JACKSON, MI – Josh Nichols used to score poorly on tests, but now, he’s created an app to help students prove they understand a topic without them.
“Growing up, I was the 50 percent who didn’t do well on standardized testing and worksheets and was often a little bit bored by them,” Nichols said. “I felt like I didn’t have ownership of it so in some sense, I dismissed them. I became a teacher to try to combat that. I tried to figure out ways to teach the way I wanted to be taught.”
While teaching third through seventh grade at Heritage School in Stockbridge and helping with high school robotics, Nichols said he learned there wasn’t an efficient way to assess project-based learning.
Hoping to fill the gap left by traditional testing, he started playing around with video and narration. The result was an early form of CrossBraining, a video-based assessment tool he founded.
“We believe people learn by doing, and how we learn and how we are assessed are aligned,” Nichols said. “When an athlete prepares for a specific sport, they often cross train. My wife, Angie, came up with the name CrossBraining because the platform was built to strengthen the bundle of nerve fibers that connect the left and right brain to develop a great learner.”
The app’s target audience is anyone wanting to show they can do something. Most commonly, it’s been used by third through 12th graders and career and technical education majors. By taking time to understand their learning experience, Nichols said users can prove they know what they’re doing through explanation.
After launching a beta version of CrossBraining, the product was tested by more than 400 teachers throughout the U.S. But Nichols was still looking to improve it.
“We had purchases, paid subscribers and a market, but we knew we that we didn’t have the app version that we wanted,” he said.
For help with that, he turned to Lean Rocket Lab, a business incubator in downtown Jackson.
“I grew up in Jackson,” Nichols said. “In the 1980s, and even in the 1990s, there was nothing like (Lean Rocket Lab). It’s almost shocking to see what is available now to people that have ideas."
As an educator, Nichols said he likes to tell people about the many students he’s known with “wild, crazy, bold ideas.”
“For them to be able to walk downtown and walk by a space that can help them take their ideas to market blows me away,” he said. "I never imagined that a downtown space like that would be available to somebody like me.”
Through Lean Rocket Lab, CrossBraining connected with legal services, improved the product and networked with investors for capital opportunities.
“We needed a little bit of rocket fuel and it helped us launch into a seed round investment,” Nichols said.
CrossBraining raised $750,000 of the $1.5 million goal, Nichols said.
A first-version pilot of CrossBraining was launched in October 2019 and Nichols formed partnerships with GoPro, University of Michigan, Jackson College, Spring Arbor University, and other schools throughout the country.
As a Spring Arbor University graduate, one of Nichols first partnerships was with the school of education there. John Williams, interim dean for the school of education, rewrote some undergraduate elementary education courses to include CrossBraining training. He also created a STEM methods course for elementary and middle school educators with a significant focus on CrossBraining.
Beyond helping others improve their teaching, students have improved by using more hands-on and interactive learning, Williams said.
“It shifts the entire focus of sitting and getting learning into learning from each other, working with each other and doing things interactively to provide authentic experiences for kids,” he said.
At Jackson College, students who would receive certificates in such skills as welding, nursing or manufacturing technology are using the program to create a portfolio of videos demonstrating their preparedness for the workforce.
The program is going to be a game changer that will coincide with their goal for competency-based learning, said Kate Thirolf, Jackson College’s vice president for instruction.
“We do have competitors, but there’s no competitor that is directly aligned with what we are doing with software," Nichols said. "What often happens is once people start using it, or once administrators start seeing it, they start talking about all the other ways that it can be used.”
In August, Nichols said he will release a second pilot version of CrossBraining to current users with the full release coming in September.
More than half of Jackson County school districts and more than 50 school districts nationwide are using CrossBraining, Nichols said.
“I couldn’t be more proud to grow up in a community like Jackson,” Nichols said. “It’s been an incredible journey with a lot of incredible support from the Jackson community.”
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App launched by Stockbridge teacher tests students without traditional tests - MLive.com
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