one single department.
Though there are many other metrics we consider when working with our partners, the best uses of data are simple and easily accessed. To become a district Power User, partners must meet all three measures:
Since the start of the program, we have awarded more than 220 district-wide Power User certificates, and as of last year, had to introduce a new, even more ambitious usage distinction to recognize our districts who were far surpassing even that—the Platinum Power User.
Nearly half of all of our active districts reached Power User status in the 21-22 school year. To provide a competitive bar for excellence, we looked at the top 10-20% districts and set the following targets for ‘Platinum’ distinction:
One of the most important drivers for the successful implementation of any program is staff investment. And according to the K-12 Career & College Readiness Benchmark report, engaging a range of stakeholders in career readiness efforts is also one of the greatest struggles for school districts nationally.
For many of our districts, the Power User program is something that motivates more than just their district-wide implementation team—it can also be a useful tool for incentivizing principals and school-based leaders towards a common bar of success.
Many district leaders are using the Power User framework to create their own School Power User programs and celebrate individual schools that are hitting these critical stats.
From internal ceremonies and social media shout-outs to printing large-scale signage, our partners are using data to highlight success and motivate other campuses towards more successful student outcomes.
Interested in starting a School Power User program at your district? 👀 Get the School Power User toolkit here.
The Power User program is only one program within MajorClarity’s Customer Success model; at every level, our team is using student usage and impact as the north star for decision-making.
Providing a national bar and acknowledging success is a critical first step, but we’re committed to doing what it takes to shift industry expectations—and career outcomes—for all students.
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